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Ask HN: My startup is successful but I don't like what I do

13 points by zeynalov ↗ HN
Once I came up with an idea, I launched it and it makes very good money (50-70k euro monthly). It looks very interesting for others, having a nice business, being an entrepreneur, but for me it's getting too boring. I'm not passionate about what my startup does. I really want give up.

Should I kill my startup and build something that I'm passionate about or will love doing it? Or does every business get boring by the time? What are your experiences/advices?

18 comments

[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 52.8 ms ] thread
toolmaker
Why not look for a buyer to sell your company to?
zeynalov
There are no startup culture outside of US and Europe. Even in Europe except England(?). My business is an international company working between Germany, Russia and Azerbaijan, you can't see any acquisitions here so often. (I didn't hear yet) Buying a company can only be accomplished through some mutual friends or someting like this.
mitchie_luna
I still believe that you will be more successful if you do what you are fond of doing rather than doing things that you were only force to do so or because of money thing. Inner fullfilment is greater than money.

With regards to your startup, you may sell it or you may hire a person who can run you business the way you want it. Then, start doing your passion.

zeynalov
I hired a project manager. Showed him how to manage the work, employees, etc. Suddenly sales went down as 70%. I figured out that he does everything right but he's not a person to motivate the team, to be a leader, he was not passionate about it. He really didn't care much about his work.

I tried to hire someone else, but for a good project manager or CEO you have to pay very well. The problem is, we are not so big startup to pay so much money.

gyardley
Wait, didn't you say you make 50k-70k monthly?

Offering someone half of that ought to produce a pretty good quality of candidate. Especially if it's actually 'half of what we make' and not just a fixed number - that's a strong incentive to grow the business.

Who knows, you could end up free of it and making more than you would've originally.

Seems foolish just to shut it down.

masonhensley
Is there a way to turn it into a part time business that you can run along side a new venture? 50-70k sounds like it could be helpful in supporting you during a new venture.

Figure out what you want to do, slow down your involvement with your current venture as you scale up what you are passionate about doing.

I think most people here would recommend that you do not shut down your current revenue stream until you have at least offset it with a new revenue. View your current situation as an vehicle to help you do some awesome things in your next venture.

zeynalov
The problem is, that the reason why the startup makes so much money, is my hardworking. I really worked hard to make my startup earning some but I'm already tired of it. When I try to let the work to my team, sales go down. I tried hiring some people to manage my team, but I saw that I am the best, who knows the business. Actually the business consist of my expertise, experiences on this branch, and normal people should have my skills to be able to manage the work be done. And it's very difficult to teach someone (project manager) what I learned in last 10 years, my expertize. So I can't leave my work, to be able to work on a side project.
sirrocco
Well even if sells go down to 35K / month or 30K .... but you only work 2-3h/ day, wouldn't that be a good thing ?

You could then do something else in the rest of your time.

nalidixic
What is the company?
zeynalov
The company is partly online service for foreign students helping them to apply to the academic institutions in Germany. Sounds stupid but, Germany is 3rd most applied country in the world for academic studies but also they have one of the most complex and hard bureaucratic application process which foreign students can't figure out and ends with frustration.

For example, if only 0.01% of students from all countries applying to German universities/courses/other academic studies would apply through our service it will give us - 300.000 euros annual profit. For now, I have only offices in Azerbaijan and Russia, hence only russian and azerbaijani students can be admitted by us and we already got 10% of students from these countries. We're going to open our branches in China, South Korea and Kazakstan in the next 5 months.

camz
This isn't stupid. Students from China, Taiwan and Hk alone make this a huge market. The students that do this are usually rich kids who've been unable to get into prestigious school locally so the parents are ashamed of them and send them away. A perfect niche because your clientele is rich and they don't care. Think an employee with a corporate credit card. Whoever can let the student be laziest is the one that will get all the business regardless of the price. I've seen 10k being paid of people providing these services.

To put this into perspective, I've had english schools ran in Taiwan (super small country) generate 500k in gross income with 50% margins (250k net profit in pocket). This is just teaching english where margins are lower because you need teachers.

The business he's talking about can get up to 75 to 80% margins if you're sales force is baller.

zeynalov
I wrote stupid because I thought it can sound for people in US weird paying a service for the applications etc.

Yes it's a big market, and it's nice that noone do that job in Germany. For example only from Azerbaijan (a 9 millions small country) we get 40-50 students every month.

That's true that most of our costumers are rich people, and they don't care. Last month we had a costumer asking us for the application for Master degree in Germany. We explained him the process and said that he should pay 950 euros for the service. He said: "I'll give you not 950 but 10.000 euros, just do all the work for me. I have no idea what should I do." And he paid.

camz
lol I know exactly what you mean. they don't know the process and they don't want to know. their only goal is that you fill the application, write the essays, get the recommendations, create a resume if necessary. if you could take their toefl and any other standard exam for them, they'd pay you 5 times that amount.

i've done a similar business in the past. its great moneys short term but its a bitch long term because its so draining dealing with these people. I definitely agree that you wont be able to keep the sales up long term with you being part of the company because no one cares.

The only two options you have is to get a partner who'll work on commission that's desperate (not likely) or just slash the company down to as lean as possible and just accept much less in revenue.

Otherwise you're going to just have to suck it up haha.

aymeric
Intro:

I used to run a profitable Facebook gaming company but got bored of it and let it die slowly. Today I believe I should have made better use of my company assets (I had 12 millions users) to help me with my current ventures.

Suggestions:

Have you read the E-Myth book? It seems that you are facing a problem the book discusses (technician vs manager vs entrepreneur).

On Mixergy someone (can't remember who) spoke about how turning a service company into a product company with a repeatable sales process helped him scale. In your case it would allow you to step away.

Instead of being the centre of your company, couldn't you create a product (a newsletter, an annual report, training, etc...) that you could sell?

Could you reinvest some of your revenues into training people to replace you?

zeynalov
Great tips Aymeric. I'll read the book and try to find the interview on mixergy.

I have a similar story. In 2003 I made a chat-website in my country, in first 3 month 1 million people was registered and daily 400-500 people had chatted there. Some have dated and married through my website. It was biggest online chat portal in Azerbaijan. But I was only 18 and didn't know anyting about marketing, monetizing, etc. And after starting to study medicine, I killed it. Maybe my biggest mistake of my life.

For your last question: I can, but it's very dangerous to teach everything to someone what I do and how I do it. When someone will know all the secrets, how to do the business, he can make his own business. I made a non-compete contract with them but it's only 2 years - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause

Therefore I broke the work down to the several parts, hired some workers, teach their part of work. But someone must manage them, and for now I do that.

The reason why the business is so successful, that there is no other company doing what we do, because they can't.

aymeric
You have a root problem: you need to have a team you can trust or you need to trust the team you have.

If you fear this or that from your team, you will always rely on yourself and I believe you will reproduce the same pattern in other ventures and you will get stuck with whatever you undertake.

Invest in finding the right person to manage your company.

polyfractal
Perhaps try to find an eager apprentice to take the reins? I imagine a lot of people would love to jump on board to see how things are run in a successful startup. Slowly transition responsibility and time to the new "hire", as well as slowly transitioning the profit distribution.

This can let you modulate how much involvement (and money) you want while letting someone else do the bulk of work for you.