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A startup feasibility question

3 points by yalurker ↗ HN
Last night, I had an idea. Searching the web, it seems there are already a couple sites which would be pretty direct competitors.

There are a lot of things stacked against me, and I'm curious if people think it is worth the effort to go forward with my idea. In addition to the competitors, I have a full-time job, and the startup would require a lot of skills I don't currently have (I'm a software engineer, but the idea is very web 2.0ish and I've never used ruby/ajax and have only a basic knowledge of databases).

How plausible is it for a single engineer, working nights & weekends, with minimal web-programming experience, to launch a successful web service?

4 comments

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noodle
well, it depends on the size/scope (i.e., i don't think you're going to build the next generation of cloud-based services here). but, really, almost anything is plausible if you attack it the right way.
robfitz
you work on it nights & weekends to find out if it has traction. most things don't, but if yours might, then it's probably worth testing the waters.

from what i understand, http://carbonmade.com is a good example. three guys working part time (according to their 'story'), who now have a nice lifestyle business. they have big competitors, but have attracted enough paying users to do well for themselves.

so possible, yes. and learning web dev skills won't be a wasted effort, regardless of whether or not this particular venture works out.

if it's a big enough market to support several successes, i'd encourage you to take it on.

yalurker
Thanks for the input. I have some Python skills, so I just bought a Django book, I think that will be the fastest way for me to get something going.

I haven't been this excited in a while. Not only do I need to learn a lot of new tech, I need to figure out a lot of the business/marketing side too. When to start trying to attract users, how to drive traffic to the site, how/if/when to bring in other developers.

Any thoughts on how to determine if the idea has traction? Like number of users after a certain time or reviews/bloggers comments, or even gasp revenue?

robfitz
you may want to read 'founders at work' by jessica livingston (of yc fame). it's interviews regarding the rise of many successful web services (yahoo, hot or not, hotmail, etc).

a lot of those companies started as hobbies or side projects, and one day the site crashed and the founder realized he needed a whole lot more servers to keep up with the growth.