Ask HN: Am I the only one who can't create a startup at the weekend?

[mono]

I always knew that I'm no native hacker.

As I observe more and more projects announced here that were made during a weekend or in 6 hours, I know for sure:

I will never be able to create a side project in a few hours, setup a website and build the accompanying app to have it all sold before my next monday morning post at HN.

I think, I wouldn't even try this...

[teaspoon]

For one thing, you should take phrases like "weekend project" with a grain of salt. People who share their projects on HN know they're facing a tough crowd, and understating their time investment is one way to deflect the inevitable nitpicks. Add to that the typical hacker bravado factor, and you can assume the real figure is well more than whatever you read.

That's not to say that anyone is being deliberately dishonest. Most "weekend" projects borrow code from weekday jobs, layouts from ThemeForest, and ideas from weeks of idle brainstorming. It's easy to forget in retrospect all of the time that went into laying that groundwork.

[mono]

Completely agree. "Weekend" projects don't come up when you wake up on Saturday morning and are ready for sale on Monday.

My comment was caused as I observe an increasing number of these "weekend" or "side-project" messages at HN. For me it looks like the authors are too cautious to stand for their project as something that took all their attention and that still may have mistakes.

What follows is an inflationary trend that most "Show HN" posts are declared as minute-jobs and we lose the open culture of a showroom, where the other mates take your work serious and try to positively criticise it. Not long, and we have sidecars only.

I think it is not important how long one needs for a project shown here. The message transported with the timeline is else "look I'm a genious" or "sorry, all the remaining bugs are from a lack of time".

I have to remark, that I don't think of any particular posts in the last time and I know that I may include projects in my generalization that don't deserve it. This hasn't been my intention. And my original confession to be a bad hacker is still valid!

[codeslush]

I wish to express my gratitude for you posting this question.

I've been feeling rather inadequate lately because of all the posts about weekend projects. One thing I've had to try to convince myself of is that things always look different from the outside than the inside. The perfect marriage isn't always so perfect. The perfect family is often the most broken.

I'm trying to say that comparing myself to what I PERCEIVE to be the reality of others is a losing proposition. Someone will always be better, quicker, faster. All I can do is try to do what I'm able to do, little by little, day by day.

I bet people look at you and wonder how you do x in y time. Or how you do "x" at all! Your curiosity is not much different. You're looking at something from the outside - and it always appears easier from that perspective.

Keep your spirits up! You'll be fine.

[latch]

I wrote badg.ly a couple weeks ago, precisely to see if I could build it in a weekend. I already had the infrastructure setup, so that saved me a bit of time.

I also don't have a single user. That wasn't really the point of the exercise (I wanted to try new patterns out since I'm still learning Rails), but it reiterates what others have said - a startup and a website are two separate things.

[joelrunyon]

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take - Michael Jordan.

"Am I the only one who can't create a startup at the weekend?" -- your title suggests that you've tried, but your words say you haven't.

Don't disqualify yourself before you try, because until you try, you really never know

[tfitzgerald]

Not go off topic...but that is actually a Wayne Gretzky quote...not Michael Jordan.

Also, building reusable code is a good way to get future projects done in a weekend!

[joelrunyon]

Ahh...seems I've been lied to my whole life. :). I grew up playing basketball, so I guess our coaches repurposed it for their use. Drat!

[Sakes]

Keep in mind that the number of "weekend" startups compared to the number of people hacking on the weekend is very small. The quantity of successful weekend projects is even smaller.

Every now and then someone gets a good idea that is quick to implement and they are prepared/experienced enough to execute it well, but it doesn't happen as often as your post implies.

Stop beating yourself up! Get back to making something you think is cool!

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. -- Thomas Edison.

[eengstrom]

My original idea for this venture started over a dinner. My mind had been churning on related business challenges for a couple of years. I was not only focused on highly visible opportunities, I was looking for the right time and right problem to solve. For me, this meant, how can I help my customers make a great deal more money?

I pulled a sheet of paper out of the printer, scribbled down 12-13 ideas, drew some logical relationships, circled groups, labeled the ideas and then spent about 2 months refining and testing the ideas through discussion and research.

At this point we're narrowed down to about 8% of the scope of the original concept, but that 8% is viable, has customer traction (already) and looks likely to earn 1.5-2mm per customer per year.

We expect to spend another week on the pitching to initial customers and try and get closure with our first enterprise customer in the next two weeks. How long it will take to reach the right funding, we don't know. It's enterprise software and we want to grow.

What's different here is that we haven't coded anything. We won't until we have directed feedback from our pilot customers. Oh yeah, and funding. :)

[workola]

I've been working on my startup for over a year. It would be nice to have the skills and resources to create a site in a weekend but I don't and I've accepted the fact that my projects will just take longer. For me, it actually slows the development process down and lets the idea mature a little, giving me time to make decisions that are well thought out. I've also been able to reminded myself many times that if it's not cool or functional it doesn't matter how fast it was built. Plus, building it's just the first step. If anyone has any successful 'over the weekend' marketing plans please send them my way.

[aussiesilver]

I feel building a project from scratch with nothing in a weekend is no hugely likely. Most people I figure have all there ducks lined up so they are ready to hit the ground running 6pm Friday night.

An idea, maybe a rough wireframe all IDE's and tools ready to go.

[mapster]

I paid an elancer to make my app. He did it over the weekend. I still take credit :)

[JonathanWCurd]

Pick smaller more approachable projects / problems and you can.

[MattJ100]

> I think, I wouldn't even try this...

Then maybe that's why you'll never succeed in it :)

[bmelton]

Most semi-competent developers can build SOMEthing in a weekend, but the trick is making something that actually works at scale, or works for more than a single user, or providing any kind of audit trail. In short, almost all weekend projects are a hack.

The big features that people like, the UI/UX polish that makes it easy to use, the scalable backend that lets it work under load -- those things aren't generally even considered for a weekend project.

That's not to say that there aren't some people who don't produce brilliance over a weekend, but it really is the exception, not the rule.

[tastybites]

Those people aren't creating a startup in a weekend, they're creating a web app in the weekend. There's a big difference.

Web apps don't need legal structure, a brand identity, customers, revenues, profits, hell they don't even need a name.

[bo_Olean]

agreed and it's even easier to start with just you and your idea.