[vinceguidry]

> A guy who knows how to fix a car is not going to have any easier of a time launching a successful business than a guy who knows how to build an app or website. If anything, I would think it would be easier for the tech.

That's patently ridiculous. We know how to market auto mechanic shops. All the knowledge is there, you can even go to a library to read about it. Nothing about the industry has changed so drastically in the last fifty years that you have to throw out the book.

Small business marketing and economics are so simple and well-understood that your grandma can start a catering business, and, so long as she follows the formula, can guarantee she won't starve. She can listen to the banks and the accountants and the lawyers and be confident she's getting good advice.

Ask your grandma to start a website. Nothing about that space is well-understood to the point where she can have any reasonable amount of confidence in any course of action she decides to take. Sure there's forums, there's books, but the landscape changes so often that you have to treat everything as if it's already outdated.

It never fails to amaze me how often people immersed in technology seems to catch Stockholm Syndrome every time they think about business in this space. It's hard. The fact that there's zillions of choices makes it harder and not easier. The fact that you can do whatever you want makes it harder and not easier.

[jaxn]

Have you ever talked to a mechanic about this? I suspect that you would learn some things.

Local marketing is not easy. Putting together capital for real estate, buildout, equipment, etc is not easy.

Hubris is saying that something most people fail at is so easy to execute that a grandma could do it. Not to mention comments like that are both sexist and ageist.

[jondubois]

I don't understand why this got down-voted, it makes a lot of sense.

How many successful car mechanics are there vs how many successful software companies are there? I'd say you'd have many, many, many times more successful car mechanic companies than software companies.

The successful mechanics won't make as much profit as the successful software companies, but more mechanic companies will succeed.

It'd be interesting if someone did some research on wealth and income inequality in the software industry; I think the numbers would be mind-boggling.