Ask HN: Hacker to Hobbyist to Entrepreneur?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2130746

by gnok • 16 years ago

33 16 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Background: For a long time, I've been hacking around with code and design; starting a bunch of tiny projects but never finishing them. Recently, having discovered the beauty of persistence, I've started taking one project to completion and I'm getting there slowly but surely.

From my perspective, I see two classes of problems to solve: 'technical' (know-how to write, debug, deploy and secure a webapp) and 'business' (learn how to understand customer needs, acquire them and solve their problems)

Question: Is there an established or 'well worn' path for going from a Hacker to an Entrepreneur? I have sort of assumed that its 'hack with code' -> 'finish and ship a couple of simple web apps for free' -> 'understand a market, acquire customers and then build a real product'. Would any HN'ers be willing to share their stories?

pzxc• 16 years ago

More like "build a real product, acquire customers, and then understand a market"

Ryan_IRL• 16 years ago

Your question tells me you have as good an understanding of the process as you need. Also, I think a good entrepreneur has a sense of what they can't do, ie. marketing, etc. That understanding comes with some failures as far as I can tell.

elbrodeur• 16 years ago

There isn't a handbook: There are thousands. All of them written by people who made it, academics who understand it or people who were on the sidelines when it happened.

The tricky part is: You just have to do it. The handbooks won't help you with that, unfortunately.

Ship it and see what happens.

bobds• 16 years ago

You forgot the many people that write handbooks full of made up shit. So you have to keep the following two rules in mind:

Be careful of whose advice you buy.

Free advice is not always free.

cosgroveb• 16 years ago

This is definitely a good place to start reading: http://www.kalzumeus.com/start-here-if-youre-new/

gnok2• 16 years ago

Great link, thank you!

fazworks• 16 years ago

I found a good partner that complimented my skills so I could focus on the business part while my genius hacker partner could focus on the technical problems. Don't go it alone, find a great partner, someone will challenge you, encourage you, and inspire you. Together, you both get excited and the business will be born.

spinlock• 16 years ago

You need to spend a lot of time understanding your customers. Who are they? What problem do they want solved? And, what gets them to part with their money? I would start with "Four Steps to the Epiphany" and read up about lean-startups. But, the most important thing to know is that you will have to be a salesman. You'll need to sell your idea to partners, your company to investors, and your product to clients. If you're not a salesman, hook up with a partner who is.

All that being said, your perspective on execution (i.e. complete your product) is exactly right. There are a lot of good ideas and great salesmen in the world. The secret to building a company is to have that and execute on your designs.

DanielBMarkham• 16 years ago

I've been studying this for a while, and the topic is personally very important to me, so I'm going to plug three books (affiliate links ahead, just google the titles if you want)

The first is the "E-Myth" -- great book on the difference between a manager, technician, and entrepreneur. Start here for the vocabulary and basic concepts you'll need: http://amzn.to/cn4BHT

The second is a little-known personal favorite, "A Good Hard Kick in the Ass". It's a little dated, but it's a great book about generally separating what's important from what isn't. I found it was a good book to learn attitude. http://amzn.to/hLi5xc

The last book is the book I'm currently reading: "Start Small, Stay Small" http://amzn.to/ictZdR I haven't finished it all yet, but the entire premise of the book is the move between coder and entrepreneur. It exactly answers your question.

From there, you can move on to blogs (which are great, but I find them a little too much in bulleted format for my tastes) or books about the nuts and bolts of what makes a great startup, like customer-driven development, or lean startups, or how best to handle yourself during the development process, like that stoicism book I read last year. Another awesome book. Lots of other great material out there. Too much, in fact.

Hope that helps you get started. I've got an entire site dedicated to answering the question of how hackers become entrepreneurs, http://hn-books.com Might want to check that out too. The initial book list was generated by a google search on Hacker News (hence the "hn" in the title) for books that we consistently recommend to each other here. Your question, or variations on it, is one of HN's recurring themes.

gnok2• 16 years ago

Sweet! You've done a terrific amount of research here. I just realized you have a pretty interesting profile too.

robyates• 16 years ago

I've been meaning to check out "Start Small, Stay Small" for a while, glad you recommend it. Two more books to add as well:

4. "How to Get Rich" (Dennis) http://amzn.to/5s0Z02 - Not your typical get-rich-quick book. This book is all about the hard work and sacrifice it takes to accomplish your goal.

5. "Do More Faster" (Feld & Cohen) http://amzn.to/culsRy - Was recommended by a friend, this is probably the next best thing to doing TechStars or YC without actually being there.

olalonde• 16 years ago

There is and it's called The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steven Gary Blank.

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven-Blank/dp/09...

joshkaufman• 16 years ago

Check out my book - it's designed to be a comprehensive introduction to business, particularly for hackers: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591843529/

mapster• 16 years ago

I would find your own path and avoid drinking the silicon valley / VC-hyped Kool aid.

kenkyhuang• 16 years ago

Reading books is only going to get you so far.

Join a startup for a few years and get operational experience. While you're there don't just limit yourself to hacking. Get to know your co-workers (should be easy, it's a small organization right?), offer to help out cross-functionally, etc. Gain visibility and understanding into what the founders and managements think about long-term and on the day-to-day.

Once you've got your feet wet, then take the jump yourself.

rstocker99• 16 years ago

This is topic that is near and dear to my heart as well. I'm not sure there is a well worn path especially if you're looking to start a business (i.e. something that puts cash in your pocket vs. "starting a startup").

From my experience the trickest and most difficult areas are around customer acquisition and monetization. Both are sort of black arts and are tricky (at least for me) to learn. As best as I can tell these each take a lot of practice. Anyone can list out tactics from the "big list" but knowing which ones to use when and how to taylor them to a particular business isn't easy. Typically you can't know which will work in a given scenario until you've tried them in the individual business in question. It appears that this is an area where deep business experience (at a P&L level) really pays off.

You talk about build, learn and then acquire but the devil is the details and your perspective on how to approach these things is of critical importance.

I think there is huge benefit (especially for technical folks) in spending some time upfront during the idea stage (i.e. BEFORE coding) really thinking through who will pay you, why they will pay you and a rough sketch on how that scales up into some meaningful cashflow. Do the back of the envelop arithmetic and prove it makes some basic sense. This sort of backwards thinking on how you will actually make money from your efforts is the difference between coding software and starting a software business regardless of how small or large it will be. This business level thinking should be a key part of your everyday idea validation process. Something that you are doing all the time as you have ideas for businesses to start. It helps you develop some instincts on what might make money and what actually won't.

Obviously you'll be wrong in a million different ways that you'll never know until you actually plough forward with an idea but you'll be less wrong than you would have been if you just pick the first cool idea and start coding. You'll also develop useful assumptions that you can check. Learn to share these thoughts with other people (and potential customers) to deepen your understanding.

You're likely already in good position on the technical side so I'd suggest focusing on sales, marketing and general business side.

For books you'll likely find a lot of value on http://personalmba.com/best-business-books/ and on http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum.... Some also mentioned Four Steps to the Epiphany which I think is required (if not totally pleasant) reading.

Books are great. They will give you useful background and food for thought but at the end of the day you need to JFDI. If you're like me that will be a bit scary but there really isn't another option if this is path you want to pursue.

It also helps if you make some connections with other folks who have some experience to get ideas, perspective etc.

If you're interested in discussing in more depth my contact info is in my profile.

Ask HN: Hacker to Hobbyist to Entrepreneur?

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