Ask HN: How to make a startup without money?

7 points·speeder··3 comments

Although I am already in a startup, sometimes I ponder if that startup fails, how one go to create a startup while having no money.

I for example have all the skills I need for all my startup ideas, but my skills are too specific for normal employment, and I am deep in debt...

How I start something while having only debts? (damn you student debts! shit idea go to college...)

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If you are doing a purely software startup, then you should be able to create your prototype/first version at no cost (e.g. using heroku's free offering), and find customers along the way to validate you are building something people want.

When you reach a point when you have proven customers, and a product that works, but are only limited by money to grow up (e.g. development offering doesn't work anymore), then you can start looking for investors (e.g. friends, family, incubator). It will much easier to convince them to invest in you at that point.

It all depends on what kind of startup you want to do. Some startup are capital intensive and some are not. In startup, You need money to do some activities. Find people who can do those activity and partner with them. There are also so many outsourcing avenues available to outsource activities at very low cost. you can take some part time consulting assignments to pay your bills.

Do the lean startup. Find 10 paying customers first, have them pre-pay, then build rev 1 in 1 months time.

Assuming you want to build only a software company, that's the fastest route.

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