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Ask HN: What is the stupidest business idea you executed?

4 points by superdario ↗ HN
I have had so many stupid ideas that I never executed for various reasons (here is my post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33119246)

Did you have any stupid ideas that you actually executed and how it went?

4 comments

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dazc
I had a house painting business once which doesn't sound stupid until I tell you that I had almost zero capital to start with.

It seems obvious now that I would be living hand to mouth and always under-pricing work just to maintain basic cash flow.

My youthful naivety convinced me that hard work and great service would eventually pay off though.

The only surprise was how long how I managed to keep going, even to the point of employing two other people full-time. Inevitably, my relationship broke down when my girlfriend at the time decided our landlord might be a better prospect (she liked spending money and gravitated towards people who could pretend they had some) and locked me out of the house. As a consequence I was forced to find a proper job for a while.

It just goes to show that even a reasonable business idea can be doomed to failure if the basics are not in place at the outset.

Quinzel
If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently? Was there a lot of competition? How did you market yourself? Why do you think it failed?
dazc
I would start with more capital for sure and this is the main reason I failed. I also learned that living with an attractive woman can be more trouble than it is worth.

On a positive note, despite there being plenty of competition there are people who care less about price than they do about reliability and quality of work. These same people also tend to know other people who are like minded and will be eager to recommend you. Knowing a good trades-person is a sort of currency in such circles.

If I started again these are the people I would target and the ones who only worried about price I would not bother with.

Quinzel
This seems like some good insight. Perhaps it wasn’t that your idea was stupid, but rather a bit of inexperience and perhaps some poor timing and other circumstances such as a less than ideal relationship that culminated in ultimately failing. Sorry to hear your girlfriend was more trouble than she was worth. Not all attractive women are troublesome - however it sounds like you’re probably better off without her.