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Comment by scoperesolution | Hacker News Reader

Trends? Start your own business because nobody is hiring. That's the trend i'm seeing... sigh.

Web 2.0 came out of the dotcom bust. As a HN oldtimer, I really wish I was seeing more posts on HN about people partnering up to build cool stuff right now given there’s ton of collective idle bandwidth out there. Maybe it’s happening somewhere else and HN is not the place for that these days?

Well, I tried to do something cool but I had rent to pay and kids to feed so I needed to get a day job (I was very fortunate to find one, on an HN who's hiring thread no less).

However, I don't have the savings a lot of people here seem to, perhaps because I'm in Europe.

Doesn’t sound like you have the idle bandwidth I mentioned, are you just venting?

I think it's pertinent. Ppst 2008 was essentially disinflation economy whereas inflation has been high running into this and people are struggling a bit. To launch something you gotta be hungry but not too hungry. Maybe people are either retiring on thier 401ks or uber driving 24 hours a day to make rent. That or the demo here got old and acquired responsibilities.

There's still some large enough percentage of laid off folks that perhaps are looking but living on reserves instead of 24hr gig work. This is the pool of idle bandwidth I'm speaking of. G'parent that found another job; not idle bandwidth. Someone that had no reserves and is flipping burgers; not idle bandwidth. Refreshing Indeed, LinkedIn Jobs, etc. daily after about a week or two while living on savings, moving back with parents, living off spouse's income only, and an infinite number of other possibilities; idle bandwidth.

I find if funny you mention economics of 2008 but don't also mention how tech salaries changed over that same time. At a high level, this is the exact population of people that should have some dry powder in the keg and be able to weather this storm. I'm not saying that to be dismissive of how dire prolonged unemployment is to one's personal finances, even with savings. But I am being dismissive of the idea that most of these people are doing gig work so much they can't hack on something.

I do also think the demo here has changed a lot and you're onto something with that comment.

Fair point, I think the idea was more about people who had the ability to work on their own project unpaid for a decent amount of time perhaps being scarce. But if you're on unemployment now seems like a great time to bootstrap something.

It's more visible on twitter and build in public trend. But we are still far from the dotcom crash desperation, not sure if we ever will reach it.

Ah, I didn't know this was such a trend on twitter as I've never used it. Probably makes most sense to do it that way. I suppose I used to see it manifest as a "Show HN" and hope perhaps there's a wave of that coming

I should caveat that "Show HN" has turned more into "look at this github repo" and I'm talking about actual businesses as HN used to be a bit more entrepreneur oriented and has become a bit more maker oriented in this regard

I mean, I'd love to do that. I just don't have the money.

Neither did they? If you have time and skills, you just build and share to try to gain traction and/or partner up with people that can cover your skill gaps.

I feel like your comment is the root difference in what I see here. You must not be entrepreneurial at all if you think money is the barrier to building something people want. Sorry if that's harshly worded but I've started a business with a $5/month DO droplet and $15/year domain as have many others.

Where do you find and and how do you validate ideas that can be even remotely profitable?

Sincerely, yes.

A lot of talented people are struggling right now, but could take the time and energy they're spending on fruitless job applications and devote it to some modest-scale side project with commercial potential.

Worst-case scenario, you get an interesting portfolio project and something to talk about at a future interview. Possibly, you get something that pays the bills and avoids having to deal with everything that's gone wrong with tech hiring.

If you've been laid off from a technical role, you probably came away with enough knowledge to build a competing micro-service.

Few people, even in decently earning roles like in tech, will have the runway to try and make something successful on their own all of a sudden after job loss.

Starting a freelancing practice is more likely to bear fruit, but it's a very different ballgame of overheads than "just" the core job itself, if you want to get the full rewards of being a freelancer.

Runway is not the issue, imho the issue is skills and having a idea that can be monetized.

Hosting is pretty cheap, we have insanely good tools to automate tedious parts of the process and the time investment isn't huge as well.

"Making money is easy, just go out there and make money" is effectively what you're saying.

It takes time to find and execute these ideas. Yes the tech can be cheap, maybe even building it can be cheap, but the time to grow your customer & client base from scratch can be highly varied.

If it were really this easy, you'd have every person on IndieHackers having ditched their jobs already because their ideas have taken off. Yet very few have.

Go out and execute, yes, but it can take many iterations to get anywhere.

Even Pieter Levels has about a 10% hit rate on his projects being successful.

I think you're being pretty dismissive here. That person is talking about someone who currently isn't working and is struggling to find work. "idle bandwidth". Nobody is saying it's simple or easy, but if you're in this field you have the skills to at least try. I've been laid off for 9 months so I understand the toll it takes mentally, but having a pessimistic attitude won't help you in the short or long term.

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