Ask HN: Anyone else give up on trying to get rich?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43889264

by 999900000999 • 1 year ago

17 39 1 year ago

news.ycombinator.com

Let me preference this by saying I'm comfortable where I'm at. I have a solid upper middle class job and I can afford to take vacations and travel.

I'm doing much better than I could of ever hopped to when I was growing up.

However, in my mid 30s, something is different. I went from trying to come up with multi-million dollar ideas and cold calling( tweeting/emailing) VCs asking for funding and feedback. Now I'm just content working on small games.

I have another project which is basically a music/lyric video generator in Unity.

I really like the technical aspects of creating a startup, picking a stack and hacking something together. I hate the business side. Idea guys with half-baked ideas who expect free prototypes. I like building stuff with my friends, but actually figuring out how to make money... That's the hard part.

gsky• 1 year ago

Building for fun what made me sleep well. I realised money is evil. It always brings bad crowd including your partner

mrandish2• 1 year ago

As someone who eventually 'got rich' (to a very comfortable FatFIRE level) after decades of high-tech startup entrepreneurship across three startups and over a dozen new products, my primary objective was never "get rich". It was to earn a good living, making cool things, in ways I found interesting, in collaboration with people I liked, for customers I liked (<--- that last part is important). While I knew making better-than-good money was always a possibility, it was never the deciding factor in choosing what to do, how to do it, who to do it with or for.

trying to come up with multi-million dollar ideas

In my experience, starting with that mindset is unlikely to work - and worse, its focusing on the wrong thing. If you can see the multi-million dollar idea - so can other people, including competitors with more money and momentum than a new startup. I approached it differently.

The general pattern which had the best success rate for me was applying a new technology (or old tech in a new way) which I found intriguing or cool to solve a real-world problem in a new or different way that was both better and cheaper than existing solutions. One important element was validating very early on that this problem actually existed and was important (ie high-value) to real potential customers. This meant actually meeting these people and sharing a non-functioning demo or conceptual prototype able to get them interested enough to want to test prototypes as the product evolved. If your non-functioning solution demo doesn't get real potential customers almost pleading to get in the beta - then you don't yet have the right problem, solution or customer.

Developing solutions to solve real problems for real people whose names, needs and preferences we already knew made development both easier AND a lot more fun. It kept us focused and grounded in ways that were transformative. Note: I didn't say there had to be a million customers with a validated TAM of zillions of dollars. Just a handful of real customers in enough need to want to spend their limited time guiding some startup's non-existent product into existence. They're not doing it because they're nice, they're doing it because they're not happy with what they've got and want to ensure your solution arrives in a form able to solve their problem. I never spent a lot of time validating there was a huge market beyond the first pool of customers. I felt okay as long as there was plausible evidence of some reasonably sizable number of customers beyond our handful of "new best friend" customers. Doing it this way ensured we'd make some number of early adopters delighted as well as there being a high probability of at least enough early customers for a two-pizza-sized company to survive for a while.

While this was no guarantee of eventual riches, it did help ensure we were making something of real immediate value for at least some real customers who'd pay for our solution - and that alone put us past about >80% of the early issues that kill startups. The "riches" possibility is innate because once you're successfully applying an interesting new technology in new ways to solve a real problem that at least some real customers will pay real money for - there's probably at least a 10% - 20% chance you're one pivot (or less) away from an emerging new market you can be on (or close) to the ground floor of. So - once you're nearing first delivery to your "new best friend" customers, start keeping your eyes peeled for that emerging opportunity that's somewhere nearby in the same or an adjacent market. If it's not there, you've still got a lifestyle-sized business that's either breaking even or close to it, and that alone provides options. You can decide there's potential and work toward turning that break even into profit and growth or you can pivot to something adjacent with the benefit of some cash flow, real customers and the momentum of a shipping team. And that alone tends to get the attention of all the VCs who previously wouldn't return your calls.

I hate the business side... actually figuring out how to make money... That's the hard part.

I doubt you'll be able to make it as a tech startup entrepreneur until you re-frame that. I used to jokingly say "If you solve a present and painful problem for your customers, it's hard to get them to stop throwing money at you." While an exaggeration, there's serious truth there. As for making money, until you find engineering a business model that actually works just as fascinating as engineering any other machine into actually fucking working - you'll suck at doing it and keep hating it. If you don't see a 'business model' as just another interesting, tangible and tractable engineering problem to be instrumented, debugged and solved - you'll probably have a better time working for other people.

I like building stuff with my friends

Okay, when you guys are done playing with yourselves, maybe try playing with someone else... or, even better, for someone else. Like real customers. Helping nice people in real need is way more interesting, challenging and emotionally rewarding than playing with yourselves. And having an audience who's invested in the quality of your performance is a wonderful way stay grounded in what matters. I got into this as a 20 year-old introvert who liked nerding around with computers, but on the journey I ended up meeting nice people with interesting problems and discovered I kind of liked using my nerd powers to 'save them' from the shitty, costly or annoying problem making part of their day miserable. Give it a try. Frankly, if solving interesting problems in cool ways for nice people doesn't light up some chunk of neurons in your skull, then maybe entrepreneurship isn't for you.

Bottom line, the way I eventually managed to "get rich" was by not trying to get rich. Instead, I changed my definition of success to: having fun with my friends solving real problems in technically interesting ways for real customers we liked. I emotionally came to peace with the reality that, if all I managed to do was solve problems for enough people to pay our rent and bills with a few bucks left over - that alone was enough. Not only enough to be worth doing but enough to be morally and ethically "Good". Sure, more financial upside would be nice if it happened but, the reality is, some of that will always be out of our control. Your post sounds like you're basically giving up on playing the tech startup game. Before you do, at least consider there may be ways to redefine the game so that it matters to more people than you and your friends, so that money is not the only metric and so that "winning" is mostly within your control.

9999000009994• 1 year ago

Your post sounds like you're basically giving up on playing the tech startup game. Before you do, at least consider there may be ways to redefine the game so that it matters to more people than you and your friends, so that money is not the only metric and so that "winning" is mostly within your control.

Correct. I'm still open to working for startups, but as far as coming up with my own ideas, I've accepted it's probably not going to happen.

I still plan on making some side projects, working on an open source game now, and I've written a script ( probably going to switch it to a short graphical novel I can self fund).

I definitely will revisit your comment in the future, I think you've just provided a full semester of Business School in a few paragraphs. What I take from this is I need to find the tools that people want, and actually build those instead of building tools and then telling people how amazing and great they are.

I think the next big B2B opportunity would be something like Pivotal Tracker / Jira , but with intelligent LLM generated summaries of what each team member is working on. As well as the option to assign small scale tickets to code agents which would either write the code or at a minimum create a branch with the methods stubbed out.

I don't really think I have the capital to do this personally. But hypothetically if I did, I'd build a POC and then offer it to members of my game dev group.

Or maybe I should just go down to this one bar where I know a lot of old school business folks hang out. These are men and women with relatively high net worths, and just ask straight up what problems they'd liked solved.

Do you have any suggestions for books on your business philosophy ? I might have free time in a few months.

mrandish2• 1 year ago

What I take from this is I need to find the tools that people want

Yep.

Do you have any suggestions for books

Lean Startup by Eric Ries

Business Model Generation by Alex Osterwalder

cc1012• 1 year ago

I gave up this year when I learned that I have a fatal disorder. There isn't enough time left to get rich. I don't recommend slacking off because you have plenty of time yet. Once your number comes up, it's too late.

scarface_743• 1 year ago

I hate to sound like an asshole. But your lesson is from finding out time may be short is that you wished you had made more money?

cc1012• 1 year ago

Then don't sound like one.

WheelsAtLarge• 1 year ago

People who can never have enough money don't want the money. What they want is the dopamine hit they get every time they feel they have won. Money is the measuring stick they are using to keep track. No amount of money will make them happy. You can say the same about the elites in any field. It's not about the thing but about winning the competition.

Many of us will hit a point where what we have is enough. If we are lucky enough to hit that point then we will retire or keep doing what needs to be done to maintain that point. Looks like you hit that point. Good for you...

Desafinado9• 1 year ago

Many years ago when I took my current role I made a conscious decision to choose something that would grant me a good work-life balance. I wanted to check out at 4PM, not have to think about work after that, and do whatever I wanted.

Since making this decision I've become an expert in a number of hobbies, gotten married, had kids, and am now living a quite pleasant life. The financial freedom people aim for in retirement, the time, I have that already. I'm already living a care-free life, largely doing what I want.

I have a family member who is a multi-millionaire and who owns multiple businesses. He has more money now than I'll have in my lifetime. But I have something that he doesn't have - time. In my estimation time is a much more valuable commodity to obtain than money. If you can work your career so you have enough money, but also time, that's a more valuable goal than simply 'being rich'.

Money with no free time and boat load of stress is a shit life.

kadushka3• 1 year ago

Your rich relative has more time than you – he chooses how to spend all his time while you can only choose how to spend part of your time. He chooses to work, you have to work.

Desafinado9• 1 year ago

Nope, he has no choice but to work as well, but he works 7 days a week and 10 hour days to keep his businesses afloat.

If he retired.. then what? I'm also going to retire, but in the interim I experience no stress, have plenty of free time, and enjoy what I do.

paulcole5• 1 year ago

But I have something that he doesn't have - time

No, both of you have the exact same amount of time each day.

But it seems like he has more freedom in how he spends that time? It's just that you don't agree with how he chooses to use it? The reason I say that is that you say spend your time "largely doing what I want." Doesn't your rich relative spend ALL their time doing what they want?

Desafinado9• 1 year ago

Nope. He is still dependent on his businesses to survive. It's a job for him just like it is for me. I have a boss, his businesses are his boss.

The difference is that I work far fewer, less stressful hours, and have much more time to myself.

That's not to say that all businesses turn our like that, but the point is that having more money doesn't necessarily mean you have a better lifestyle.

I can count a number of people who have more money than me but who have awful, stressful or tedious jobs.

paulcole5• 1 year ago

Anyone else give up on trying to get rich?

How hard were you actually trying when you were trying to get rich? How close did you come to getting rich?

Why didn't you start a plumbing business or become a dentist or something?

Did you ever have a concrete definition of "rich" or was it always some nebulous "more" amount compared to what you had at any given time?

9999000009994• 1 year ago

I failed a few FAANG interviews.

E5s at Facebook make around 200k a year in pure stock. Assuming it grows in value, do that for a decade and your at 2.5 million or so.

Even after the taxes, that's enough to retire overseas.

Now I'm old. It didn't happen so I'm content to write code for a middle class wage

paulcole5• 1 year ago

So I guess you didn’t try very hard to get rich?

scarface_743• 1 year ago

Why would I care about getting “rich”? I’m 50. I work remotely, I have a great marriage and deep close personal friends, I’m in pretty good shape, I’m well known and respected in my niche, I travel as much as I want to and for extended period of times.

I’ve worked at one BigTech company (only for a little over 3 years ending a couple of years ago) and turned down opportunities to make almost six figures more than I make now because stress wasn’t worth it.

I’ve given up the big house in the burbs to live in a condo one third the size, more access to amenities and much better weather.

My short term needs are met in abundance and my long term needs are being addressed by putting money in investments every pay period.

I make good money by any objective measure - but it’s equivalent to slightly less than what a mid level developer makes in BigTech.

I figured out how to make money - go to work for 40 hours a week, get good in my niche and companies with money put some of that money in my account in exchange for labor.

akni• 1 year ago

Life has seasons.

There's a season for heat/fire.

There's a season for cooling off.

I'm in the same boat, where I've cooled off.

I think it's okay.

The other way to go increase energy and light a fire again.

giantg2• 1 year ago

Similar here. I have no desire to be super successful. I just want to feel like a valued member of the team and do good work. I want enough money to someday retire and work on some reasonably priced hobbies. It's weird, but it seems like even asking for this is asking a lot.

namaria• 1 year ago

I just want to have a dignified journey. Help those around me, be a little bit better everyday, and leave peacefully when it's time. Hoarding anything seems like a way to get attached and thus unable to face my curtains time gracefully.

germinalphrase• 1 year ago

A few years - and a couple babies - ago, I transitioned from education to implementation consulting. I have been doing very well at it, but I’m not an owner and won’t get rich. It’s a funny thing to feel very good about my time as an educator while also understanding the financial safety I gave up by doing so for ten years.

I would love to join a product team and build something more durable. Consulting is very transactional and fleeting.

swah• 1 year ago

Feeling a bit lost - if there are no jobs left in 5 years, what can I do etc? With a family you can't make 1 year of savings last 5 or 10 by living very cheaply.

Ask HN: Anyone else give up on trying to get rich?

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