Ask HN: How do you make tough decisions? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you make tough decisions?

4 pointsireadfaces3 comments

I am running a startup after years of waiting for the 'best idea'. I realised, if I had started somewhere instead of waiting for 'the one idea', I would still have learned a lot and that would have been financially better too (by getting better jobs with that experience etc) So, now I started this startup, which I know makes money, and I know I can run it. Problem is that, this business is not scalable. The reason I did this because I thought, 'this will not retire me, but it will take me from A to B, ie make a million or two' (hopefully). I am very confused over past few months, that we haven't made any progress in our startup due to not having any direction. I have another idea, that is scalable, but Uber like margins, not SAAS margins. I think answer to my problem would be straightforward to you, but I am too blinded.

How would you make a decision in this case?

> How would you make a decision in this case?

I would interview potential customers and ask if the problem your idea solves, is a problem they resonate with. Then you ask them how badly they would like to solve the problem. Once you find out that actual human beings are interested in you solving a problem they badly need solved, it will strongly motivate you to levels you might have never reached before.

The biggest challenge though is talking to actual human beings because some of them might not be the right customers for you and if the probability distribution is such that you happen to talk to a lot of these at the beginning, you might be badly demotivated.

You have to make sure the business logic can scale (if you want scale). If you want to be a unicorn, you have to be able to make everything 'elastic', which means adding more capacity on servers, for example. You could get cozy with your server provider(s) and make sure they can meet your needs if business really starts to take off. On the other hand, you may be comfortable with a small SaaS business that you don't want to scale up and have it generate a comfortable income for you to live on. Just get your social media and marketing strategy right and you're set.

It all comes down to same Tyler Durden’s question

— What do you want?

Unless you’re at least 1% clear about it, there’s nothing to decide actually.

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