Ask HN: How and when did you decide and start your startup?
I've been thinking quite some time now about making the move of quitting my fulltime job as a software engineer, and pursue my dream of founding a startup.
I'm 23 y/o and don't have much to lose really (except rent), and yet I'm still STRUGGLING to just make that move and start.
I'd love to hear your stories about when and how did you decide to do it? How did you start? How was it going to sleep knowing that you probably not going to have an income in the next upcoming weeks/months?
41 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 90.0 ms ] threadIt is also more difficult to convince a friend to become a co-founder when they have mortgages and a family.
After 20+ years in dev I got tired of making projects for others and finally decided on an idea that could work financially. Not to grow to millions of users, but to at least support myself.
There are 3 ways:
1. Join a startup and go from there. Learn how things work in the startup world. You are only 23. It wouldn't hurt to work for a startup for 2-3 years and you may get somewhere after that.
2. If you strongly believe in a specific idea, then try to execute on it now. Like you said, you don't have much to lose. What an awesome position to be in. However, you will most likely fail based on statistics and the fact that you don't know what you don't know yet. You are 23. You have to learn a lot of things in the world.
3. Buy an existing business like I did. This obviously requires capital but you could buy a small say 1K MRR SAAS product/side project. You will have some things already setup at a small scale and you can go from there. Very hard though for someone who has never run a business BUT frankly, this is one way to force yourself into it.Think of the capital/investment as the cost of an MBA.
I would say 1 is the easiest, 3 is easier relatively but needs capital and 2 is the hardest.
Also, don't beat yourself up for not being able to start. Instead, find out what you can do TODAY to get to that destination of doing your own thing. If that thing today means joining an existing startup, do it. If that thing today means hanging out with similar minded folks who are already doing this, do it. If that things today means learning how to code, do it. Do something TODAY. How do you eat an elephant ? One bite at a time. Surround yourself with people who are doing what you want to do. It is hard to find them but try. Good luck!!
I personally want to see at least 3 years of hard work. Anything less is too risky since the business hasn't gone through the ups and downs enough and frankly it is not enough grinding for me. But thats my criteria. There may be some gems out there that are younger and still worth a look.
I have a lot of interest in the business buying/selling space and one day I will be doing this professionally :). For now, trying to grow my bootstrapped SAAS to 5 million in ARR.
On the circumstance side, I had actually left the tech industry to start a dog boarding business, but Covid hit right as I was about to close my SBA loan and start construction, so I cut bait rather than take a very large, personally guaranteed loan to start a business driven by people traveling and going into the office. I had decided to go the franchise route for that, largely to give myself the confidence that I would be able to get through all the unknowns with the backing of folks who had done this many times before.
After I called that off, I decided to strike out on my own and sell a frozen dog treat mix that I had been making for my dog. The pandemic circumstances (being at home, collecting unemployment) definitely helped, but the big obstacle for me was honestly less about time/money and more about a lack of confidence (which is weird because most people who know me would probably describe me as confident to the point of vanity). Honestly though, going through the initial part of getting the dog boarding business set up really helped - I had to deal with a bunch of stuff I'd never dealt with before (architect, permits, finding a contractor, leasing a space, getting all the various HR stuff set up to hire someone), and it just wasn't that difficult to deal with each thing as it came up. I think it helps that my background is in product management at early-stage companies, so that entailed a lot of generalist problem solving.
The other thing that helped, quite honestly, was seeing the other people in the franchise. They were, to be charitable, generally somewhat less sharp than the type of people I had become accustomed to working with in Silicon Valley, and most of them were running their businesses reasonably profitably. If they could run businesses, then clearly I ought to be able to.
I guess one last thing I'll add is that I own a few apartments in the Bay Area along with a couple of other folks, and that's been helpful both because they generate income and because that's a very small scale example of running a business (I have a full time property manager, so I don't have to do much), which is, again, a confidence builder. If you're able to start any kind of small scale business while working just to help build your confidence, that might be a good intermediate step even if you're not ready to fully quit and go out on your own.
A friend reached out if I could do some work for high schoolers. Kind of kismet with the move to remote education, as I started the program, significant demand for this type of work.
Why? because I found no good gameserver to play on it at this time and bought myself a physical Server to fix that.
6 months later I quit my full time job and pumped up my business. Best decision ever! I never thought about my personal income. At that time I was still living at my Patents.
As of today, I founded multiple companies and sold them successful in the 8 digits euros.
Just do it, find something you like, focus on it and believe in your self.
I was surprised to discover, long after quitting, that working full-time on your own ideas can come with it's own distraction: pressure to make money. Probably the biggest mistake I made from months 6 to 12 (startup idea #2) was being too concerned about structuring things in a way that would (hopefully) make it easier to charge money. I ended up spending a lot of time doing things that in hindsight weren't generating any value. It would've been much better to focus on doing meaningful things, whatever those may be.
I don't know the details of your situation, but that might be something to consider: if you can figure out a way to have a decent amount of time to work on whatever you want while still having an income from elsewhere, it might actually be easier to focus than if you were doing the idea full-time.
On the other hand, I am glad I quit myself. So maybe that advice is just BS.
For income: I might switch the "weeks/months" estimate to years ;). Running out of money hasn't been an issue (lots of savings from my job, my wife worked until recently, then we moved back in with my parents until the pandemic winds down). Opportunity cost of course is large, but that's fairly easy to ignore. I've learned an incredible amount during the past 18 months, so even if I can't get my startup to work, it'll have been a worthwhile investment.
I don't know if any of that is helpful. I'd be happy to chat if you like, my email's in my profile.
Second time, almost right after college, I started working as the first employee at another startup, at first it was really exciting, I felt like I was part of the founding team, contributed a lot to the direction of the company and got to work on the pitch as well as go to meetings with investors, but when the company started growing, a line was drawn between founders and employees. That's when I got together with one of the other employees and left to start our own company.
Thirds time, while running my previous company I decided to participate in a hackathon with a friend, we won the local chapter, then the global chapter and then we got funding.
Looking back, I've been extremely lucky and never really planned anything too much, things just happened. Also, if I could go back in time, I might have chosen to just dedicate myself to being a very good programmer instead of playing the startup game.
> How was it going to sleep knowing that you probably not going to have an income in the next upcoming weeks/months?
Do you need to quit your job to start working on a startup?
When I started my company at 23, I spent a full year working long nights/weekends and then quit my day job only after the company had some momentum.
If you can manage a day job and a side hustle, I'd very much recommend that. Although if your current day job expects more than a 40 hour work week from you, that could be a problem.
I agree. I didn't stay very healthy when I was working a day job and also working nights / weekends. It was exhausting.
Unfortunately I didn't have enough savings to be able to quit my job. It was definitely a trade off.
I just think as general advice for young programmers, “work 60+ hour weeks” is very much the wrong message. Stay healthy and let your passion drive your work.
I really wouldn't want to go through that again, but it was worth it.
I started my current one in college. Since high school I had every intention of making a living starting my own business, so that was the plan all along. I've been on hacker news since my early teens (different accounts) and I've been doing projects about just as long.
I'm working full time on my business. If the times were different, I'd look for a part time job serving coffee or something. I went back to living with my parents after college (probably a mistake), so I don't worry about supporting myself.
By now, I am pretty good at recognizing what a good idea is, and getting from idea to shipping something. I'm working on my marketing skills and being patient.
You say you're struggling to start, I imagine there is something specific that makes you feel that way:
Do you have an idea yet? How far have you gotten? Are you afraid to quit your job? Are you having difficulties putting in the time and effort?
That was 2006. I never looked back.
Once you get used to doing things your way.. it's very hard to go back.
Let go of the golden handcuffs, put on your adventure hat, and consider finding a low-cost city/country to play in while you figure out product-market-fit[1]. If you are lucky you will also find other potential co-founders also on the same journey, and other talented local folk who are affordable. Who knows you may even learn a new language along the way! Worst case you go back to doing what you've been doing. It's not going anywhere soon in this climate.
[1]https://remoteok.io/
If you don't have any ideas, would recommend finding some ideas you are passionate about first while keeping your day job
- Have you ever made over $10k on your own?
Not from your day job salary. Not from public stock market. Making money needs practice. You start a company to make money. You’d better have some experience of making money first. Without working in an established company, are you able to make a meaningful amount of money and survive in this world?
- What’s your longest project?
Have you worked on anything for multiple years? Grit & patience need practice. Building a successful company takes multiple years, even decades. Be prepared.
- When was the last time you were insulted by others?
If you grew up in a very comfortable environment (rich family, great schools — because your parents went to those great schools too, great companies, …), probably you already get used to compliment for your entire life. Now you are going to face a very very diverse set of people who don’t know your family background or don’t recognize your family name. If you are the kind of people who are easy to be upset by very minor things (e.g., people don’t reply your email or people don’t compliment you), you’d better stay in the friendly corporate.
- What happened when you broke up with your ex or your friends?
People relationship is complex. You’ll experience a lot of bad people relationship if you start your own company — breaking up with cofounders, firing employees, fighting evil investors, fighting con man, fighting bad reporters, dealing with malicious users, dealing with competitors (sometimes in person)… All kinds of drama. You’d better practice this kind of things before starting your own company.
If you can do that you have a basic grasp of marketing, copy, product market fit, accounting and taxes, financing, maybe design, hiring and outsourcing. Definitely a head start.
10K is still significant but you definitely need to set your own bar.
Anyone in the 50K to 150K wage market needs to have a deep understanding of whatever it took to bring in 10K without your employer, it's going to take a lot more of that once you no longer have a paycheck from a job there.
Even building success selling used cars on the side can be very worthwhile to engineers who are considering becoming entrepreneurs, when it could be regarded as a career distraction on many other engineering paths.
And however long it took you to bring in the 10K, it's likely to require 5x to 15x as much time to match your employment income, when left to your own devices.
A lot of times when you get far above 150K in wages, any windfall can be based less on productivity and more as temptation so you don't start your own company when you think about it.
At that point you'd really need to independently be able to make a lot more than 10K a lot easier & quicker before it would make sense.
Might have to sell something at a lot bigger scale than a few cars then.
I did have student loans pretty much like anybody else , and it wasn’t easy certainly . Trying to balance working on consulting gigs and building your app at that age there is lot to learn to become better developer and also figure out how a startup works is hard.
My reasoning was financially the older you become more it harder to quit a full time job and do what you want. A house mortgage , family, kids their education etc keep adding up , your lifestyle may make it hard to quit .
The downside to the approach knowledge and experience helps a lot . While I learn a lot fast, with my current understanding I could perhaps do what took 5-6 years in a year or two. However I don’t think I would get remotely same knowledge had I not been working under that kind of pressure .
Would I do it again ? I don’t know. I did a miss lot of typical twenties life , most of my peers / friends are in very different stages of life then I am : financially stable , found their life partners, have kids and settled down on life goals on what they want to do. While my startup is doing pretty well , until there is an exit , financially I am probably not far a fresh graduate, never could spend time in relationships , this despite being perhaps one of lucky ones still in the game and part of something fairly successful, there are many founders who had to face hard truths and try to get back to regular jobs or dig deeper and deeper in still lost in their ideas and having lot tougher time than me.
I was mostly profitable by about week 5 -- so I only skipped one pay cheque, but I didn't have children then, so it was easier to live cheaply.
But that was a service business: service businesses are easy to get started, but they are hard to scale. If you are thinking of making a product business, you are in for a much longer harder road.