How Hacker News motivated me to resign my job and launch my own startup (2011)

http://blog.freshdesk.com/the-freshdesk-story-how-a-simple-comment-on-h-0/#.UDeQC8GPV8E

by zio99 • 14 years ago

90 24 14 years ago

blog.freshdesk.com

GFischer2• 14 years ago

It's a great story (especially for us outside the U.S.).

It has already been discussed here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2340732

but it's nice to revisit an old success story :)

sidcool• 14 years ago

Congratulations for launching. Welcome to hell! :) And wish you luck.

GFischer2• 14 years ago

They launched a year ago, the title should say (2011) :)

And they've already raised 10 millon dollars, and a few fights with ZenDesk too :P

january14n• 14 years ago

Good luck! and welcome to the new world!

tolliator• 14 years ago

I see you got getmefast to design your website, how much of that design is left in the current version, and how was the overall experience with that company? Thanks

girishm2• 14 years ago

We have changed much of the old site design developed by getmefast after we had the bandwidth and resources to have an inhouse team. Our experience was good enough to get started with a website. However for a start just getting some good templates from themeforest may do the job also for a lower cost till you can afford to hire a top notch team.

acgourley2• 14 years ago

I also have hacker news to thank for my entrepreneurial career, I think. There isn't a good story there, I've just been reading it for about 6 years, right about when I was graduating college, and the cult of YC indoctrinated me. Edit: For clarification, year 1 and 2 of hacker news were extremely focused on PG, PG's writings, YC, etc. So when I saw I was indoctrinated it's because the site was nothing but that.

zio99• 14 years ago

Was bitgym funded by YC? Really impressed by your business proposition and your bike hack: http://blog.bitgym.com/2012/03/our-first-lean-hypothesis/ After 23 blog posts in 2 years, I'm sure there's more where that came from. Would you mind sharing your backstory here? Or a 1 minute rundown via email aaron [at] brownieinmotion [dot] ca. I would be honoured to spotlight bitgym in my book: http://sellfy.com/p/9j2z A bit of background: http://startupframework.tumblr.com/post/29634915106/what-i-l... Thanks Alex!

acgourley2• 14 years ago

We are not associated with or funded by YC, although Sam did fund us personally. I'll shoot you an email.

colkassad• 14 years ago

You know, I always groan a bit when I read headlines like this. I decided to click through so I could satisfy my pathetic desire to scoff and ended up reading a great story. Very inspiring, and I hope the best for you guys.

j2bax• 14 years ago

I'd be interested to know what the overall costs and quality would be for a US startup to move to India for lower operation costs at least for the initial stages. Does anyone have experience with this?

Silicon Valley sounds great, but cost of living and cost of talent makes it seem out of reach at least for the near future.

ebbv• 14 years ago

What a funny coincidence, I was just looking at freshdesk yesterday. I really want to place our support software (Kayako), but there just aren't good options out there.

Unfortunately SaaS doesn't work for us, but I wish these guys the best. Looks like they're on the right track and have the right priorities.

combataircraft• 14 years ago

I recommend you to use Zendesk; http://zendesk.com

pc86• 14 years ago

> Unfortunately SaaS doesn't work for us

> I recommend you to use Zendesk

Come on

dinkumthinkum2• 14 years ago

Interesting, what is the issue with SaaS?

famousactress• 14 years ago

Dunno about OP, but some businesses have privacy or legal issues around data that they might want/need to store in these systems.. Things like healthcare info, etc.

tarr11• 14 years ago

As a US/CA resident, i'm always stunned to see how low operating costs can be in India.

whileonebegin• 14 years ago

Nice informative post. I also read your post, "How to incorporate a US Corporation from outside the USA". How is this legal? And how/who do you pay taxes?

girishm2• 14 years ago

The US company is a Delaware C Corp and is a legal business entity in the US and pays taxes like any other corporation.

K2h• 14 years ago

I learned about the search at the bottom of the page. I have been here 6 months and been so excited with everything I never made it to the bottom to find it.

vignesh_vs_in• 14 years ago

me too never saw it, but i have pinned hnsearch tab :P

dinkumthinkum2• 14 years ago

This is a good, well written, specific story of a startup. Nice job guys. :)

- Just realized this is from quite while ago.

mbchandar• 14 years ago

inspiring girish

indianass• 14 years ago

moron indian hairy dark ass. motivate indian ass

How Hacker News motivated me to resign my job and launch my own startup (2011)

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