Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by nadam 2296 days ago
"... you can't find your first customers"

I think the biggest problem for most of us is not being exposed to actual burning problems which can be solved with a small budget, and not solved already by dozens of other startups or even free software. Even though I am a quite shy person, and need to learn a lot about sales, my biggest problem is not that I cannot do sales if I really have to, but that i donát have good business ideas which are within reach. (I am a developer.)
2 comments
jmstfv 2296 days ago
> and not solved already by dozens of other startups or even free software

That used to deter me as well. My line of thinking was: if the problem X is already solved by N companies, why should I launch yet another competitor? Now that I'm wiser, my answer is "because people are familiar with the problem, are already paying for the solution, which means there's a market for that". I can't stress the last point enough. The market that you choose to serve will determine most of your growth (some markets are harder to get into than others, though).

In essence, you swap an idea validation challenge with a sales and marketing challenge. If all you're looking for is building a small, independent, and sustainable business, I believe this is the most optimal approach to take.

For the context: I run a B2B SaaS in a competitive market.

link
rabbitsfoot8 2296 days ago
I completely agree with this. Just because an idea already exist doesn't mean you shouldn't build a product for it. But you should try and build it in some better way. A lot of products exist but aren't very good or have not been "modernised". It's then A LOT easier to get that product off the ground because of the hardest things is idea validation.
link
JoeAltmaier 2296 days ago
My Entrepreneurial Engineer class I took said that. Investors regard 1) new IP, 2) new product, 3) new marketing channel as risks not advantages. Selling a better mousetrap is the ideal startup from that point of view.
link
zupreme 2296 days ago
I second a portion of that. Sometimes it is tough being both and idea factory, and a great engineer, but still to have analysis paralysis about which idea to build, because you are not sure regarding scale of need of need.

This is temporary, but it is a loop that comes again and again between projects.

link