Ask HN: Where to Find Motivated People?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33757328

30 24 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I’ve been really wanting to build stuff as I’m always tinkering and building small things to learn and grow. Unfortunately, my friends don’t have the same mindset and I live in a super relaxed beach town in California.

How can I find people that still just enjoy being creative and building useful things?

monsecchris• 4 years ago

I've been searching decades for the same thing. Good luck.

mindcrime• 4 years ago

Mostly I'd say "don't bother". Just do it yourself and if you get to a point where you can't do it all, hire help on a mostly mercenary basis. Or if you're doing it just for fun and not so much to build a company, you can also put the thing on Github (if it's a software project) and spread the word and hope somebody else comes along who wants to contribute.

I say this because, IME, the chances of finding people who:

- are motivated

- are talented

- are compatible with you from a personality viewpoint

AND (perhaps most importantly)

- aren't already working on their own thing

approximates 0. If you find somebody like that and can partner up with them, treat it like "found money". But if you wait for that to happen to start building something, you'll probably never start.

CrypticShift• 4 years ago

I will only talk about online opportunities :

When we browse the Web, be it HN, GitHub, Twitter, blogs… we

- either consciously forget that there are receptive people like us staring at their computer on the other side.

- or assume the interesting ones are not interested in connecting with us.

- or we engage with them but mostly in an anonymous, minimal, unthoughtful kind of way.

I'm not telling you to be manipulative, or have a full clear agenda, but IMO it is necessary to be proactive and have a long-term vision on this.

Also, I'm not telling you to start tracking all interesting contacts in a CRM, but why not consciously build a small spreadsheet where you put the one that built that delightful small GitHub project, or the other one who has kindred ideas on HN ?

Like physical relationships, virtual ones need to be nurtured. It is not going to happen without forcing it a little. For every 100 people, the 2 or 3 that will truly connect with us may be worth it. If you don't do it you will never now.

CAUTION: disappointment is useless. The web is full of people. Thank you. Next.

All this will be obvious for all those (successful) entrepreneurs out there (or as obviously futile for the cynics) . But "basic" things need to be rehached sometimes.

f0e4c2f7• 4 years ago

One time I thought it might be cool to teach homeless people how to code. It wasn't clear to me if that was a useful approach but it seemed like it might be interesting.

I wanted to see if anyone else had tried it so I searched on YouTube and found a video where someone filmed themselves with the same idea.

Most of the video was them politely asking dozens of homeless people if they would like to learn, offering to pay them for their time. Most said no. Maybe they passed on a good deal here? Maybe it was a waste of time?

Eventually they find this guy and he is skeptical but he says yeah sure. They teach him the basics. For loops, if statements, variables and stuff like that. Then they pay him and that's it. The end of the video. I wish they would have kept up with him and tried to help him get a job next. But again who knows might not even be a good path anyway.

My point is, and my takeaway from that video. Even if you have a good deal, and a lot of times we don't even know if we have a good deal exactly. You have to ask dozens maybe hundreds of people before you find someone who is interested.

I think you can cheat this by going to places like SV where there are more founder types. But it mostly just opened my mind about being more willing to be rejected and approach more people rather than ponder why the 3 or 4 people I had asked weren't interested in starting a company or whatever else it might be.

tetris11• 4 years ago

Related Guardian Article:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/nov/02/experie...

Silverback_VII• 4 years ago

Most people in modern society suffer under learned helplessness. Mostly because in childhood they had to go (or suffer) through schools without having much agency.

If you are constantly told that your own way is the wrong way of doing things then your are less inclined to do something on your own.

pleb_nz• 4 years ago

I think you're right.

It wouldn't surprise me if a certain percentage of every society would be inclined to be this way regardless of the environment. I once read an article in which it was said they believed even in the earliest groups/societies approx 3-4% of people would be inclined to not want to contribute to the group and the rest of the group supported them.

Sounds plausible

readonthegoapp• 4 years ago

be helpful if we could find your profile page of some type but i guess that's out...

UniverseHacker• 4 years ago

Find a maker club, hacker lab, etc.

faangiq• 4 years ago

Motivated people don’t need other people to build stuff.

cableshaft• 4 years ago

Some projects are too big for one person to reasonably complete on their own, especially if they have areas they're weak in. Or not working with someone else places limits on what they can make.

Like I can make video games, and I can make art for video games, but if I want the game to have a decent chance of becoming popular, I'm likely going to need to work with a proper artist at some point. The games in which I did look a lot more interesting and attracted the eye more than the games I've made all on my own, at least (and I've done both).

Also, I can make video games by myself, but I only have time to make small games if by myself (currently working on a small game now in my spare time). I could potentially tackle a larger and more ambitious game if I worked with another programmer.

Realistically I'm never going to be able to make a Stardew Valley on my own, at least not working on it full-time for years like that guy did, his girlfriend paying most of their expenses for several years.

satvikpendem• 4 years ago

Lots of sites for this:

https://IndieHackers.com

https://IndieWorldwide.com

https://FoundersCafe.io

/r/startups

hbcondo714• 4 years ago

I grew up in a once "super relaxed beach town" called Huntington Beach[1]. I was quite happy going to the bars on Main St and even driving up to LA for the clubs. After a few years of leading this night life, I wanted to further my education so I went to grad school on a part-time basis. That completely replaced my night life with "motivated" professors and fellow students.

After graduating, my good friend that I led the night life with went to grad school and I got a part-time job at the local university where my students motivated me.

[1] https://www.surfcityusa.com/

quickthrower2• 4 years ago

Some ideas:

Move?

Run a local linux user group, advertise on local boards

Just meet people online and do projects together remotely

Is there a university nearby? See what they have going on?

Commute for meetups and hackathons

Get remote programming gigs and you will end up conversing with other builders.

syntheweave• 4 years ago

Being "a person who studies" is habitually lonely. In general the place to go to find like minds is in something that fits Douglas Adams' "new and exciting and you can probably get a career in it."

But it's not a place per-se so much as a series of meetings of the mind. That is, any scene where you are allowed to have a high quality of conversation could potentially apply; whatever art medium or form of technical discussion happens to be hot in your area will be your most likely option, which in a California beach town, could actually mean technical recreations like sailing or surfing have scooped up the interesting folks, because there's a scarcity of opportunity for that in most of the world.

The reason why you can't go just anywhere for any topic has a lot to do with bell curves, a little bit to do with forms of gatekeeping and generational knowledge(as topics become fashionable or not, a particular generation who got in at the right moment will end up being the experts), and a great deal to do with path dependencies in the sense of building on what's available.

In general, luminaries in many specialized fields of research, where they're known within the practice but a bit removed from public celebrity, are totally available through their email. All you have to do is have the courage to reach out and share something indicative of your passion - a question, a project, a review or comment on something they published. Worst case, they might ignore you or send a generic "thanks, go away" reply. But if you have something good, it can often work out that they see an interesting conversation and will ask for more.

jazzyjackson• 4 years ago

Go to hacker cons. HOPE, DWEB, CCC

nicbou• 4 years ago

Build in public.

I started posting about my work on social media. Bear in mind that this is a website about local bureaucracy, hardly interesting stuff. People reached out, invited me for drinks, etc. I met a few of them, heard their feedback, gave mine. We met again and again and became friends.

We all build our own thing, but share knowledge openly and talk shop over a pint. Some want to talk about money and growth and others want to talk about the tech or even the ethics. It's nice to have such a variety of conversations spawned from a few tweets.

I'd also encourage you to reach out. Take the time to write to strangers on the internet. It's no different than walking to your neighbour's garage while he's working on something. It's how you meet people who like working on stuff.

dontbenebby• 4 years ago

Adding an email to your bio might help :-)

throwaway0asd• 4 years ago

Motivation and motivated people are products of certain behaviors.

* The primary driver of motivation in animal brains (even in small worms) is a healthy dopamine cycle. In the brain there exists a dopamine baseline by which regular drive and motivation occur. There are also dopamine spikes when a pleasurable moment occurs. A dopamine spike is always followed by a dopamine crash and that dopamine crash will always occur in the same ratio below baseline that the spike occurred above baseline. Driven people are able to maintain a near constant high baseline and recognize their depressive spikes with healthy and positive responses.

Drug use, except for caffeine, almost always damages and/or destroys either the dopamine cycle or permanent dopamine production. A primary motivator behind the consumption of drugs, particularly combinations of drugs, is chasing a dopamine high that has already left the brain.

* Openness is one of the big 5 of personality indicators. Openness is the willingness to try new experiences and creativity falls under openness. Openness is not in any way correlated with extroversion.

These are not necessarily alpha personalities, as in their goal is probably not to compete but rather to be productive and industrious and probably original. This is an important distinction because alpha personalities qualify their performance in comparison to others while industrious and/or creative people quality their performance in response to their output even when there are not other people to compare against.

Those two qualities are what you need to look for: healthy living by people with a naturally higher than average dopamine baseline and people with a high personality index in openness. I recommend looking for people who have an abnormal need to build and/or produce things. The famous musician Hans Zimmer is really good at this. He has a traveling band composed of a mix of classically trained musicians and rock/metal musicians. When Hans Zimmer looks for new band members he has on several occasions found highly talented amateurs off of personal videos posted to YouTube. These are people who may completely lake the confidence of an alpha personality, but are still driven to create music and post it on YouTube at risk of complete embarrassment. The result is that Hans Zimmer hires emerging talent on the cheap and this emerging talent is immediately thrust into world-class training.

* Guthrie Govan discovered by Hans Zimmer via YoutTube - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guthrie_Govan#Hans_Zimmer

* Dopamine explained in a 2 hour video by a Stanford neurology professor - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmOF0crdyRU

MonaroVXR• 4 years ago

Me, I'm making my own website (again) and the next project will be a crud websitr/app.

kleer001• 4 years ago

You're looking for people with high drive (rare) and high openness to experience (rare).

my friends don’t have the same mindset

They're not parts of a mindset, they're part of a personality, and they're baked in. They can't be chosen. They can't be argued into. You're born with them.

If you want to find more people like that you'll have to work really hard. Your best bet is to make something those kind of people want. How? What? I have no idea.

michepriest• 4 years ago

I joined a group called Portfolio of Small Bets by Daniel Vassallo. It’s an online community in Discord full of people doing all kinds of projects. The majority are devs. There are channels for marketing, lifestyle, meetups, small wins. The premise is to design work to fit your life

I’ve met many interesting creators there. Some build software, many create info products and courses, and some make and sell physical products. The community is full of top tier creators so great to learn insider tips

lurker616• 4 years ago

Start a part-time masters online or at a local uni. You'll meet plenty of motivated people. Btw, you might find that most people are motivated by money, not by the love of science/tinkering.

saasxyz• 4 years ago

Build stuff and post the updates on social media. I am building a little apps for the past one year and tweet about them. Twitter now feels like my community. I love seeing what others are building, what their strategies are, how much they earn etc. I have some what grown to a phase where people give me feedback on my idea when I post them on Twitter.

Ask HN: Where to Find Motivated People?

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