My thoughts on starting an online business as someone who's never done it before
So I thought about how I would do it. I’ve heard of people like Pieter Levels and Jon Yongfook launching a series of web apps until something gets traction. I’ve also heard of Amy Hoy’s method where you create value right away via small and tiny blog posts until you get better and better at delivering bigger value in the form of info products or even a web app that you can charge money for. I’ve also heard of Daniel Vassallo’s “portfolio of small bets”, where you just do what it takes to make a bit of money any way possible, and try out different things without investing too much, until you hit something that seems promising. Daniel’s method is a bit hard to explain and I don’t think I’ve done it justice.
Anyway, I think I’ve already lost the game by thinking and researching too much and not taking action. Maybe that’s the sauce. Launching a series of apps, blog posts, or random ideas whenever the inspiration strikes. And being persistent and not over investing in one thing. Maybe it’s best to just pick a lane and try it out and try many things until something clicks. As for me, I’m not sure if I should go for making something that I think would make money right away, or just get in the groove of creating things for the internet first. Anyway, just rambling.
8 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 27.0 ms ] threadI also like one of his old posts: https://levels.io/12-startups-12-months/
Yeah, building something people want (and are willing to pay) is pretty hard, and trying to sell early/often is a good way to reduce your market risk. I'm more on the "build something I want", and as soon as I have something "I like", iterate on the communication/go-to-market, more than the product. I think this is more aligned with founders like Brian Chesky that launched (and failed) multiple times, but kept on going because they really believed in their idea (though I'm still on the failing part).
There are many Ask HN posts about launching which you might find useful: https://payperrun.com/%3E/search?displayParams={%22q%22:%22A...
It will take longer than you think. It will take more effort than you think. I don't necessarily follow the "12 startups in 12 months" methodology, because I lack experience in it. Traction isn't instantaneous, so expecting traction in 1 month is unrealistic to me. Sounds cool, but it doesn't work like that for 99% of people. You risk abandoning a good idea because you lack experience. I built 2 things, and the first led to the second, and that "second" got traction... a year later.
But I say go for it. I did it, and I'm still doing it. If you feel it's a good and useful idea, just stick with it.
Of course, this isn't a hard and fast rule. Sometimes an idea sucks, and you'll know that just by the fact that you can't get anybody interested in trying your product, even before asking to pay for it. That's where validation and testing come in, so I'm not saying to not validate and test. That's always step 1. All I'm saying is that new founders give up on good ideas way too early. Their expectations of overnight success do not match reality. Validate and test and iterate can take a long time.
And it's worth noting: sometimes iterate is not iterating on your product, but iterating on yourself as a founder. I stood in my own way a lot as a new founder, focusing on the wrong things. It took awhile to get past that. After I did, growth was much easier. But if I gave up early, assuming my product sucked, I would have never gotten to that point.
This is too much. Do or create one thing. Just one thing. You can drop it and move on if it doesn't gain any kind of traction.
But if you start out by thinking of launching many different things, you won't launch anything as you'll over think, over analyze and over plan.
Also, there are three paths to getting something small off the ground: easy path, middle path and the hard path.
Developers almost always choose the hard path.
They code their own website from scratch because they know how.
They built a generic website creation tool because "Launching a series of apps" and it will make thinks easier in the long term.
Start with a single page static website. Use an off the shelf Bootstrap or other theme. If you want a logo, take a free icon from Canva and use that. Park it all on a $5 shared hosting plan.
Easy path, every time.
Put the one page website up today. Don't spend more than two hours on it.
Then do the next easy thing. One piece of content... etc.