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Let's Hear It. The truth about how hard you've worked to get your startup going (buildingof.com)

19 points by ziyadb ↗ HN
I want to hear your story on how you built your startup.

I'm working on a startup myself, and would like to learn & share lessons from various entrepreneurs on their venture experiences. I'm trying to get my startup off the ground, plus a full time job, so it's a difficult journey ahead.

I figured I'd take all the stories and put them up somewhere, so I created http://buildingof.com , which focuses on sharing an inside look at the toil and hard work that goes into creating a startup. At this point, I'm interested in talking with founders that have interesting stories to share and help everyone learn a thing or two along the way.

16 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 54.1 ms ] thread
ziyadb
I want to hear your story on how you built your startup.

I'm working on a startup myself, and would like to learn & share lessons from various entrepreneurs on their venture experiences. I'm trying to get my startup off the ground, plus a full time job, so it's a difficult journey ahead.

I figured I'd take all the stories and put them up somewhere, so I created http://buildingof.com , which focuses on sharing an inside look at the toil and hard work that goes into creating a startup. At this point, I'm interested in talking with founders that have interesting stories to share and help everyone learn a thing or two along the way.

dchuk
You should post YOUR story then, as an example of what's to come, and to encourage others to join you in sharing their stories.
ziyadb
Good observation. I suppose that there's this expectation that one must achieve success first before a viable story is created.

I think that we, as a community, need to change that. As personally, the stories, & anecdotes that I've benefitted from the most were mostly shared by entrepreneurs still in the trenches--in the process of building their startups.

Plus to be fair, I haven't quite gotten anything "going" yet.

dchuk
As someone who has had a few successes and a few failures, I find both types of stories to be interesting to be honest. An informed story of failure can be just as enlightening as the flip-side. Plus, there's nothing to learn from serendipitous success other than "be there at the right time with the right idea".
canadev
Is this a for-fun-and-interest project or do you expect to make money off of it?

Because while I'd enjoy taking a gander over the site, I don't want to give you my email address, and if the site is just a free thing I'd kind of expect to be able to read it without giving it to you.

ziyadb
Should've probably clarified that on the website, it's a for-fun-and-interest project.

The standard disclaimers apply, your email won't be sold into slavery or used for anything bad other than a weekly newsletter or something of the sort (aligned with the expectations you had when you signed up).

squintychino
The standard internet trust applies (read: none).

I've read these disclaimers before and the only thing backing then up is the owners word. Why not make entering your email optional?

funkyy
It seems that newsletter is operated by Mailchimp - thus you can unsubscribe anytime...
rpicard
If you don't enter your email, how will they tell you when they go public?
abalone
When you sign up the business address they give is in Saudi Arabia. Which to be clear is totally fine by me, but I'm just wondering if there's something special about basing corporations out of S.A. that I don't know about, or is that just where they happen to be?
mschuster91
Probably due to IP or libel law issues, I guess.
rahimnathwani
I presume from OP's username that his forename is Ziyad, which is an Arabic name.
jacquesm
I wrote this up long ago, you can't really tell how hard we all worked by looking at the end result but it was blood, sweat and tears at times. It also was tons of fun and I wouldn't have missed it for the world, 3 of the people working with us have since moved to extreme success (8 figure exits)!

http://jacquesmattheij.com/content/story-behind-wwcom-camara...

ziyadb
Thanks Jacques! That was a great & inspiring read. It's impressive to see how far you've come since then.