What was the first venture you tried? Tell your story.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12348

by zaidf • 19 years ago

6 14 19 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

zaidf2• 19 years ago

I had this idea in 8th grade to build something similar to what Yahoo Answers! is today.

I developed much of the site in ASP and partnered with a designer to do the logo design(I sucked at designing back then). Once high school started and I discovered freelancing I lost focus and never really went live.

The site was called HelpersSeekers.com. This was in 2001.

eduardoflores• 19 years ago

Kaleidoscopes. About 3rd. grade. Sold a couple :D

omouse• 19 years ago

Lemonade stand. 3rd or 4th grade. Not many people walk by in my neighbourhood so it was a loooooong wait before we sold anything :(

mattdorey• 19 years ago

I saved up and bought a CD burner ($800) when they first came out(grade 7) and started making mix CDs. At the time it was an untapped market because people only had mixed tapes, not CDs!! I had prepackaged Hip Hop, Rock, Alternative, etc. CDs and believe it or not, I charged $20 per CD. It turned into a pretty successful business just at school but then about 1-2 years later when prices came down on burners, the market became comodotized and I had to get out!

I'm now 21 and run a successful web-based start up based in Calgary. Curve Dental, check me out at curvedental.com or http://www.curvedental.com/docs/resources/april07_matt_calgaryinc-2.pdf

acheung• 19 years ago

In 2nd grade ... attempting to outdo the local brownie troop by selling girl scout cookie knockoffs. Damn thin mints! You ruined my business!!

patryn20• 19 years ago

I started selling collectibles from my desk in 4th grade during recess and other down periods.

Continued it until 6th grade, when the school principal shut it down.

My first "adult" business was a web design consultancy I started freshman year of college.

My first "startup" was a company that ran a network of drop-shipping sites hosted on their own virtual domains with unique templates, etc. We never really got it fully off the ground before founder issues blew it apart.

Currently have tagsrc.com running, though the first widget is still buggy. Trying to find time around work to do more.

dfranke• 19 years ago

I paid my caffeine bills in high school by doing computer-repair housecalls. I got a decent amount of business at $20/hr.

Stiennon• 19 years ago

A friend at work and I pooled our resources and borrowed $6K from a bank to purchase a PC AT in 1982. It had a 30 MB hard drive and amber screen. We created the first PC based finite element analysis program. We had to write it in FORTH because that was the only language that could address a full megabyte of memory.

jward• 19 years ago

When I was six I wanted a remote controlled truck. It was bright blue and in the Sears catalog. I wanted it real bad but my parents told me they wouldn't buy it for me. I had to buy it myself. It was a hundred dollars. That much money to me seemed insane.

My parents both made crafts and went to craft shows to sell their wares. I asked if I could sell stuff too and they were overjoyed. I made little fluffy things out of Fun Fur: little snake with googly eyes that rose up when you petted it and tufts glued to the end of pencils to look like those little troll dolls. Each one was priced at a dollar and my mom subsidized my venture by buying all the materials. I had to sell a hundred of them to buy my truck. I was an ADD kid so I couldn't even count that high without getting distracted.

Time rolled on and slowly over the course of a dozen or so craft sales my pile of cash grew and grew until I had enough. Just for me my parents made the three hour long (round trip)journey into the city. I was so excited. I had worked so hard and now I was getting what I wanted.

Life rarely works out as planned unfortunately. The truck also required one of those fancy batteries that wasn't included. The kind that cost another $40. My parents didn't come to my rescue. They just told me I'd have to work harder to afford the new cost. On the way back I was in tears, my heart broken. My mother then told me that I shouldn't be sad, and to remember the smiles of the people I sold my stuff to. Money was just a way to say thank you, but the real reward was in making other people happy.

cbueno• 19 years ago

Counterfeiting checks and legal tender. On newsprint. In pencil. I figured I'd bootstap into enough cash to buy proper pens and paper.

Alex3917• 19 years ago

I sneaked into our HS principle's office after school was over one day and printed out a fake school ID saying I was a senior on the school's own printer. This allowed me to take my car off campus during lunch. I'd then come back with several bags of Chinese takeout and sell it for a good profit. :-)

zaidf2• 19 years ago

LMAO!

Reminded me of middle school where this one admin kept track of how many times you didn't have your school ID around your neck. The admin was my science teacher and saved everything in an Access db on a computer everyone used in his class. It was very enticing to just ... the db.

chmike• 19 years ago

When I was 8year old, I collected empty glass bottles in public trashes and earned some money when bringing them back to sellers. The trick is to find a good spot to find these bottles. I guess this could work today with pieces of furniture one can restore. Sorry to be out of topic, it's not IT ;)

When I was older I couldn't afford to buy a computer. So I built one my self. A friend who was EE made the plans and I also follow his directoves. It never went into a venture because the video output was not good and stable enough, but some worked well. It was a nice experience though.

Later got an Oric atmos. I wrote a disassembler and disassembled the whole OS, disk controler and basic interpreter. I then wrote a symbolic assembler that could call functions of the OS I digged out. This all done with peek&poke. Then came the Mac+, the PC, Linux, etc.

dbl• 19 years ago

I got my state vendor's license in high school, and bought Magic:The Gathering cards at wholesale prices. I resold them at school at just under retail prices. I setup monthly tournaments in my parents' basement to sell more cards. I would routinely have 30+ people attend.

What was the first venture you tried? Tell your story.

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