Hacker News Reader

Took a delayed approach... I started an open source project, that got popular, while I was on H1B (while still working)... then I monetized it / formed a formal company once I got a green card.

View on HN

Ah interesting. Did you have plans to monetize from the start, or was it a side-project initially? Were you aiming at growing a project to become a larger product?

Tangential: How'd you decide on starting the project? Was it related to work? A tool you built out of general interest?

It was an experiment- scratching an itch / problem I saw at work at first. But I knew I wanted to be self employed (“entrepreneur”) since I was nine... so had the goal from the start to eventually start a company. It just so happens that doing an open source product turned out be great way to test the idea without the risk of actually starting the company from the get go.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com