genbit

Is there already a budget for this kind of tools? Marketing? Sales? R&D budgets? etc. If there is - who makes a purchase decision and who will be the user? Try to find contact with these people, setup a meeting and talk to them to understand - how they are solving this problem today, what tools they are using? How much do they pay? What is the biggest problem with the current solution? etc.. - more you learn, more you validate your idea and partially market.

Try to have several such conversations. Then you can build a "sales" demo - it can be a presentation with slides, or it can be quick demo-prototype (it's possible to develop it in 1-2 weeks in some cases). Then you can setup a meeting with the most friendly potential customer from previous conversations and do the first demo run with them, then refine demo based on feedback and do it again

By customer-driven, I mean the first talk to customers, then code. Understand what kind of job your customers are doing (don't talk about a product, just try to understand your customers), for example, people who study Chinese what kind of day to day tasks/job/activities they do related to learning Chinese? What gives them the most pain/problems? Is there anything that you can do about it?

Before trying to sell, try to understand your customers. If you really solve an important problem for them - people will pay.

I don't agree with "rich people statement". I started my first web-consulting company by self-learning how to code websites and then lived in a shitty room in Russia with my girlfriend, barely making money for a rent and food. I found first customers by browsing and phone-calling through local classifieds.

By customer-driven, I mean the first talk to customers, then code. Understand what kind of job your customers are doing (don't talk about a product, just try to understand your customers), for example, people who study Chinese what kind of day to day tasks/job/activities they do related to learning Chinese? What gives them the most pain/problems? Is there anyting that you can do about it?

I don't agree with "rich people statement". I started my first web-consulting company by self-learning how to code websites and then lived in a shitty room in Russia with my girlfriend, barely making money for a rent and food.

Although at this stage it's less about sales and more about understanding your potential customers and what problem do they have. That's why I would recommend starting side business project by talking to customers first, understand what problem they have - what jobs they need to be done, and then actually coding

Nice! what you describe is basically a standard sales process. You will very often be ignored, and people will not reply to you - don't get it personal. Read more about cold emailing and sales. It's a complex process, but essential for bootstrapping entrepreneurship.

> I really need a community to discuss these ideas.

there are local pitch events (at least in the silicon valley) where you can practice or sites like HN.

I just wanted to make a point, that a work visa by itself is not a real blocker, more of a mental one. At least it was for me :) Networking for me is about building credibility around myself in the area I will need for a business, online or offline. For education projects, it can be going to education-related meetups or talking to teachers in real life or online.

Market Analysis - there are many books on entrepreneurship (for example - https://goo.gl/tyJSu1) for education tools you can talk to people who will use them - teachers or students, and try to estimate how many of them, and how much they are willing to pay, or if you can make money off ads.

for your example project, you send a to teachers at local community colleges and try to get their feedback and maybe they will recommend it to schools. Also, you can post the link to your project at language learning online forums or meetup groups.

I mean, not every side project will be big business or even business at all, but I think about it as a good practice if you really think about entrepreneur path.

I myself went back to coding for now, I enjoy it too :)

I had work visa and had similar thoughts and was deferring starting a business until green card. I was wrong. Building business takes time, and there are a lot of tasks that could've done on work visa, even without idea: - networking (future customers, employees, investors) - market analysis - marketing (content marketing through blog, twitter)

One way to find feedback without investing into coding - talking to potential customers or people inside targeted market. This I wish I done while I where on work visa :)

This is the best tool I've used so far for domain searching. Thanks!

Nice idea. Is Mobile integrated as a web view or it's for web apps only?

Congrats on the release! Why did you decide to develop it, what was the use case for you?

Imaging marrying a complete stranger, then after some time figuring out that you cannot continue together. Same with the founders.

If you now someone who can/want also use your product, ship early versions to them. Even screenshots. If not, try to find these users, and ship to them :)

I think, early fear of shipping is a symptom of uncertainty "will someone need this product?" You should try to find this someone as soon as possible, and get feedback from them.

Done that. First, I think it's great expirience for a founder in terms of understanding and learning how to run business. Especially if you manage to grow to have consulting company with employees.

For me main challenge was Focus. Hard to focus team on developing your own product, while also doing consulting.

Bad behaviors: - lack of focus - different cash management - easy to avoid responsibility when 3rd party is involved - different mindset for employees, bootstrapping startup vs consulting for someone else

I would suggest a founder to first try a different ways to bootstrap/find funds for your startup. If not, then do consulting, save some money, then use this money to work only on startup/idea.

Odds of surviving startup life with a stranger as a co founder are lower then odds for single founder to get into YC. But good luck to find interesting partners, it's also good to talk to other entrepreneurs

Short demo what kind of client you can create with Archy.ai: https://video.twimg.com/dm_gif/817220933689585664/JSz2qxRPlt...

I feel that closed beta is not in favor at HN. But I'm trying to get some early users to test product and API before can open it to public. I believe in HN community )

Yes, I share us much as I can with my wife, so far she gives the best entrepreneurial advises.

Standups are for teams who solves problems and need constantly keep in touch to see if the whole team moving in the same direction. If your team is bunch of people working on independent projects - no need for standup. It sounds like you have manager who has no time/skills to put things in order.

> everything's going fine

for good team lead it should indicate that "something is wrong". It possible cannot be "fine" every meeting, if team is really solving some problems. If team doesn't solve anything complex - there is no need for standup.

we are working on frontend as a service solution (for mobile), please ping me at sergey@archy.ai, would be interesting to have you as early beta user.

Thanks, Racket is something I knew about, but never considered learning. Will take a look.

> a certain domain do you know if this domain is as broad as "app" or "photo app?"

Example If I make a product called GoldGram, that will display trend prices for gold gram - it will be violating trademark?

gram - is a metric system unit of mass, can they trademark it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gram

Nice! Can you compare it to https://github.com/paularmstrong/normalizr ?

still alpha but we using it at priceposts.com

would you suggest from whom to start?

What is a good resource for someone who want to read good papers from time to time?

Hi HN, I want to share a project I've been working on last months and find people who find this idea useful. Demo is coming, but for me is critical to get some feedback at this stage. Please share your feedback.

working on Frontend as a Service project - http://frontendy.com still a lot of work to do )

I'm working on a software for creating Web UI for SaaS services. If you interesting, send me email, I can help with frontend.