5 ms·

Hello HN: I am taking the plunge. What do you think?

13 points by irahul 16y ago

akadien 16y ago
Big whoop. This kind of post pops up every few days. No business plan. No market analysis. No real idea of who will use your shopping service and why. No description of value, benefits, and features. Reads like wishful thinking and dreams of grandeur. All you have is an idea and a domain name.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- prawn 16y ago
  Bit abrasive, but hard to disagree with the details of your comment. irahul, I also didn't find much in your blog post that made me think you were onto something or that it would be interesting to follow your progress. FWIW. Good luck though!
  - irahul 16y ago
    Thanks for taking the time to read.
- morbidkk 16y ago
  well he might have some differentiators but may not want to talk about them or he'll figure out while building it up. @irahul Best luck!!!
- irahul 16y ago
  > No business plan. I am not going to have one ever:-). On a more serious note, I am not selling out or going to ask for capital ever. The only person that needs to be convinced of the business value is me and I am convinced. > No market analysis. And that would affect me how? If there is an existing market for it, I am tapping into it. There is an existing market; I didn't feel the need to do research to prove that people are interested in selling things online and e-commerce is hard and if you are a merchant, you are more interested in selling thing than taking the pains of implementing it. If there isn't an existing market for it(hypothetically speaking), I know people want to sell things. If they aren't selling it online already, it's only because the services aren't up to the mark, and that would be a good thing for me. > No real idea of who will use your shopping service and why. No, there isn't a real idea. The idea will change every week with the implementation and keep on changing until something clicks. But the ground rules are laid out. The service is for anyone who wants to sell things online and does not have the time/resource/interest to implement it himself. It is for you if you want to sell tee shirts with funny graffiti; it is for you if you are a writer who is embracing new media and wants to sell his ebooks; it is for you if you are selling anything online. You can either attach the widget to your existing blog/site(would be helpful for web-cartoonists or people who already run a high traffic site) or create a new store and host us with us. > No description of value, benefits, and features. Value and benefits are what I have already detailed. I have just begun and features would be finalized as we work on it. If that looks like bad planning to you, so be it. That's the mode that suits me. > Reads like wishful thinking and dreams of grandeur. We will see about it:-). > All you have is an idea and a domain name. I didn't claim otherwise.
  - yesimahuman 16y ago
    Although akadien's response was a bit blunt, your response shows that you aren't willing to listen to criticism. Relax, and really try to open yourself to what other people have to say. This is something I've really been learning the last year or so running my company. You might not agree with everything everyone has to say (and you don't have to, it is your company, after all), but you do want to be successful, and you haven't been yet, so don't be so quick to get defensive when other people have feedback and criticism.
    - irahul 16y ago
      > your response shows that you aren't willing to listen to criticism. I am. But as a critic, shouldn't you be willing to listen to counter-arguments as well? After all, a discussion isn't one sided. > don't be so quick to get defensive when other people have feedback and criticism. Ummm..So what's the take-away here? I shouldn't reply back? Validity of an idea or argument is highly subjective and perceptive. akadien conveyed his thoughts and I conveyed mine without being rude or derailing the discussion. I would think that's how the discussion is supposed to work.
      - yesimahuman 16y ago
        You are getting defensive. There is a bigger lesson here (one that I have had to and still have to practice every day!) Anyways, best of luck (and I really do mean it)!
        petervandijck 16y ago
        I actually think the dude isn't defensive, he's responding quite reasonably to someone being negative.
        yesimahuman 16y ago
        Very negative, sure, but it isn't an argument, and there are no counter-arguments to akadien's advice. He doesn't have any of those things that many people believe to be the mark of a promising business. To akadien, those things are very important. To irahul they appear not to be. Who knows, he could be successful doing it differently, no one here would be able to say one way or the other.
- ryanwaggoner 16y ago
  You might be right, but it's extremely disappointing to me to see upvotes collecting on such a flippant put-down of another entrepreneur sharing his first steps and excitement with the one community that should understand and be encouraging. I vaguely recall that PG talked somewhere about how one of the biggest threats to HN wasn't spam or abuse, but just a general downward spiral of incivility and mean-spiritedness. I think I know now what he was talking about.
  - akadien 16y ago
    I don't think it was a flippant put-down. Nor was I being uncivil or mean-spirited. I was being frank and straightforward. I was telling him exactly what he would hear from someone in the real world if he were to pitch it. If he can't handle this kind of experience-based advice on HN, then he certainly will crumble in the real world. I honestly wish him the best of luck. With a startup idea this vague, he will need it.
    - ryanwaggoner 16y ago
      Why are trite comparisons with "the real world" (whatever that is) always the refuge of those who scorn others in public? "Well, if they can't take a little criticism from me, just wait until they hit the real world!" Give me a break. Opening your comment with "big whoop" is hardly frank or straightforward. You offered no real advice or help, and you're effectively anonymous from what I can tell, so your claims of "experience" are worthless. Your comment just reeks of a condescending snark that HN is better off without.
      - akadien 16y ago
        Ok, my experience is that my own lone-founder startup failed a couple of years ago in very large part because I didn't do the things that I claim are missing. I read the post, identified red flags that I failed at finding, and then posted them as a critique, which is what the poster asked for. I think you are taking a moral position about what should and shouldn't be the tone on HN. I might have missed it, but who elected you to determine what is or isn't "condescending snark"? And from follow-up posts by the original poster and others, it looks like I did offer some real advice. It just wasn't wrapped up in rosy and verbose language that you prefer.
mhartl 16y ago
The implementation isn't going to take much time. Famous last words. :-)
- irahul 16y ago
  Famous/notorious? May be, yes. Last words? For sure, no:-).
peteforde 16y ago
While I'll give a fellow-HN reader my best optimistic wishes, I tend to agree that this is probably not going to be an out-of-the-park success. I have a better idea than most just how much work it took to make Shopify what it is today. However, we should all be way less dick-ish about encouraging would-be entrepreneurs regardless of how shallow their ideas appear. It reflects well on us as a community if we encourage people before we put them down. After all, how many posts about embracing failure get posted on this site, right?
- irahul 16y ago
  Thanks Peter. Coming from someone who has been there, it means a lot. The reasons I am doing it is I am an average developer who doesn't have any interesting ideas but who wants to foray into entrepreneurship and be his own boss. I considered a lot of free services which would rely on ads to generate revenue but I they didn't seem beneficial in terms of monetization. So, I just thought about a lot of paid service and settled down on something which has plausible profitability. I am not copying shopify but there sure would be many features which work in the same way; after all, the ground premise is the same. I do have some differentiators but it's too early to call on them. tl;dr My idea is not original or extra-ordinary; I am an average developer looking to be my own boss and this suited me the best.
  - peteforde 16y ago
    Can I give you some advice? On one hand, I agree with you that there's always room for another player in SaaS. If your goals are modest then it's possible that you could reach your goals. If you manage to line up 5-6 things over two years, that could be a healthy income. However, if you really want to create wealth — for yourself and for the world — then you need to recognize that humans are really bad at identifying problems that really need solving. You need to pack your virtual bags and go deep into the country, looking for communities of users that you'd never consider in your normal every day life. Start researching industrial organizations, hobby clubs, non-technical groups of all kinds. Lurk on their forums and pay attention to the problems that they have. Take notes. Not every problem is a potential business, but there is a world of opportunity out there. Go in the opposite direction as everyone else. Recognize that often low-tech solutions are best. Listen more than you speak. You will find people who desperately need you to help them, and in doing that you will likely get further ahead than building a Shopify also-ran. Good luck.
kneath 16y ago
I think you should probably work a bit more on why your service is going to be better than your competitors. More than one competitor existing isn't really a great business plan. Imagine if Pepsi's marketing campaign revolved around "Because Pepsi isn't Coke."
- irahul 16y ago
  > service is going to be better than your competitors. To each his own, but I am not going to do this. Internally yes, but I am not going to compare to the competitors externally. From what I know, comparing to the competitor is generally a bad idea. Current users of the service take any comparison or criticism personally and all it does is drive potential customers away. For the new customers, I am willing to believe in the intelligence of the human race. Prospective customers are smart enough to do their research before settling on a service. My job would be to make the features lucid and clear and highlight the differentiators. As I already mentioned, I do have some differentiators in mind.
- petervandijck 16y ago
  "More than one competitor existing" -> that's actually not a bad start for a business plan. And Avis famously had their marketing campaign around being #2 for renting cars: "We're number two, we try harder" ;)
Concours 16y ago
Before you go further, I suggest you study your market with some market research, and set a target audience, make some test on that niche, a "there's enought room for everybody" approach is the wrong one. Good luck
- ryanhuff 16y ago
  Good idea. A niche approach is a great way to start. The most important thing he has going for him is that he is starting with little expectations. As he begins to execute in the market, he can be incredibly flexible to attack opportunities that reveal themselves. The trick is to learn through testing as quickly as possible, rather than swing for the fences on an idea that is half baked.
  - irahul 16y ago
    Thanks for your time. I am keeping my options open for now. FWIW the service is largely going to remain same irrespective of what you are selling. That's how I start building. I am considering some niches viz. cartoonists selling merchandise, authors selling digital goods. I am talking to a couple of potential customers about why they aren't doing it already.
ryanwaggoner 16y ago
First, I applaud your enthusiasm, and for not responding in kind to some of the negativity in the comments. While I'm sure that there are a few who are just negative, most of the people offering criticism probably genuinely want to help. You'd be wise to listen to them. And in the spirit of offering advice, here's my two cents: read "Four Steps to the Epiphany" and actually follow the advice. If that's too much, then just call or email 100 potential customers, outline your idea, and ask them what they think. These should be real potential customers who you envision would really want your service, not friends who once sold a piece of furniture on Craigslist. I can tell that you've got some emotional attachment to your idea, so this step might be hard, because you could find after 10 or 20 calls that things aren't quite the same from your customer's experience as you thought. But just keep going. By the time you have talked to 100 potential customers, you'll know exactly what they need, what they don't need, how they find new products, how to market to them, etc. Good luck, and please do keep us posted with your progress :)
- irahul 16y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. Talking to potential customers is surely something I am going to do. > read "Four Steps to the Epiphany" and actually follow the advice. First time I heard about this book. Looked at the review and summary at amazon. Sounds interesting.
jeffepp 16y ago
I applaud anyone willing to quit their job to follow their own passions. Does this guarantee success? Of course not. However, do not underestimate the value of truly knowing that you control your own destiny and do not have to 'grind it out' at some desk for the next 30 years. FWIW, I believe that if you hard worker & are a kick-ass programmer you can make up for a lot of supposed 'deficiencies' i.e.: market analysis, planning and product development. Good Luck!
- irahul 16y ago
  Thanks. Just checked your baby (zferral dot com) - looks good. > a lot of supposed 'deficiencies' i.e.: market analysis, planning and product development. Some of them are deficiencies viz. "no ideas how to market my product to people who need the service but aren't using it" and some of them are by choice. Eg: I don't believe doing market analysis of potential customers would give me an edge. Shopify has 6000 active stores and I would say even a constrained market analysis would come up with a number much, much bigger than this.
aresant 16y ago
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step -the most important thing to being a successful entrepreneur is to just start - so good luck and roll with the punches!
lrm242 16y ago
Don't listen to the naysayers and nanny-poos. Be persistent and willing to learn and you'll shift the odds in your favor. This is a personal journey as much as anything else, and only you can walk it. Just the the other day I was talking to a small boutique baker (cakes, cookies, etc) and she was telling me how confusing it was to try to setup an online store. I said, "Have you heard of shopify?" and she said, "Uhh, no". You might find that your hardest part of this is getting to those customers because they don't know what to look for. Take care, good luck, and stay strong.
- irahul 16y ago
  > Don't listen to the naysayers and nanny-poos. I read a lot and I have developed a selective comprehension. For anyone whose thoughts I admire, I found a lot I disagree with. For example, the recent debate about "Linus vs C++", there is a lot to disagree in Linus's criticism of C++, but from where I see, he is making some very valid points and if we cut the flame, it's an interesting post. I am trying to apply the same principle here. I am filtering the not-so-polite words, pondering over what the critic has to say and then making the decision if I agree or not. For example, I don't agree with "having a formal business plan". I have considered it and I don't see the usefulness of it. >You might find that your hardest part of this is getting to those customers because they don't know what to look for. This. This is the biggest hurdle I have. I can pull off the technical aspects of the product and I can work on the SEO and have it featured on Google search results when you search for "online store". It might not concur exactly with my plans but atleast I know how to go about it. But I have no damn clue how do I reach the customer base who needs the service but is ignorant towards it. I know there are a lot of people who want to have online stores. I know many of them use shopify and I see that shopify advertises more than 6000 stores. This puzzles me. 6000 is too small a number for the web. I might sound over confident but frankly, I am not very concerned about shopify. I am willing to compete over prices and features. But what concerns me is there is a huge untapped market segment and I have no ideas how do I capture them.
  - lrm242 16y ago
    > But I have no damn clue how do I reach the customer base who needs the service but is ignorant towards it. This is the key issue you need to dig into. Everything else is cursory. Don't go randomly talk to customers. Don't do market research. Go find a group of customers that you can effectively reach and then figure out how to find more of them. Is it single person bakers, like the person I mentioned? If so, what magazines do they read? Where do they buy their supplies? Do they hang out on specific online forums? What channels can you use t get your unique message across to them? This is trial and error. Finding a niche like this will help you not differentiate on price, but instead, differentiate on unique features your niche is interested in.

13 points by irahul 16y ago

Big whoop. This kind of post pops up every few days. No business plan. No market analysis. No real idea of who will use your shopping service and why. No description of value, benefits, and features. Reads like wishful thinking and dreams of grandeur. All you have is an idea and a domain name.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
prawn 16y ago
Bit abrasive, but hard to disagree with the details of your comment. irahul, I also didn't find much in your blog post that made me think you were onto something or that it would be interesting to follow your progress. FWIW. Good luck though!
- irahul 16y ago
  Thanks for taking the time to read.
morbidkk 16y ago
well he might have some differentiators but may not want to talk about them or he'll figure out while building it up. @irahul Best luck!!!
irahul 16y ago
> No business plan. I am not going to have one ever:-). On a more serious note, I am not selling out or going to ask for capital ever. The only person that needs to be convinced of the business value is me and I am convinced. > No market analysis. And that would affect me how? If there is an existing market for it, I am tapping into it. There is an existing market; I didn't feel the need to do research to prove that people are interested in selling things online and e-commerce is hard and if you are a merchant, you are more interested in selling thing than taking the pains of implementing it. If there isn't an existing market for it(hypothetically speaking), I know people want to sell things. If they aren't selling it online already, it's only because the services aren't up to the mark, and that would be a good thing for me. > No real idea of who will use your shopping service and why. No, there isn't a real idea. The idea will change every week with the implementation and keep on changing until something clicks. But the ground rules are laid out. The service is for anyone who wants to sell things online and does not have the time/resource/interest to implement it himself. It is for you if you want to sell tee shirts with funny graffiti; it is for you if you are a writer who is embracing new media and wants to sell his ebooks; it is for you if you are selling anything online. You can either attach the widget to your existing blog/site(would be helpful for web-cartoonists or people who already run a high traffic site) or create a new store and host us with us. > No description of value, benefits, and features. Value and benefits are what I have already detailed. I have just begun and features would be finalized as we work on it. If that looks like bad planning to you, so be it. That's the mode that suits me. > Reads like wishful thinking and dreams of grandeur. We will see about it:-). > All you have is an idea and a domain name. I didn't claim otherwise.
- yesimahuman 16y ago
  Although akadien's response was a bit blunt, your response shows that you aren't willing to listen to criticism. Relax, and really try to open yourself to what other people have to say. This is something I've really been learning the last year or so running my company. You might not agree with everything everyone has to say (and you don't have to, it is your company, after all), but you do want to be successful, and you haven't been yet, so don't be so quick to get defensive when other people have feedback and criticism.
  - irahul 16y ago
    > your response shows that you aren't willing to listen to criticism. I am. But as a critic, shouldn't you be willing to listen to counter-arguments as well? After all, a discussion isn't one sided. > don't be so quick to get defensive when other people have feedback and criticism. Ummm..So what's the take-away here? I shouldn't reply back? Validity of an idea or argument is highly subjective and perceptive. akadien conveyed his thoughts and I conveyed mine without being rude or derailing the discussion. I would think that's how the discussion is supposed to work.
    - yesimahuman 16y ago
      You are getting defensive. There is a bigger lesson here (one that I have had to and still have to practice every day!) Anyways, best of luck (and I really do mean it)!
      - petervandijck 16y ago
        I actually think the dude isn't defensive, he's responding quite reasonably to someone being negative.
        yesimahuman 16y ago
        Very negative, sure, but it isn't an argument, and there are no counter-arguments to akadien's advice. He doesn't have any of those things that many people believe to be the mark of a promising business. To akadien, those things are very important. To irahul they appear not to be. Who knows, he could be successful doing it differently, no one here would be able to say one way or the other.
ryanwaggoner 16y ago
You might be right, but it's extremely disappointing to me to see upvotes collecting on such a flippant put-down of another entrepreneur sharing his first steps and excitement with the one community that should understand and be encouraging. I vaguely recall that PG talked somewhere about how one of the biggest threats to HN wasn't spam or abuse, but just a general downward spiral of incivility and mean-spiritedness. I think I know now what he was talking about.
- akadien 16y ago
  I don't think it was a flippant put-down. Nor was I being uncivil or mean-spirited. I was being frank and straightforward. I was telling him exactly what he would hear from someone in the real world if he were to pitch it. If he can't handle this kind of experience-based advice on HN, then he certainly will crumble in the real world. I honestly wish him the best of luck. With a startup idea this vague, he will need it.
  - ryanwaggoner 16y ago
    Why are trite comparisons with "the real world" (whatever that is) always the refuge of those who scorn others in public? "Well, if they can't take a little criticism from me, just wait until they hit the real world!" Give me a break. Opening your comment with "big whoop" is hardly frank or straightforward. You offered no real advice or help, and you're effectively anonymous from what I can tell, so your claims of "experience" are worthless. Your comment just reeks of a condescending snark that HN is better off without.
    - akadien 16y ago
      Ok, my experience is that my own lone-founder startup failed a couple of years ago in very large part because I didn't do the things that I claim are missing. I read the post, identified red flags that I failed at finding, and then posted them as a critique, which is what the poster asked for. I think you are taking a moral position about what should and shouldn't be the tone on HN. I might have missed it, but who elected you to determine what is or isn't "condescending snark"? And from follow-up posts by the original poster and others, it looks like I did offer some real advice. It just wasn't wrapped up in rosy and verbose language that you prefer.

mhartl 16y ago

The implementation isn't going to take much time. Famous last words. :-)

irahul 16y ago
Famous/notorious? May be, yes. Last words? For sure, no:-).

peteforde 16y ago

While I'll give a fellow-HN reader my best optimistic wishes, I tend to agree that this is probably not going to be an out-of-the-park success. I have a better idea than most just how much work it took to make Shopify what it is today. However, we should all be way less dick-ish about encouraging would-be entrepreneurs regardless of how shallow their ideas appear. It reflects well on us as a community if we encourage people before we put them down. After all, how many posts about embracing failure get posted on this site, right?

irahul 16y ago
Thanks Peter. Coming from someone who has been there, it means a lot. The reasons I am doing it is I am an average developer who doesn't have any interesting ideas but who wants to foray into entrepreneurship and be his own boss. I considered a lot of free services which would rely on ads to generate revenue but I they didn't seem beneficial in terms of monetization. So, I just thought about a lot of paid service and settled down on something which has plausible profitability. I am not copying shopify but there sure would be many features which work in the same way; after all, the ground premise is the same. I do have some differentiators but it's too early to call on them. tl;dr My idea is not original or extra-ordinary; I am an average developer looking to be my own boss and this suited me the best.
- peteforde 16y ago
  Can I give you some advice? On one hand, I agree with you that there's always room for another player in SaaS. If your goals are modest then it's possible that you could reach your goals. If you manage to line up 5-6 things over two years, that could be a healthy income. However, if you really want to create wealth — for yourself and for the world — then you need to recognize that humans are really bad at identifying problems that really need solving. You need to pack your virtual bags and go deep into the country, looking for communities of users that you'd never consider in your normal every day life. Start researching industrial organizations, hobby clubs, non-technical groups of all kinds. Lurk on their forums and pay attention to the problems that they have. Take notes. Not every problem is a potential business, but there is a world of opportunity out there. Go in the opposite direction as everyone else. Recognize that often low-tech solutions are best. Listen more than you speak. You will find people who desperately need you to help them, and in doing that you will likely get further ahead than building a Shopify also-ran. Good luck.

kneath 16y ago

I think you should probably work a bit more on why your service is going to be better than your competitors. More than one competitor existing isn't really a great business plan. Imagine if Pepsi's marketing campaign revolved around "Because Pepsi isn't Coke."

irahul 16y ago
> service is going to be better than your competitors. To each his own, but I am not going to do this. Internally yes, but I am not going to compare to the competitors externally. From what I know, comparing to the competitor is generally a bad idea. Current users of the service take any comparison or criticism personally and all it does is drive potential customers away. For the new customers, I am willing to believe in the intelligence of the human race. Prospective customers are smart enough to do their research before settling on a service. My job would be to make the features lucid and clear and highlight the differentiators. As I already mentioned, I do have some differentiators in mind.
petervandijck 16y ago
"More than one competitor existing" -> that's actually not a bad start for a business plan. And Avis famously had their marketing campaign around being #2 for renting cars: "We're number two, we try harder" ;)

Concours 16y ago

Before you go further, I suggest you study your market with some market research, and set a target audience, make some test on that niche, a "there's enought room for everybody" approach is the wrong one. Good luck

ryanhuff 16y ago
Good idea. A niche approach is a great way to start. The most important thing he has going for him is that he is starting with little expectations. As he begins to execute in the market, he can be incredibly flexible to attack opportunities that reveal themselves. The trick is to learn through testing as quickly as possible, rather than swing for the fences on an idea that is half baked.
- irahul 16y ago
  Thanks for your time. I am keeping my options open for now. FWIW the service is largely going to remain same irrespective of what you are selling. That's how I start building. I am considering some niches viz. cartoonists selling merchandise, authors selling digital goods. I am talking to a couple of potential customers about why they aren't doing it already.

ryanwaggoner 16y ago

First, I applaud your enthusiasm, and for not responding in kind to some of the negativity in the comments. While I'm sure that there are a few who are just negative, most of the people offering criticism probably genuinely want to help. You'd be wise to listen to them. And in the spirit of offering advice, here's my two cents: read "Four Steps to the Epiphany" and actually follow the advice. If that's too much, then just call or email 100 potential customers, outline your idea, and ask them what they think. These should be real potential customers who you envision would really want your service, not friends who once sold a piece of furniture on Craigslist. I can tell that you've got some emotional attachment to your idea, so this step might be hard, because you could find after 10 or 20 calls that things aren't quite the same from your customer's experience as you thought. But just keep going. By the time you have talked to 100 potential customers, you'll know exactly what they need, what they don't need, how they find new products, how to market to them, etc. Good luck, and please do keep us posted with your progress :)

irahul 16y ago
Thanks for the feedback. Talking to potential customers is surely something I am going to do. > read "Four Steps to the Epiphany" and actually follow the advice. First time I heard about this book. Looked at the review and summary at amazon. Sounds interesting.

jeffepp 16y ago

I applaud anyone willing to quit their job to follow their own passions. Does this guarantee success? Of course not. However, do not underestimate the value of truly knowing that you control your own destiny and do not have to 'grind it out' at some desk for the next 30 years. FWIW, I believe that if you hard worker & are a kick-ass programmer you can make up for a lot of supposed 'deficiencies' i.e.: market analysis, planning and product development. Good Luck!

irahul 16y ago
Thanks. Just checked your baby (zferral dot com) - looks good. > a lot of supposed 'deficiencies' i.e.: market analysis, planning and product development. Some of them are deficiencies viz. "no ideas how to market my product to people who need the service but aren't using it" and some of them are by choice. Eg: I don't believe doing market analysis of potential customers would give me an edge. Shopify has 6000 active stores and I would say even a constrained market analysis would come up with a number much, much bigger than this.

aresant 16y ago

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step -the most important thing to being a successful entrepreneur is to just start - so good luck and roll with the punches!

lrm242 16y ago

Don't listen to the naysayers and nanny-poos. Be persistent and willing to learn and you'll shift the odds in your favor. This is a personal journey as much as anything else, and only you can walk it. Just the the other day I was talking to a small boutique baker (cakes, cookies, etc) and she was telling me how confusing it was to try to setup an online store. I said, "Have you heard of shopify?" and she said, "Uhh, no". You might find that your hardest part of this is getting to those customers because they don't know what to look for. Take care, good luck, and stay strong.

irahul 16y ago
> Don't listen to the naysayers and nanny-poos. I read a lot and I have developed a selective comprehension. For anyone whose thoughts I admire, I found a lot I disagree with. For example, the recent debate about "Linus vs C++", there is a lot to disagree in Linus's criticism of C++, but from where I see, he is making some very valid points and if we cut the flame, it's an interesting post. I am trying to apply the same principle here. I am filtering the not-so-polite words, pondering over what the critic has to say and then making the decision if I agree or not. For example, I don't agree with "having a formal business plan". I have considered it and I don't see the usefulness of it. >You might find that your hardest part of this is getting to those customers because they don't know what to look for. This. This is the biggest hurdle I have. I can pull off the technical aspects of the product and I can work on the SEO and have it featured on Google search results when you search for "online store". It might not concur exactly with my plans but atleast I know how to go about it. But I have no damn clue how do I reach the customer base who needs the service but is ignorant towards it. I know there are a lot of people who want to have online stores. I know many of them use shopify and I see that shopify advertises more than 6000 stores. This puzzles me. 6000 is too small a number for the web. I might sound over confident but frankly, I am not very concerned about shopify. I am willing to compete over prices and features. But what concerns me is there is a huge untapped market segment and I have no ideas how do I capture them.
- lrm242 16y ago
  > But I have no damn clue how do I reach the customer base who needs the service but is ignorant towards it. This is the key issue you need to dig into. Everything else is cursory. Don't go randomly talk to customers. Don't do market research. Go find a group of customers that you can effectively reach and then figure out how to find more of them. Is it single person bakers, like the person I mentioned? If so, what magazines do they read? Where do they buy their supplies? Do they hang out on specific online forums? What channels can you use t get your unique message across to them? This is trial and error. Finding a niche like this will help you not differentiate on price, but instead, differentiate on unique features your niche is interested in.