My thoughts on starting an online business as someone who's never done it before

You've probably already seen, levelsio's tweet: https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1457315274466594817

I also like one of his old posts: https://levels.io/12-startups-12-months/

Yeah, building something people want (and are willing to pay) is pretty hard, and trying to sell early/often is a good way to reduce your market risk. I'm more on the "build something I want", and as soon as I have something "I like", iterate on the communication/go-to-market, more than the product. I think this is more aligned with founders like Brian Chesky that launched (and failed) multiple times, but kept on going because they really believed in their idea (though I'm still on the failing part).

There are many Ask HN posts about launching which you might find useful: https://payperrun.com/%3E/search?displayParams={%22q%22:%22A...

(Btw, the Ask HN search I shared is part of the search service I launched earlier today. I think the results are better than HN's default search: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Ask+HN%3A+how+to+launch%3F)

Yup! I’ve seen them both. It really is a grind to get to the point where something actually sticks. The biggest skill I think I need is just shipping really fast

>Launching a series of apps, blog posts, or random ideas

This is too much. Do or create one thing. Just one thing. You can drop it and move on if it doesn't gain any kind of traction.

But if you start out by thinking of launching many different things, you won't launch anything as you'll over think, over analyze and over plan.

Also, there are three paths to getting something small off the ground: easy path, middle path and the hard path.

Developers almost always choose the hard path.

They code their own website from scratch because they know how.

They built a generic website creation tool because "Launching a series of apps" and it will make thinks easier in the long term.

Start with a single page static website. Use an off the shelf Bootstrap or other theme. If you want a logo, take a free icon from Canva and use that. Park it all on a $5 shared hosting plan.

Easy path, every time.

Put the one page website up today. Don't spend more than two hours on it.

Then do the next easy thing. One piece of content... etc.

> I feel like if you are persistent enough and lucky enough, you might be able to hit those numbers for a few months before the churn catches up.

It will take longer than you think. It will take more effort than you think. I don't necessarily follow the "12 startups in 12 months" methodology, because I lack experience in it. Traction isn't instantaneous, so expecting traction in 1 month is unrealistic to me. Sounds cool, but it doesn't work like that for 99% of people. You risk abandoning a good idea because you lack experience. I built 2 things, and the first led to the second, and that "second" got traction... a year later.

But I say go for it. I did it, and I'm still doing it. If you feel it's a good and useful idea, just stick with it.

I think common wisdom now is don't put too much effort until you validate or test the idea. How do you not invest too much time if the traction takes too long?

Where do you hear that "common wisdom" from, though? Probably the same people that tout and follow the "12 startups in 12 months" mantra. I'd be wary of calling that common wisdom. If you think your idea is a good idea, and you think your business plan is solid, why would you think you're investing too much time in getting traction? All I'm saying is don't expect traction in 1 month. Instead, go in expecting that it'll take 12 months. If you don't have traction by then, or at least a solid direction from user feedback, then you should reevaluate. Ideally, you should be getting user feedback from day 1. And if you aren't, your idea or business plan sucks. (Or you need to grow as a marketer.)

Of course, this isn't a hard and fast rule. Sometimes an idea sucks, and you'll know that just by the fact that you can't get anybody interested in trying your product, even before asking to pay for it. That's where validation and testing come in, so I'm not saying to not validate and test. That's always step 1. All I'm saying is that new founders give up on good ideas way too early. Their expectations of overnight success do not match reality. Validate and test and iterate can take a long time.

And it's worth noting: sometimes iterate is not iterating on your product, but iterating on yourself as a founder. I stood in my own way a lot as a new founder, focusing on the wrong things. It took awhile to get past that. After I did, growth was much easier. But if I gave up early, assuming my product sucked, I would have never gotten to that point.

Pick an industry, and do cold email reachout to regular people working in that industry. Offer to pay them 50-100 an hour. Have 100 conversations like that. Then build whatever product you think solves a painpoint