7 ms·

At the risk of sounding less than helpful or pessimistic, the first thing that jumped out at me when reading your post is that you are going about this backward

At the risk of sounding less than helpful or pessimistic, the first thing that jumped out at me when reading your post is that you are going about this backwards. I'm not saying you can't or wont' succeed. I have no idea. But it seems like the first thing that happened is that you decided you wanted to start a business. Usually it's the reverse - you get inspired by discovering a problem and realize you have the skillset and motivation to solve it and then you come to the realization that you need to start a business to do that. For founders/entrepreneurs with experience having done that previously, this is likely a scenario with a much higher probability of success. But I imagine the success rate of people who say "I want to start my own business" and then look for a business to start have much lower success rates. I'm not trying to rain no your parade at all. Just wanted to give you something to think about before you spend a fortune in time and/or money starting something. I could easily be wrong, though. Just food for thought.

fennecfoxen 7y ago
It sounds like you are describing the Silicon Valley ideal, but things like "finding a good business to start" are very much a traditional approach, and I am confident they will teach you about how to do market research to this end in business schools.
- wpietri 7y ago
  Is it a traditional approach? I've met a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners, and I have heard of almost nobody starting from "I have started a business, now what should we do" being successful. Bezos arguably took that approach, but that story gets told so much precisely because it was unusual. More often it turns out like Webvan, where the lack of deep domain knowledge means making noob mistakes that kill the business. And I'm not sure business schools are a big help here. The vast majority of MBAs end up joining mid-sized to large existing companies as high flyers, and I think the curriculum aims to support that.
  - inerte 7y ago
    A common approach is people believing they can be their own bosses. Not so much about business opportunity or an itch to scratch. Anyway, why speculate? It's easy to find online articles and research showing why people have started their businesses, or the reasons why people would want to start one but haven't yet. Truth is that it's all the above and more.
    - travisjungroth 7y ago
      > A common approach is people believing they can be their own bosses. Want to sell essential oils for me?
  - erisinger 7y ago
    In the US this is precisely the traditional approach. The country was built by immigrants who would arrive in an area -- San Francisco or New York for example -- decide that if they didn't want to work in a sweat shop they would have to start a business, then look around to see what their neighborhood needed, and build it. Laundromat, restaurant, feed store, etc. They didn't need to be intrigued by a problem or have a background that set them up to solve one. They decided to start a business and began by figuring out in what way their region was underserved, then built something to fill the gap. Voila. There's no obvious reason this approach couldn't work in tech as well.
    - drivingmenuts 7y ago
      Sure, but they were literally neighbors back then. The world has changed since then and we don’t necessarily have neighbors from a completely different walk of life. Additionally, non-tech work has a different domain of deep knowledge necessary to properly serve industry knowledgeably. Just because your neighbors a welder, doesn’t mean you can whip out a materials inventory app for welders everywhere.
    - wpietri 7y ago
      One, I think starting another instance of a well-known kind of business is very different than creating a new product, especially when one has used that kind of business a lot. So even if what you say were true, I don't think it would be relevant to, "I've started a business, what kind of product should we make." But two, I'd like to see some evidence that people really did entirely arbitrary things based on demand, without relation to other factors. If we look at a well-known example, the way Indian-Americans have dominated the motel industry, there's pretty clear evidence that wasn't just driven by looking around the neighborhood to see what was needed. E.g.: https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/06/11/why-indian-americans-dominate-the-u-s-motel-industry/ https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/06/11/why-indian-am...
travisjungroth 7y ago
I completely agree. The "natural" business is a much better recipe. I consider it a strike against me and will have to make up for it in other areas. I'm still going forward, because I think starting a business still has a better expected outcome for me than working at a job.
WalterSear 7y ago
I'd argue that people who aren't married to the shape of their venture have some of their own advantages compared to those who base their business model on a preformed thesis. Namely, they are more ready to go where the money turns out to be, even if the direction is less glamorous than the original idea.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ping_pong 7y ago
Startups that are founded by people that don't have a lot of skin in the game are exactly the ones that will close up shop after a year, leaving their customers high and dry. It's a meme now about startups with their "Thanks for joining us on our journey, stay tuned for our next startup!" If you are a company looking for a problem to solve, it's not going to work unless you get lucky. Find something you're passionate about and that is what will drive you to keep going, so that you don't just abandon your customers when things get tough.
zadkey 7y ago
I saw an earlier HN post last week where a sales person and a software engineer were looking for an idea guy.
inkeddeveloper 7y ago
They are a solution looking for a problem and we all know that doesn't work.

fennecfoxen 7y ago

It sounds like you are describing the Silicon Valley ideal, but things like "finding a good business to start" are very much a traditional approach, and I am confident they will teach you about how to do market research to this end in business schools.

wpietri 7y ago
Is it a traditional approach? I've met a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners, and I have heard of almost nobody starting from "I have started a business, now what should we do" being successful. Bezos arguably took that approach, but that story gets told so much precisely because it was unusual. More often it turns out like Webvan, where the lack of deep domain knowledge means making noob mistakes that kill the business. And I'm not sure business schools are a big help here. The vast majority of MBAs end up joining mid-sized to large existing companies as high flyers, and I think the curriculum aims to support that.
- inerte 7y ago
  A common approach is people believing they can be their own bosses. Not so much about business opportunity or an itch to scratch. Anyway, why speculate? It's easy to find online articles and research showing why people have started their businesses, or the reasons why people would want to start one but haven't yet. Truth is that it's all the above and more.
  - travisjungroth 7y ago
    > A common approach is people believing they can be their own bosses. Want to sell essential oils for me?
- erisinger 7y ago
  In the US this is precisely the traditional approach. The country was built by immigrants who would arrive in an area -- San Francisco or New York for example -- decide that if they didn't want to work in a sweat shop they would have to start a business, then look around to see what their neighborhood needed, and build it. Laundromat, restaurant, feed store, etc. They didn't need to be intrigued by a problem or have a background that set them up to solve one. They decided to start a business and began by figuring out in what way their region was underserved, then built something to fill the gap. Voila. There's no obvious reason this approach couldn't work in tech as well.
  - drivingmenuts 7y ago
    Sure, but they were literally neighbors back then. The world has changed since then and we don’t necessarily have neighbors from a completely different walk of life. Additionally, non-tech work has a different domain of deep knowledge necessary to properly serve industry knowledgeably. Just because your neighbors a welder, doesn’t mean you can whip out a materials inventory app for welders everywhere.
  - wpietri 7y ago
    One, I think starting another instance of a well-known kind of business is very different than creating a new product, especially when one has used that kind of business a lot. So even if what you say were true, I don't think it would be relevant to, "I've started a business, what kind of product should we make." But two, I'd like to see some evidence that people really did entirely arbitrary things based on demand, without relation to other factors. If we look at a well-known example, the way Indian-Americans have dominated the motel industry, there's pretty clear evidence that wasn't just driven by looking around the neighborhood to see what was needed. E.g.: https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/06/11/why-indian-americans-dominate-the-u-s-motel-industry/ https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/06/11/why-indian-am...

travisjungroth 7y ago

I completely agree. The "natural" business is a much better recipe. I consider it a strike against me and will have to make up for it in other areas. I'm still going forward, because I think starting a business still has a better expected outcome for me than working at a job.

WalterSear 7y ago

I'd argue that people who aren't married to the shape of their venture have some of their own advantages compared to those who base their business model on a preformed thesis. Namely, they are more ready to go where the money turns out to be, even if the direction is less glamorous than the original idea.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

ping_pong 7y ago

Startups that are founded by people that don't have a lot of skin in the game are exactly the ones that will close up shop after a year, leaving their customers high and dry. It's a meme now about startups with their "Thanks for joining us on our journey, stay tuned for our next startup!" If you are a company looking for a problem to solve, it's not going to work unless you get lucky. Find something you're passionate about and that is what will drive you to keep going, so that you don't just abandon your customers when things get tough.

zadkey 7y ago

I saw an earlier HN post last week where a sales person and a software engineer were looking for an idea guy.

inkeddeveloper 7y ago

They are a solution looking for a problem and we all know that doesn't work.