How to Create a Million-Dollar Business This Weekend | Hacker News Reader

How to Create a Million-Dollar Business This Weekend

fourhourworkweek.com

124 pointsfrankdenbow36 comments

As an entrepreneur I really don't identify with this world of self-help books, overnight entrepreneurs, 10-point checklists to success and how to become a millionaire in a weekend.

yeah, sometimes the frontpage on HN looks like a motivational tape from the 90s

Judging from your comment, you haven't read past the title, have you? Because there are actually quite good starting points for some people who don't know where to start. The title is pure link bait though

I'm gonna flag it for this reason.

Come back to us when you're using sensible titles, Mr Ferris.

The best part is that if you ever do manage to build a million-dollar business, nobody will be impressed any more. "Oh, I heard you could do that in one weekend just by building a website to sell some crap."

As a businessman I really don't identify with this world of entrepreneur snobs who don't read shit and critiquize everything they see. The funnny thing is that you say that you don't like overnight succes but you write for TechCrunch.

By the way, if you dont like checklist I have something for you http://www.amazon.com/Seeking-Wisdom-Darwin-Munger-3rd/dp/15...

Sorry for my bad english.

"Make a million dollar business in 2 days" doesn't make any sense at all, in any context - it's immaterial whether you are a businessman or an entrepreneur.

I read the article, and there is some good, but generic and basic advice there. It's like exercise daily, eat healthy, only for entrepreneurs.

And the headline is overtly exaggerating, just like whole 4 hour whatever series.

> The funnny thing is that you say that you don't like overnight succes but you write for TechCrunch.

And his writing for techcrunch matters how?

And everyone would like to be a overnight millionaire, but it happens rarel, and a blog post from a self help group isn't going to make it happen. The title is objectionable, incorrect, link bait.

The authors are entitled to their opinions, so is OP, you and I. If the checklist approach works for you, keep following them.

The title says "a Million-Dollar Business THIS Weekend" and not "IN A Weekend," suggesting the initial effort to create an idea and verify that idea (and potentially creating the MVP) can be done within 48 hours. There is nothing in this post suggesting a business will be completely created in a weekend, and these arguments criticizing the post show a lack of understanding.

Go back and read what is said until you thoroughly understand the message and realize Noah is merely exemplifying the Lean Startup method; it's a gritty and unsexy approach to building a business, and it's very effective at avoiding long-term losses and encouraging learning.

> Go back and read what is said until you thoroughly understand the message

I read the article - thank you very much - and I am not enticed by snake oil. If that works for you, keep applying it.

> The title says "a Million-Dollar Business THIS Weekend" and not "IN A Weekend," suggesting the initial effort to create an idea and verify that idea (and potentially creating the MVP) can be done within 48 hours.

I can't argue against rationalization. By your logic, it can very well say a million dollar business in 5 minutes, where 5 minutes is the time it took to read the article.

I clicked on this article expecting to have a laugh, considering the linkbait title and the website it's on.

But I was impressed. The article nicely introduces ideas like customer validation and minimum viable prototypes in a way most people could easily understand. Well done!

Am I the only one tired of single-purpose a/b-tested-to-death webpages that sell only one thing in loud marketing-speak?

I'm a businessman myself, so I'm glad someone out there is making a living for themselves, but I truly tire of these sorts of eyesore sites on the web.

I'm sure I don't know why this article reminds me of this, but totally off topic: Does anyone else remember get rich quick magazines back in the day? They were tons of fun! Every page was full of possibilities. I remember as a kid trying to get into mail envelope ponzi schemes. It was all about how to figure out the scam and improve on it. Taught me how to love to hustle.

No, but I do remember Mad Magazine making fun of get rich quick schemes!

If every kid grew up on a diet of satire, they might grow up to be less gullible.

The steps are good, the title is link bait.

I know you want to encourage people to stop complaining and get starting, and it can sometimes be that easy, but it's a lot of hard work over the next 12 months even if you prove your idea works and I feel some of these types of articles forget to mention that.

You should be very careful if you're selling something you don't have, you almost certainly violate the terms of your payment provider and depending on where you live you might be committing fraud.

It is against most merchant rules (and PayPal) to process a complete transaction without the product or service being immediately available.

For pre-orders, you can collect card information and authorizations, but you can only charge when the product or service is delivered. PayPal doesn't support that at all (it is messy)

Even with pre-orders the condition usually is that you need to deliver within 30 or 60 days (depends on the merchant).

It is definitely not a good idea to collect money with the promise of a product in the future. This is why Kickstarter, GroupOn etc. only charge cards later on, and make it clear to users with disclaimers.

You don't have to actually sell. If you don't have a product yet, just build a mock payment page and check how many people get to the end - and never charge them.

The article suggests actually taking money from people.

The article presents a context where there is a product there to sell already (a discounted imgur membership).

An idea I just thought of on that front - instead of the usual bland "we cannot fulfil the order at this time" end to a dry-test, send people to a 404-alike page with a contact email. You can track conversions by watching the clickthroughs, but as an added bonus, if people subsequently email going "your site's broken! Where can I buy?" you know they really want your product

I'm so confused. Can I create a million-dollar business in a weekend or not?

Because I read "Reboot. Relaunch. Redesign. Pivot. Sunset. Shutter. The Knack, a web app, story," and it sounds like building a business is work. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3024147)

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Oh, all you have to do is write a million dollar product and find a million dollars worth of customers? Is that all?

This is old advice. From Steve Martin. On SNL: "How to make a million dollars: First, get a million dollars." - Steve Martin

This isnt even funny.

Its just "make a product for some existing market" rather than "make a market for some product", wich obviously dosnt work,

Actually this isn't that obvious you know... hello dot-com bubble.

Having personal talked with Noah, it makes sense on what he did or is asking others to do. I myself have ran and am running sites which bring in revenue. not on the $1MM scale but still some $.

+ replicating what AppSumo does is not that hard, you need a decent site with some deals on the page. The Deals you get by emailing entrepreneurs or devs of any product out there. There are many struggling devs and companies which would love to cut you a deal as far as they are getting sales and customers.

I hate when they oversimplify entrepreneurship and pitch us all these easy 'earn 1.000.000$' schemes. (especially when it's acompanied with ego-trippin')

I love when they demistify entrepreneurship and give some insight in how to start. (especially when a concrete marketing advice is give)

Overall as with all posts on Tim's blog - they are generally great. Just, take them with a grain of salt.

I found the article to be hands-on, and a good insight in the MO of a successful entrepeneur. It doesn't have to take cutting edge technology or thousands lines of code to make it big. On the other hand, the majority of folks here are hackers, so maybe the article is barking at the wrong tree here...

I don't get entirley what he did to validate his idea for AppSumo. He got 200 new customers for imgur which pay 25$/year (to imgur) and he payed imgur 3$/user for this? Didn't he loose money then?

No I think Noah got a $3 commission for each sale. So he earned $600 from selling 200 accounts.

The sales pitch is probably what threw you off. "I'll pay you to bring you new customers" is the pitch, but the detail is likely more along the lines of Groupon's deals: "I'll charge $12 for selling your $25 product, and keep $3 for myself. So I'll pay you $9 for every new customer I bring."

Assuming it's the kind of business that typically sees recurring revenue and the expenses of servicing each new customer consists of little more than pushing electrons around, $9 for a new customer isn't too bad compared to whatever their current cost per acquisition is.

You don't. That guy didn't.

Biggest ommission: How to build/code/produce your product.

Link bait and sensationalism aside, there are definitely some good pointers in the article. Treat the article like an apple eat all the good parts and leave the core stems and seeds. The point is to motivate you to get started with your idea. Where they able to condense it into a weekend or week using the analytic tools that's mentioned in the article is never a bad idea.

43 minutes and no comment?

I only made it through a quarter of the article. I found the tone arrogant and felt like I was being talked down to. The pictures of a woman in lingerie on the sidebar capped it off.

I read this, and thought, it's GOT to be Timothy Ferriss. Sure enough, I see the site is fourhourworkweek.com, just after I've clicked the link.

My favorite line is in the photo caption: "He also looks great in orange." That may come in handy for him in the near future, if he's not careful.

You must not be familiar with Tim Ferriss.

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