[monk_e_boy]

Hackernews tends to skew a persons perceptions about how hard it is to start and run a business. It's fickin ruthless and you have to be damn lucky. I feel very uncomfortable selling myself or my product to someone who can't really afford it, know damn well that I'm charging 10 times what it costs me.

But that's what you need to do to run a start up.

For the other 98% of people on this forum, a corporate job that pays the bills is all we're going to get.

[Frondo]

I actually disagree--it's not at all hard to run a regular ol' business. It can be time-consuming, and it definitely requires mastering a different set of skills (marketing, talking to people, etc) than we're used to.

But if you wanted to start a one-person construction business, with a goal to employing a few people by the end of the year, no, it wouldn't really be that hard.

In any business, you're going to spend 80% of your time talking to people (and persuading them to give you money), 10% of your time building some fancy new product, and 10% of your time changing the product based on the 80% conversation time.

Not hard, just different. I guess, though, to the technically inclined, that makes it seem really challenging.

[monk_e_boy]

Spot on. Where else on this forum are the posts about how to do the 80% time talking to people. We talk about the product, how to make the product, what technology is used in the product, if it fails the pivot. There's not much to say about talking to people.... but 80% of your time should be spent doing it. 4 out of 5 days (more or less) .... when I go to work I spend 5 out of 5 days at my PC coding.