[dimino]

It seems like startup advice is based on the repeatable observations that people who've worked with a lot of startups have discovered. That means there are a bunch of situations that don't get covered because they don't come up a lot.

When playing an odds game like startups, you want to do all the maximally viable things possible, but that doesn't mean other decisions aren't also viable, they're just not observed to be as successful, so they're not mentioned. Doesn't mean they won't work.

There's also opportunity cost. What could this team have done if they were working on something more... disruptive? The execution here is incredible, applying that to a new problem would have probably also done very well.

[rscherf]

I’m definitely not trying to peddle advice, I was just approached about my story. I think there are tons of micro niche things like this that can be built to earn a living (I have a list of 5 I’d build on top of just Stripe if I had the time). Large companies can’t do everything, and I think Stripe owns that. Not to mention, they still get all their same fees and don’t have to maintain the app.

[dvko]

I fully agree with this sentiment. I myself piggy-backed my product (or rather: feature) on a much langer company which was growing like crazy and have been able to grow it to a comfortable $40.000 per month over the last 6 years. It’s just me doing the bulk of the work with 2 friends helping out to handle 1st level support.

Now that it is a mature product and as long as the company I depend upon does not overhaul their API, it’s really just a 10hr/week job, affording me more freedom than is good for me.

I’d say there are loads of opportunities like this out there, especially in places developers do not want to go because they are not deemed cutting-edge or fun.

[rscherf]

This is EXACTLY what I did, and I agree there are soooo many opportunities like this. I think most people are risk averse to it as they think the API might get shut off, but I look at it as a really quick way to build something. If it gets cut off, on to the next.

[sprflyprgrmrguy]

I'm not so sure the issue is risk aversion, so much as it is not seeing those opportunities whether because they're unable to see opportunities in the work that they're doing to take advantage of... or they're just not around environments where opportunities like this might exist; or a combination of both.

[jventura]

> I’d say there are loads of opportunities like this out there, especially in places developers do not want to go because they are not deemed cutting-edge or fun.

Any suggestions?

[dvko]

Integrations with popular services for legacy codebases. Preferrably for a service the user is already paying for.

Personally my product is “X for WordPress”, where X is a marketing tool that grew a lot over the last decade.

[dimino]

Advice is good, I don't want to seem like I'm critical of the post or anything, I just thought it's worth pointing out the differences in goals of the folks who tend to give the most popular startup advice from your specific situation.

That difference might help explain why there might be a perceived gap in what's here vs. what's on pg's blog, for example.

[tiger_dioxide]

Great write up! Would love to hear some of those ideas. Possibly one or two if you don’t mind sharing.

[mahin]

What, in your opinion, is Stripe lacking that can be built on top of it?

[mf2hd]

12+ month subscription, paypal support.

[peterbell_nyc]

> There's also opportunity cost. What could this team have done if they were working on something more... disruptive? The execution here is incredible, applying that to a new problem would have probably also done very well.

My latest working hypothesis after 28 years of starting companies is that there is "no startup free lunch" and the size and likelihood of return are inversely correlated.

We see so much startup p0rn. I remember in my early 20's seeing a founder in a business magazine and thinking "I'm smarter and harder working, so I'm gonna be a multi-millionaire by 25". I have a number of friends who have built unicorns. I have a number of equally talented friends working equally hard with (to me) equally plausible ideas who have struck out - often multiple times.

Right now I've got a small business - $500k run rate, built it part time, no staff. My goal is to get it to a $2-$5M run rate and take some cash out each year to fund early retirement in a decade. It's not sexy, but I believe the likelihood of me being able to achieve that is higher than the likelihood of being able to successfully create, exit and profit from a unicorn. And at 49 I have only so many hits at bat left given that most of them seem to take 5-10 years.