People laugh when i say,"i dont know how it's going to make money" | Hacker News Reader

People laugh when i say,"i dont know how it's going to make money"

5 pointsjacklefox13 comments

i had an idea once, still have it. so, i did the obvious thing, i talked to bunch of people about it. they listened and then they asked, ok! tell me how you going to make money off of it? i pondered and said, "i have no clue." everybody said don't bother, what's the point of doing it. i always though if one were to make good product and it appeals to mass, money will just come. it becomes secondary in a way. Am i delusional in thinking this?

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It certainly can work. Twitter is a good example.

But it's hard to get any investment, pay any bills, or hire any employees if you don't at least have a plan to make money in the future. Don't say "I have no clue", say "I'm focusing on growth now. Profit will come later."

Will it break the bank or just take up time to develop? If its just a matter of effort, I'd get started draft structures do sloppy wireframes, etc. Once you are into it again, think about how you can monetize it or get to money through it.

If you make a good product, it may or may not make money but you might make more money by having the experience of making something. It it's cool, it probably will enhance your portfolio.

Yes your delusional. Again an example of confusing sufficient with required. Good product with mass appeal is required but hardly sufficient.

My advice - have a monetisation plan. Nut out all the potential monetization streams. But it doesn't mean to you have to implement them from the get-go - as you say, there's definitely merit in just building something people want and focusing on attracting and retaining users :)

If you're in it to make money then you should absolutely have a plan for that.

If you're in it to just make something cool, then do it. Sadly I think that with all the focus on startups here, the "hacker" in "Hacker News" gets forgotten sometimes.

Please read Steve Blank's blog and book.

tl;dr - get out of the office and talk to prospective paying customers. You might need to lash up a MVP for demonstration purposes.

BTW: Ideas are a dime a dozen. True Artists Ship ! (Steve Jobs)

If your idea to going to help people do something better than the existing tools at hand, you can worry about money later. But it helps to have a plan.

you should definitely 'bother' and start working on it. start focusing on ideas for monetization while you build it. if you can't come up with an idea, perhaps a future partner, mentor, or investor can help you flush out the idea. key is to find and deploy your monetization plan asap, as it's becoming a much more important metric every day.

Is there a need for it?

Yes.

Unless you have a reality distortion field device fully charged and ready to zap away.

I sell those. Email me to purchase one. (:

Semi-delusional.

Some people have become fantastically rich building products with no idea how they were going to make money. Way way way more people have gone broke doing it.

For every Zuckerberg there are a thousand homeless guys mumbling to themselves and pushing around shopping carts.

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