Ask HN: Trouble doing my own startup

"Because I'm trying to figure out "the unique" angle for the startup"

"my ambition with the startup is to eventually match my bay area salary."

If your primary aim is to replace your bay area salary, you don't need a unique angle. You need to focus on creating a business that does enough cashflow to replace your bay area income. Very possible even without a co founder and the real startup definition. You just need to create a small business that brings in say 500k at some point for you ?

If this is your primary goal and you don't care about changing the world and all, just pick a good boring idea in a vast space with real problems and focus on getting enough customers in that space first by yourself. learn how to sell by trying to sell. If you get lucky along the way, may be you will find a couple of good people who could end up being part of this or not.

Another option is to buy an existing small business that may be doing something already and you can grow it further. If you work in bay area and have saved up well, you could buy a biz for say 500-600K that brings in 150-200k cashflow per year give or take. Then work on expanding that cashflow further.

Find a b2b problem that is within your ability to solve and where you know at least one party that could be your launching customer, and where there are lots of other customers. This could be a lawyer, a doctor, your dentist, some industry contact, whatever. Then solve that problem and sell your solution to that first contact and ask them if they can point you to others that might need the same thing. Sell, rinse, repeat. And meanwhile, every new customer should be relentlessly pumped for information about how you can improve your product.

It will take you about three years to get a business off the ground in this way. Faster if you are lucky, slower if you are unlucky or if the market isn't large enough. In five years you may match your bay area salary, in a decade you might be ready for an exit (or sooner, again, if you are lucky). Keep it bootstrapped if you can at all afford that.

Sounds like you'd be better fit as a technical cofounder or first engineer hire. If you aren't thinking of ideas left and right to start, you likely aren't the business-y entrepreneur but that's perfectly fine. Ideas aren't what make a business/startup successful. It's all about the execution. YC's startup school (as others have mentioned) would probably be a great start and they do cofounder matching too.

Btw, seed & series A startups are still hyper risky. Seed is usually trying to figure out pmf (product market fit) and series A is trying to figure out marketing/CAC. These were distorted in the last few years too so just cus a startup raises a lot of money doesn't mean you can't compete and differentiate!

Last thing... If you're just trying to replace your bay area salary, that's a lifestyle business at best. You can literally mow lawns and be a multimillionaire these days.

>every idea I have there's already a startup that's doing something very similar (if not the exact thing) - and is super well funded or positioned

You can still differentiate yourself. For example, find out what users don't like about competing services or products, and why they don't like it. What other features do similar apps/products/services offer, and what else are users asking for? Offer that.

>I'm also having a hard time attracting a co-founder.

What do you want out of a co-founder? Letting HN know what you're looking for might help you find the right person. Chances are the right person is out there, and very well might be reading your post - but they don't know what you're looking for. Do you want a business oriented person? A product focused person? A marketing expert? Someone with a finance background? So many variables here.

> You can still differentiate yourself. For example, find out what users don't like about competing services or products, and why they don't like it. What other features do similar apps/products/services offer, and what else are users asking for? Offer that.

I think this is true for challenging established or med/late stage startups but I keep running into seed/Series A startups or agencies. I'm less so worried about the agencies since their breadwinner is usually their consultancy service and their SaaS/tool offerings serve as marketing.

> What do you want out of a co-founder? Letting HN know what you're looking for might help you find the right person. Chances are the right person is out there, and very well might be reading your post - but they don't know what you're looking for. Do you want a business oriented person? A product focused person? A marketing expert? Someone with a finance background? So many variables here.

Because I'm not pursuing a specific idea I'm very flexible and it's hurting my chances. I have a chicken and an egg problem between figuring out the business & finding the right people to help me with it. The advice I read online suggests focusing on the people first (since the biz idea changes a lot) but I'm not super sure about it.

>I think this is true for challenging established or med/late stage startups but I keep running into seed/Series A startups or agencies

True - but if you're running into a bunch of early-stage companies, why not try to join one instead of dealing with the headache of founding one? You'll probably be able to command a decent equity percentage, and influence the product or service in a myriad of different ways. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

>Because I'm not pursuing a specific idea I'm very flexible and it's hurting my chances. I have a chicken and an egg problem between figuring out the business & finding the right people to help me with it. The advice I read online suggests focusing on the people first (since the biz idea changes a lot) but I'm not super sure about it.

There's the crux of the issue. Figure out what you want, and hopefully in doing so you'll quickly discover what you need. If you don't know what you want to build, how can people help you?

Try narrowing it down to maybe 2 or 3 different ideas, and testing the waters. Example: "I want to develop product/service ABC, and to do so I need a person with a ______ background; but if I want to develop product/service XYZ, I need a different sort of person, someone with a _________ background"

Focus on the people, yes, but also focus on what you want to build and the people will fall into place as you'll know what you want out of every person you meet.

> Figure out what you want, and hopefully in doing so you'll quickly discover what you need.

This I believe is the core of the issue. Thanks for helping out a stranger on the web - I really appreciate it.

> why not try to join one instead of dealing with the headache of founding one

While I'm not primarily money motivated, joining an early stage startup is really a bad decision for my individual case (assuming I can go back to FAANG as an EM/Dir+). IMO startup founders have a significantly better deal when compared to employee #1. I get that it's also much harder to be a founder than an employee but I would argue that it's worth at best 5-10x if you're an employee < 10-15.

I will sound cliche too, but still honest:

- start a startup just for the sake of having a cool startup is the worst motivator possible, ive never seen it working as a sole and primary motivation. Although it is often a background or initial ignition for some of entrepreneurs Ive known (both successful and not so much).

- startup is first and foremost a business, at the heart of the business lies businesses model, sales and marketing. Technology is just one of many possible ways to make business model working and/or deliver the value to customers

- summing up the two above - it’s not about how many mvps you have, or how cool you are as a developer, it’s about you finding the real actual problem you care enough and competent enough to see what is exactly wrong with current competitors and validating your solution with real customers

You should learn, "think small". Here periodically appear posts, about this.

Than, You will create solid foundations, which will give You possibilities, to finance command, with well funds and/or positioning.

That's all startup wisdom, You should early become profitable, or get somewhere money, for lot of MVPs.

My successful friends, who grew few startups, said, "first yearS, You should make new MVP every 1-2 weeks, so 50-100 MVPs in two years".

I am in a very similar position, would love to connect and talk. If you're interested do let me know a good way to contact you.

I would love to connect! You can reach me out from https://pastebin.com/ubLausVJ

Look at YCombinators startup school. They have a curriculum you can go through and learn a ton about startups.

find an establish startup that is doing well with low customer aquisition cost and replicate their product. Make it 70% cheaper. Sell.

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