Ask HN: I have a startup idea, I don't how to move forward?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10027448

by arjitkp • 11 years ago

4 9 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I am a noob in this field, I started learning how to code in Python, been a few days. I do have this idea and I want to try and give a pilot run to it. But all I have is and idea, help me what should be my next step

marketkarma2• 11 years ago

Buy a $5 virtual service instance at DigitalOcean (https://www.digitalocean.com/) and get to coding.

arjitkp2• 11 years ago

What is it? I have no idea how to use it. Apologies for that

marketkarma2• 11 years ago

It's an inexpensive cloud hosting service that would allow you to get your idea up and online.

These might help:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/?q=python

facorreia• 11 years ago

Your first step should be: get out of the building[1].

Go meet in person and talk to 5 to 10 people in your target market. E.g. pay them a cup of coffee, or set up a 15-minute meeting at their business place. Ask them what their major pain points are, and validate that your solution would be valuable to them. You'll know that if they (at least informally) agree to pay you $x/month for such solution.

You'll either learn a lot about what's really important to solve, or find out early that there's not a market for it.

[1] http://www.inc.com/steve-blank/key-to-success-getting-out-of...

cdvonstinkpot2• 11 years ago

You might have some luck hiring a team of developers rather than going at it yourself. Something like: https://www.imoneza.com/about/

mc_hammer• 11 years ago

(optional) kickstarter

build it

get users

get funding

(why this order? its easier to get funding if you have users. also get funding! its hard and expensive to run a company)

expanding on the build it:

get a template you like from themeforrest.net (really $5-20 for a template, is amazing, people spend $80,000 for a design and website or app... )...just get one that matches your site function close enough, its only $10 so you can change it later

start building your app and site or product

build a MVP - Minimum viable product, basically a stripped down simple version (not every whiz bang feature you could add). The goal is to build this in a few weeks and get it out there so you can see if its going to take off or not. (theres tons of articles on MVP).

edit: the other posters idea about testing the idea is very valid also. there are other ways to test it too, like putting some sample ads on craigslist or ebay and seeing if you get any calls. or putting a landing page (emails)/order page and seeing if you get any orders (then cancel them and apologize) to test the validity of the idea.

CaiGengYang• 11 years ago

Most important thing is to build something that a core group of users love , once you build a product that a small group of dedicated users love, it will be much easier to get funding from VC's or angel investors ..

cdvonstinkpot2• 11 years ago

Or this: http://www.cocreatellc.com/

arjitkp2• 11 years ago

What about the technical aspects like the coding part? I am learning Python as of now. Anything else I should get my hands dirty on

Ask HN: I have a startup idea, I don't how to move forward?

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