Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by JohnFen 269 days ago
It sounds to me like you had two successes out of four attempts. That's actually an unusually high success rate!

If I'm reading it right, your two "failures" (scare quotes because I'd count the 2nd company as a half success) are the VC backed ones. VC backed companies are a particular kind of business -- maybe that's not the style that works best for you? But that's not the only (or necessarily the best, depending) approach to starting a business.
1 comments
failedagain 269 days ago
Encouraging words, well received.

I realize I'm a diva about VC. I definitely prefer capital upfront and a mission to shoot for the moon, but I have to admit that I've only demonstrated success when bootstrapping and running customer dev from the start.

Further thoughts on your point, I seem to have an expectation that I deserve free money to run a science experiment with low chance of big result, with little proof. This isn't how VC works in practice, so if I want funding, I should have built the case for it, or start now.

If it was SaaS, I'd advise bootstrapping product dev with consulting, but I don't see a path to do that with a robotics SDK. The only bootstrapping strategy I can think of is like robotics-for-coders courseware. Not a bad strategy, but that won't keep the lights on.

link
fuzzfactor 269 days ago
>I seem to have an expectation that I deserve free money

That would be some of the most expensive money of all, and most subject to loss.

>to run a science experiment

That's the entire thing my business was based on, using tonnes of electronics and instrumentation it was very hardware-oriented.

That was my life's work beforehand anyway, I knew I could make money the same old way if I didn't come up with enough new stuff to be able to monetize a solid 1% of it.

I still wouldn't use "other peoples' money" aka capital because the people who wanted to put up money, it was their retirement funds and stuff.

You can't be a capitalist without capital so I've always been a mere entrepreneur and used my own money.

I was wondering what the hardware was but looks like you've got robot-dependent software, if you're not competeing in hardware, and your SDK applies to a robot from only one company, talk to them.

It your technology applies to more than one company, talk to them all.

link