Ask HN: The best answer you can give to "Why are you doing this startup"?

2 points·danfrost··3 comments

I am repeatedly asked "why you and why this startup?" when talking to people about what I'm doing. VCs and other startup experts always kick off with this question. I get through the answer but always feel "because it's an interesting problem" is what it boils down to.

What are the best answers given by entrepreneurs to the question: Why you and why this startup?

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When anyone ever asks me that I say: "why not". Then I tell them "do me a favor and lets skips the bullshit questions". Then I start talking to them about things that actually matter like: How much profit we've made, what our run rate is and what can happen. The bottom line is, when you actually make a profit, at least a couple of thousand no one is gonna ask you those useless questions.

I guess what I'm really getting at is entrepreneurs start companies to make money period, they don't start companies for fun or any other crap you hear. When I say: "lets skip the bullshit questions" I guess it lets them know I value my time and the reason I started a company was to make money or else I'd be into non-profits. People don't accidentally get paid in startups they know they're gonna get paid doing something and the successful ones don't just charge enough to make a modest living either.

If you're talking to VC's, the answer that got us the money, was:

"We really felt there was an opportunity in the market for a well underwritten product. That could claim a sizable share of the userbase for (your app here) and we believe we can leverage that userbase in to a profitable business generating revenue (or EBITDA) of X by X"

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