11 ms·

Building a company is fucking hard

255 points by navidkhn1 8y ago

artur_makly 8y ago
PREEEEEEECH!
- dang 8y ago
  Not here, please.
jaysonelliot 8y ago
Two important points in that essay: You will need friends You will need mentors This is 100% true, so I have a question. How do you find those when you're already spending all of your time on your startup and new to town without a support network in place?
- bananatron 8y ago
  Meetups are a good place to start imo. Signal vs. noise is sometimes bad, but good groups of people who are building cool things exist almost everywhere.
- LeonM 8y ago
  A co-working space helps in my experience. Although it's still really hard (at least for me, as an introvert) to build such network. It's scary, but it's the only way.
- GuiA 8y ago
  Some of the best advice I’ve ever received was to only enact one big change at a time. Moving to a new city and leaving your support networks behind is a big change. Quitting your job and starting a company is a big change. Doing them together is perhaps not the wisest course of action.
- jermaustin1 8y ago
  Facebook/Twitter. Its definitely hard to make friends as an adult, so why not reach back into the past and pull an old friend out of the hat? I moved to NYC at 27 with no friends, no family, only a job offer. It took me 6 months to get settled and in an apartment that I felt comfortable with my wife moving up to. But in that 6 months, I had co-workers that turned into friends, strangers from the neighborhood that turned into friends, and old friends that I reconnected with now that I was 2000 miles away from running into them randomly at a party, funeral, or starbucks. So if you have a job, start hanging out with those people after work. You can easily find friends and mentors in that group.
- kareemm 8y ago
  I moved to a new city in Jan where I know one person, am starting a new company, and have a young family (e.g. limited time). In the last month I've: 1. Spoken to a group of CEOs about how to solve their product management issues 2. Organized a group of 6 product managers for drinks (I had met two of them once) 3. Demonstrated credibility and a willingness to help enough that I've gotten a bunch of inbound intros to help people with their Product problems Here's what I did: 1. Connected with people at the local startup hub. There's only one here as it's a small city (< 500k people). I've been working in tech since 2001 and have cultivated a fairly broad network. I was thus able to get an intro to the CEO of the hub here which helped immensely. 2. Share my knowledge. I've been doing Product Management for 16+ years. That's a skill that's needed here. So doing talks through the hub has enabled me to meet people and establish credibility. I put the word out that I'll meet with anybody in the local community to see if I can help with their product issues, and now people are sending me intros to others. 3. Organize people. It takes so little to organize a small group of like-minded folks. Last night I got 6 other Product Managers together here at a bar to talk shop. It was a matter of putting the word out amongst people I'd met via steps 1 and 2 with a time, date, and location. If you lather, rinse, and repeat steps 2 and 3 you'll establish a good community because you're helping others level up. Think about this time as an investment in your long term success. Work doesn't always look like writing code or talking to customers - having a peer group and mentors you can learn from will help with strategy, tactics, accountability, and - most importantly - your mental health.
  - jaysonelliot 8y ago
    This is very solid, actionable advice that I can follow. Great point about "work doesn't always look like work." Thank you!
- jlawson 8y ago
  These aren't really true in my experience. I never had someone I'd consider a 'mentor'. And I've had friends but I don't spend a lot of time with them and they don't relate to my business at all. At the same time, I managed to build a business earning mid-6-digits per month. Not spending time futzing about with other people allowed me to focus on the actual craft and make the product really good. Not having "friends" to distort my thinking and pull every discussion towards common thought patterns and easy-to-understand platitudes allowed me to take my business in new directions that I understood but that others were unable to see or accept. If you really want to do something different, and seriously intense, very very few people will understand or have what it takes to participate. Put simply, 1-in-1000 people only appear once per thousand people. If you're trying to do a 1-in-1000 challenge, it's almost guaranteed that everyone around you is not up to it. (Of course it's highly likely you aren't up to it either, but you can't walk away from yourself. On the chance that you are up to it, you don't want to screw that up by averaging your results out with people who are far less capable and driven than you).
  - Aperson4321 8y ago
    Extroverts need people to talk to, they have no choice in the matter and some people might need help with knowing where to start with basic stuff like registering a company etc. And some people need some emotional support, it does not need to be logical support just: "you worked hard have a hug" type support. But I totally agree with the don't talk with people about difficult work stuff you are trying to do to, like it takes years and rare talent to understand something in such a way that you can do "something different, and seriously intense" and make money off it, so there might be nobody in the world that you can have a proper discussion with about your thing. But on a personal level time spent making friends can be truly rewarding. I mean we humans are herd animals, there is no escaping it. I personally get along truly well with very few people, but I can get along with some people for a short amount of time, so visiting different groups of people from time to time gives me a lot of joy, even if I would never truly get along with those people for more than a few hours each week/month.
    - jlawson 8y ago
- jv22222 8y ago
  > This is 100% true, so I have a question. How do you find those when you're already spending all of your time on your startup and new to town without a support network in place? One option is to join a network like: https://nugget.one https://nugget.one (Disclosure: I'm founder of Nugget)
PopeDotNinja 8y ago
Yes, yes it is. Source: started a company and learned many things the hard way.
cik 8y ago
There's an old adage that successful people surround themselves with success. It's all about cohort - if you don't have other friends who are pushing themselves the way you are, it will be very, very, hard. It doesn't matter if you're in tech and your friend is in gardening, what matters is the shared struggle, and dreams. It helps knowing you're in a boat others have been in before. Spouses/partners can understand and support - but (most) haven't been through it, and there's just a different conversation that can be had with others who have. That's not a negative, it's a reminder that it really does take all types.
- IloveHN84 8y ago
  100% agree. I don't have any friends that pushed themselves to start an IT company and being successful. I only know people who claimed to do the best but failed miserably within the first year of their start-up. I made also failures in my startup as well, but we closed because we were approaching the zero budget and without having real customers. Partners who are not in IT cannot fully understand the struggle of running an IT company.
  - softawre 8y ago
    It's interesting to me that you categorize your failures differently than the "people you know".
- rokov 8y ago
  This is what I have been going through for a long time. Everyone around me goes to their 9-5, so I barely even talk about my work anymore with them (even though I love it). You get used to it. I have tried finding people that are doing the same thing as me but with no luck.
  - navidkhn1 8y ago
    Well, you found one just now.
  - nomadtwin 8y ago
    If you have a little bit of freedom (money and job-wise) and your country (passport) allows you to travel - try to join a digital nomad trip. NOT one of those "life coach, ebook selling things". You'll be part of a group of like-minded people from around the world. I joined Hacker Paradise some years ago and it not only gave me valuable directions but tons of people that would understand what a Trello is and you can share struggles and stories.
ArtWomb 8y ago
I think Mark Cuban on Shark Tank used to tell founders this. Don't start a company because you have a world-altering idea. Start a company because you love starting companies.
- vinceguidry 8y ago
  What would he have you do if you have a world-altering idea? A company is still the best vehicle for seeing it actually change the world.
  - AllegedAlec 8y ago
    Find someone who has experience starting a company and try to start a company together.
  - thecupisblue 8y ago
    Open sourcing it.
    - acct1771 8y ago
      ...you're not super familiar with Mark Cuban, are ya?
  - noobiemcfoob 8y ago
    Recognize that you most probably don't.
    - vinceguidry 8y ago
      Well, that's just no fun at all.
      - noobiemcfoob 8y ago
        That's not to say an idea isn't worth pursuing and building a company around. But if you set out to change the world, you're not going to. The people who have built world changing things didn't assume their work would lead there (exceptions will prove the rule).
GuiA 8y ago
If I set out to tell you the story of my life, there isn’t much – and yet, a whole lot! I’ve only been up and around for about 4 years, a happy ignorant high school teenager before that. I have yet experienced more in these four years than most people do in all of their lives. Ah, the folly of youth. Of course you are more special than everyone else. Of course you are smarter than everyone else. Of course you have experienced more than everyone else. I certainly was as well at 22. ”When I was seventeen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-five, I was astonished at how much he had learned in eight years.”
mikece 8y ago
A millennial complaining that success requires effort? I'm shocked! Joking aside, yes, building a business requires far more work than it may seem to the prospective first-timer. Fortunately there are some excellent book to help you know what to expect and what you need to plan for when starting a business. Michael Gerber's "The E-Myth Revisited" is the one book I would recommend as a starting point (and I would not necessarily recommend an entire library of books -- you want to start a business, not be a full-time reader).
- chaosite 8y ago
  At 22, he's almost Gen Z...
readhn 8y ago
Building a company is not hard. (Look around, we are surrounded by businesses). Building financially and ethically sustainable business that employs people that are truly happy to work there IS hard.
- Sushi-san 8y ago
  Ethics is a really hard continuum to manage when financial factors are at play.
  - readhn 8y ago
    Building Ethically sustainable business model requires A LOT MORE effort and the positive results usually dont come overnight and tend to have long term outlook with focus on individuals/society as a whole. In todays world of "instant gratification" this is not a desired approach to running business. Most businesses "don't even go there" - hence we are surrounded by the world we live in.
- srrge 8y ago
  I don't understand why you are downvoted, because you are right. Conducting a successful career is also very hard. Let alone a successful marriage! Or getting fit, loosing weight. You want to build a company? Just do it. It's not harder than other things in life. Edit: some words.
  - vecter 8y ago
    Building a successful startup is infinitely harder than having a successful career as an employee.
    - readhn 8y ago
      Because building a successful company = building many successful careers. The point that many companies still do not get!!! You absolutely have to invest in your people in a best possible way if you are interested at all in building a GREAT company.
dqpb 8y ago
> I have yet experienced more in these four years than most people do in all of their lives. Lol, hearing that from a 22 year old.
- vinceguidry 8y ago
  I think anybody that would say this is very likely completely right about it, despite their age.
  - emilfihlman 8y ago
    I'd make the opposite claim.
  - GuiA 8y ago
    What does it even mean, to have experienced “more” than anyone else? How do you compare raising a child to starting a company to performing as a top level athlete to losing a parent to ... Mathematically minded nerds tend to forget that not everything in life can be turned into set theory :)
    - moron4hire 8y ago
      As a mathematically minded something, I agree with your first sentence, mostly disagree with your last one. There are a lot of nerds who think they are good at math when they are not.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    There's a lot of potential life experience out there, not all of it good. And a lot of people go through extraordinary hardships that they didn't choose. A great example of someone who's experienced both the difficulties of running a business and the difficulties of running for your life is Intel chairman Andy Grove: " He was born András Gróf into a not religious Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, which was ruled by a military dictator whose government persecuted Jews. That Gróf was not a Jewish surname may have helped his family avoid some of the worst of the persecution. As a small child, Grove had scarlet fever, which not only nearly killed him but also rendered him partly deaf. With the advent of World War II and Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, Hungary abandoned its official neutrality and joined the Germans. In 1944, when the war went badly for Germany, the Nazis overthrew the Hungarian government, fearing that the Hungarians were about to make peace with the Soviets. The rounding up of Jews for death camps and slave labor soon began. Grove's father was forced to serve in the German army at the Eastern Front, where he endured appalling tortures for the amusement of German soldiers. Grove and his mother hid under false names with a Christian family; almost every day was a close call, as soldiers snatched Jews off the streets and out of their homes. Then the Soviets fought their way into Budapest, bringing with them more persecution (and the rape of Grove's mother). Grove wanted to be a journalist, but he discovered that journalistic success depended on the whims of political correctness, and he decided to enter a field where subjectivity would not affect judgments about his work; he chose to study chemistry. In 1956 Hungarians tried to replace their Communist government with a democracy, and the Soviet Union in vaded their nation. There was fighting in Budapest's streets as young people tried to repel soldiers and tanks with small weapons and bottles filled with gasoline. Soviet troops began snatching young men and imprisoning, torturing, or killing them. Grove and his best friend, Janos Lanyi, fled to Austria, dodging Soviet troops, crawling in mud, afraid all the way. He had lived 20 years under murderous oppression, surviving by always remaining alert to the possibility that even a simple attempt to purchase a loaf of bread could cause him to disappear along with many other young Hungarians." -- https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/biography/F-L/Grove-Andy-1936.html https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/biography/F-L/Grove-And...
mlthoughts2018 8y ago
I don’t find the problem of creating a company to be an interesting benchmark of discussion. Why aren’t we talking about creating ethical companies and how to make it easier for companies to not seek to be corrupt, or set up barriers to corruption that are more verifiably not manipulable by those already with wealth or power? I can’t see how any other angle of discussion about creating companies can be worth anyone’s time until that is better sorted.
- DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
  > I can’t see how any other angle of discussion about creating companies can be worth anyone’s time until that is better sorted. People differ regarding their personal ethics, ambitions, interests, and abilities. If you make a compelling argument that your concerns are objectively the highest priority for discussion, even then only a fraction of the community will care to engage on the topic.
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    I think that standard sort of reasoning is inadequate given the degree of corruption that is deeply evident in corporate behavior and the impact it has on basic lives. For your explanation to be adequate, there would have to be such extreme indiosyncratic variation in the most common of human ethical standards relating to murder, sexual assault, gross scale bribery, child exploitation and many other issues that, from a cultural anthropology point of view, seem to yield a very highly correlated set of ethical norms across almost all of the developed world. It just seems implausible compared with alternative explanations, like intentional large scale paychological manipulation.
- sealthedeal 8y ago
  Could you give some insight into young companies/startups that are not seeking to ethical or are corrupt? That seems like a super broad statement.
davidscolgan 8y ago
Yes it is. Finding a community has helped me greatly. Two years ago it was literally just me. Now I have a therapist, a coach, a private freelancer community, three mastermind groups, an in-person entrepreneur meetup, three Slack groups, and a mailing list I write to and get feedback from. The difference between now and two years ago is massive. Something else that helps is not having a runway. After taking a year off and spending all of my money without much to show for it, I'm all in on the strategy of spending 50% of my time on freelance and 50% on building a business. Infinite runway and way less stress. YMMV.
tw1010 8y ago
I mean, if you're experienced, plan ahead (mentally and economically), and have a good idea and product market fit, it doesn't have to be torture, or even that hard. It's like trying to prove a really hard theorem. For Goedel proving the incompleteness theorem was probably incredibly hard, but he did achieve it in the end (thanks to previous experience and training and because he tackled a good problem with respect to his skills), but for most mathematicians that'd be impossible or torture. I know what I'm saying sounds mean or cruel, but I mean it's the truth.
- ryanmarsh 8y ago
  Business is hard when you get emotionally invested. Otherwise it’s just work. As I’ve gotten older I feel like the latter perspective has helped me handle the challenges better and make better decisions. The more I look at my business as “just work” and not some egotistical search for meaning the better I am at it.
retube 8y ago
> I have yet experienced more in these four years than most people do in all of their lives. oh please. how embarrassing
jacknews 8y ago
Some very good points, though the tone slightly reminds me of the the Mark Twain quote: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” It's certainly very difficult to start a business from scratch, and to grow it. A trick is if you can spin off a job into a contract, into a larger contract, etc, with the same customer(s), ideally people who may move to larger companies, and carry the relationship with them.
- PopeDotNinja 8y ago
  > A trick is if you can spin off a job into a contract, into a larger contract, etc, with the same customer(s), ideally people who may move to larger companies, and carry the relationship with them. Similar story for me. I had what I thought of as a temp job Client #1. The CTO of Client #1 liked the work I was doing & introduced me to the CEO of Client #2. I was like, "hey, am I allowed to work for 2 companies at once", and they were like "sure!". And that's how my brain flipped from temping to consulting.
- theoretick 8y ago
  As a sidenote: I looked it up because I was curious and apparently that quote is a misattribute: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/10/10/twain-father/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/10/10/twain-father/
  - jiveturkey 8y ago
    lol. famously, most Mark Twain quotes are misattributed.
pplonski86 8y ago
Building is hard in general. I don't like if people say I need to hustle - I like to build in peace in my mind.
joering2 8y ago
Can we alter the title somehow? I know for a fact that kids age 13 and 15 are reading HN daily...
- DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
  Same for me. The language adds approximately nothing to the discussion.
  - freehunter 8y ago
    I would argue that complaining about the language adds nothing to the discussion. Whether it's in the title or in the comments, you can't reasonably expect to censor bad language across the entire site, let alone the entire Internet. Far more offensive content gets posted here than a single swear word in the title of an article.
- acct1771 8y ago
  Welcome to the internet?
the_clarence 8y ago
I like the fact that quotes keep you going for long period of time. I am exactly the same, different quotes have kept me going at different point of my life. This is such a simple trick that many would be quick to dismiss it or to forget about it. One reason to subscribre to /r/getmotivated I guess :)
tnolet 8y ago
Not dissing the general message. Startups can be brutal, but still. Dude is 22 and claims having seen more hardship than others. Try dealing with raising kids, health issues, sick family members, dying friends, mid life (all of which will probably happen as you near the age 40) and a startup will look like a pleasant distraction from the actual hard stuff in life. I,d say enjoy being 22, don’t take yourself to seriously and reflection will come with age.
- DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
  I agree with everything you said, but it really feels like you're laying the groundwork for a smackdown by an 80 year old.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Everyone you love will die and you will be a stranger in your own country.
    - isoskeles 8y ago
      Not if I die first!
      - informatimago 8y ago
        You could as well buy a lottery ticket!
      - hinkley 8y ago
        By 80 you have already outlived a lot of your friends.
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      Luckily we all get a lifetime to make peace with this.
      - 8y ago
ryanmarsh 8y ago
I can remember feeling similarly at his age and expressing myself similarly. I think others here shouldn’t fault him for behaving in a manner commensurate with his age and experience level. This guy will mature over time. He will some day be 40 and if he keeps learning like this he might be pretty successful. You could use this opportunity to get to know him.
_zeek 8y ago
Is it just me or is this article just fluff? I would classify it as simply an entrepreneur venting... It does not seem like there is any valuable insight in this article apart from what conventional wisdom tells you: "You will need friends", "You will need mentors" is really applicable to any job / experience in life. I'm not sure why this is at the top of HN.
_zeek 8y ago
Is it just me or is this article just fluff? I would classify it as simply an entrepreneur venting. It does not seem like there is any valuable insight in this article apart from what conventional wisdom tells you. The advice of "You will need friends", "You will need mentors" are really applicable to any job / experience in life. I'm not sure why this is at the top of HN.
jonbarker 8y ago
To complicate matters, you really have to decide ahead of time whether the licensing route a la Stephen Key isn't a better or more efficient option if what you are looking to do is just get a product out there and help people. Not a company, yet potentially more impact.
lgys001 8y ago
Have a chance to building a company is fucking hard.
meesles 8y ago
I've already ranted against blog posts titled 'X is Hard'. Yet another hits the top post on HN. Yes, most things are hard, especially when you can describe it in detail as an 'expert'. To a layman, anything can be hard. These always come off as ego pieces to me justifying why they're worth money or why they should be hired. How about you just let your work represent you?
- randomsearch 8y ago
  I agree the title is a poor one, but I think there is some useful advice in the article, e.g. taking it easy when the week is hard.
ErikAugust 8y ago
"Most start ups will die because of mistakes made from the one bucket of common errors – about 90% of them. These include bad financial management, hiring errors, product errors, marketing errors, etc. I believe they can be easily avoided, but can also be easily forgotten about when you’re busy hustling." As far as I remember the reason most companies were dying (from a YC survey, I believe?) was product-market fit. This is not something that can be "easily avoided", and certainly not by simply having a mentor.
sealthedeal 8y ago
I applaud the kid for taking the jump into entrepreneurship at a young age. The one thing I think young entrepreneurs like him make is never working in industry/corporate/working for multiple startups before they start their own. You need to walk before you run. Its like apprenticeship, you go to a company/companies and learn how processes work, learn what efficiency means, learn how decisions get made, learn different ways of management or how different CEO's run a company, etc. I wish the OP best of luck, dont get to down in the dumps, you are only 22 and have already had an acquisition, and employed 15 people!
danielovichdk 8y ago
Life is fucking hard. Deal with it. Next story...
glenrivard 8y ago
It is easier the second time. What is hard is how much you have to learn.
b0bby_tabl3s 8y ago
Another headline today read: "Breathing is essential for life".
mrcoder111 8y ago
This article would have been way more interesting if you filled it with actual business lessons and examples. Instead, it's filled with vague self help messages...
ixtli 8y ago
I would pay to see a video of this person reading this again when he's 44.
SpecialistEMT 8y ago
If running a company as a young white male from the west is hard then i dont know what is easy. Smh

255 points by navidkhn1 8y ago

artur_makly 8y ago

PREEEEEEECH!

dang 8y ago
Not here, please.

jaysonelliot 8y ago

Two important points in that essay: You will need friends You will need mentors This is 100% true, so I have a question. How do you find those when you're already spending all of your time on your startup and new to town without a support network in place?

bananatron 8y ago
Meetups are a good place to start imo. Signal vs. noise is sometimes bad, but good groups of people who are building cool things exist almost everywhere.
LeonM 8y ago
A co-working space helps in my experience. Although it's still really hard (at least for me, as an introvert) to build such network. It's scary, but it's the only way.
GuiA 8y ago
Some of the best advice I’ve ever received was to only enact one big change at a time. Moving to a new city and leaving your support networks behind is a big change. Quitting your job and starting a company is a big change. Doing them together is perhaps not the wisest course of action.
jermaustin1 8y ago
Facebook/Twitter. Its definitely hard to make friends as an adult, so why not reach back into the past and pull an old friend out of the hat? I moved to NYC at 27 with no friends, no family, only a job offer. It took me 6 months to get settled and in an apartment that I felt comfortable with my wife moving up to. But in that 6 months, I had co-workers that turned into friends, strangers from the neighborhood that turned into friends, and old friends that I reconnected with now that I was 2000 miles away from running into them randomly at a party, funeral, or starbucks. So if you have a job, start hanging out with those people after work. You can easily find friends and mentors in that group.
kareemm 8y ago
I moved to a new city in Jan where I know one person, am starting a new company, and have a young family (e.g. limited time). In the last month I've: 1. Spoken to a group of CEOs about how to solve their product management issues 2. Organized a group of 6 product managers for drinks (I had met two of them once) 3. Demonstrated credibility and a willingness to help enough that I've gotten a bunch of inbound intros to help people with their Product problems Here's what I did: 1. Connected with people at the local startup hub. There's only one here as it's a small city (< 500k people). I've been working in tech since 2001 and have cultivated a fairly broad network. I was thus able to get an intro to the CEO of the hub here which helped immensely. 2. Share my knowledge. I've been doing Product Management for 16+ years. That's a skill that's needed here. So doing talks through the hub has enabled me to meet people and establish credibility. I put the word out that I'll meet with anybody in the local community to see if I can help with their product issues, and now people are sending me intros to others. 3. Organize people. It takes so little to organize a small group of like-minded folks. Last night I got 6 other Product Managers together here at a bar to talk shop. It was a matter of putting the word out amongst people I'd met via steps 1 and 2 with a time, date, and location. If you lather, rinse, and repeat steps 2 and 3 you'll establish a good community because you're helping others level up. Think about this time as an investment in your long term success. Work doesn't always look like writing code or talking to customers - having a peer group and mentors you can learn from will help with strategy, tactics, accountability, and - most importantly - your mental health.
- jaysonelliot 8y ago
  This is very solid, actionable advice that I can follow. Great point about "work doesn't always look like work." Thank you!
jlawson 8y ago
These aren't really true in my experience. I never had someone I'd consider a 'mentor'. And I've had friends but I don't spend a lot of time with them and they don't relate to my business at all. At the same time, I managed to build a business earning mid-6-digits per month. Not spending time futzing about with other people allowed me to focus on the actual craft and make the product really good. Not having "friends" to distort my thinking and pull every discussion towards common thought patterns and easy-to-understand platitudes allowed me to take my business in new directions that I understood but that others were unable to see or accept. If you really want to do something different, and seriously intense, very very few people will understand or have what it takes to participate. Put simply, 1-in-1000 people only appear once per thousand people. If you're trying to do a 1-in-1000 challenge, it's almost guaranteed that everyone around you is not up to it. (Of course it's highly likely you aren't up to it either, but you can't walk away from yourself. On the chance that you are up to it, you don't want to screw that up by averaging your results out with people who are far less capable and driven than you).
- Aperson4321 8y ago
  Extroverts need people to talk to, they have no choice in the matter and some people might need help with knowing where to start with basic stuff like registering a company etc. And some people need some emotional support, it does not need to be logical support just: "you worked hard have a hug" type support. But I totally agree with the don't talk with people about difficult work stuff you are trying to do to, like it takes years and rare talent to understand something in such a way that you can do "something different, and seriously intense" and make money off it, so there might be nobody in the world that you can have a proper discussion with about your thing. But on a personal level time spent making friends can be truly rewarding. I mean we humans are herd animals, there is no escaping it. I personally get along truly well with very few people, but I can get along with some people for a short amount of time, so visiting different groups of people from time to time gives me a lot of joy, even if I would never truly get along with those people for more than a few hours each week/month.
  - jlawson 8y ago
jv22222 8y ago
> This is 100% true, so I have a question. How do you find those when you're already spending all of your time on your startup and new to town without a support network in place? One option is to join a network like: https://nugget.one https://nugget.one (Disclosure: I'm founder of Nugget)

PopeDotNinja 8y ago

Yes, yes it is. Source: started a company and learned many things the hard way.

cik 8y ago

There's an old adage that successful people surround themselves with success. It's all about cohort - if you don't have other friends who are pushing themselves the way you are, it will be very, very, hard. It doesn't matter if you're in tech and your friend is in gardening, what matters is the shared struggle, and dreams. It helps knowing you're in a boat others have been in before. Spouses/partners can understand and support - but (most) haven't been through it, and there's just a different conversation that can be had with others who have. That's not a negative, it's a reminder that it really does take all types.

IloveHN84 8y ago
100% agree. I don't have any friends that pushed themselves to start an IT company and being successful. I only know people who claimed to do the best but failed miserably within the first year of their start-up. I made also failures in my startup as well, but we closed because we were approaching the zero budget and without having real customers. Partners who are not in IT cannot fully understand the struggle of running an IT company.
- softawre 8y ago
  It's interesting to me that you categorize your failures differently than the "people you know".
rokov 8y ago
This is what I have been going through for a long time. Everyone around me goes to their 9-5, so I barely even talk about my work anymore with them (even though I love it). You get used to it. I have tried finding people that are doing the same thing as me but with no luck.
- navidkhn1 8y ago
  Well, you found one just now.
- nomadtwin 8y ago
  If you have a little bit of freedom (money and job-wise) and your country (passport) allows you to travel - try to join a digital nomad trip. NOT one of those "life coach, ebook selling things". You'll be part of a group of like-minded people from around the world. I joined Hacker Paradise some years ago and it not only gave me valuable directions but tons of people that would understand what a Trello is and you can share struggles and stories.

ArtWomb 8y ago

I think Mark Cuban on Shark Tank used to tell founders this. Don't start a company because you have a world-altering idea. Start a company because you love starting companies.

vinceguidry 8y ago
What would he have you do if you have a world-altering idea? A company is still the best vehicle for seeing it actually change the world.
- AllegedAlec 8y ago
  Find someone who has experience starting a company and try to start a company together.
- thecupisblue 8y ago
  Open sourcing it.
  - acct1771 8y ago
    ...you're not super familiar with Mark Cuban, are ya?
- noobiemcfoob 8y ago
  Recognize that you most probably don't.
  - vinceguidry 8y ago
    Well, that's just no fun at all.
    - noobiemcfoob 8y ago
      That's not to say an idea isn't worth pursuing and building a company around. But if you set out to change the world, you're not going to. The people who have built world changing things didn't assume their work would lead there (exceptions will prove the rule).

GuiA 8y ago

If I set out to tell you the story of my life, there isn’t much – and yet, a whole lot! I’ve only been up and around for about 4 years, a happy ignorant high school teenager before that. I have yet experienced more in these four years than most people do in all of their lives. Ah, the folly of youth. Of course you are more special than everyone else. Of course you are smarter than everyone else. Of course you have experienced more than everyone else. I certainly was as well at 22. ”When I was seventeen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-five, I was astonished at how much he had learned in eight years.”

mikece 8y ago

A millennial complaining that success requires effort? I'm shocked! Joking aside, yes, building a business requires far more work than it may seem to the prospective first-timer. Fortunately there are some excellent book to help you know what to expect and what you need to plan for when starting a business. Michael Gerber's "The E-Myth Revisited" is the one book I would recommend as a starting point (and I would not necessarily recommend an entire library of books -- you want to start a business, not be a full-time reader).

chaosite 8y ago
At 22, he's almost Gen Z...

readhn 8y ago

Building a company is not hard. (Look around, we are surrounded by businesses). Building financially and ethically sustainable business that employs people that are truly happy to work there IS hard.

Sushi-san 8y ago
Ethics is a really hard continuum to manage when financial factors are at play.
- readhn 8y ago
  Building Ethically sustainable business model requires A LOT MORE effort and the positive results usually dont come overnight and tend to have long term outlook with focus on individuals/society as a whole. In todays world of "instant gratification" this is not a desired approach to running business. Most businesses "don't even go there" - hence we are surrounded by the world we live in.
srrge 8y ago
I don't understand why you are downvoted, because you are right. Conducting a successful career is also very hard. Let alone a successful marriage! Or getting fit, loosing weight. You want to build a company? Just do it. It's not harder than other things in life. Edit: some words.
- vecter 8y ago
  Building a successful startup is infinitely harder than having a successful career as an employee.
  - readhn 8y ago
    Because building a successful company = building many successful careers. The point that many companies still do not get!!! You absolutely have to invest in your people in a best possible way if you are interested at all in building a GREAT company.

dqpb 8y ago

> I have yet experienced more in these four years than most people do in all of their lives. Lol, hearing that from a 22 year old.

vinceguidry 8y ago
I think anybody that would say this is very likely completely right about it, despite their age.
- emilfihlman 8y ago
  I'd make the opposite claim.
- GuiA 8y ago
  What does it even mean, to have experienced “more” than anyone else? How do you compare raising a child to starting a company to performing as a top level athlete to losing a parent to ... Mathematically minded nerds tend to forget that not everything in life can be turned into set theory :)
  - moron4hire 8y ago
    As a mathematically minded something, I agree with your first sentence, mostly disagree with your last one. There are a lot of nerds who think they are good at math when they are not.
- pjc50 8y ago
  There's a lot of potential life experience out there, not all of it good. And a lot of people go through extraordinary hardships that they didn't choose. A great example of someone who's experienced both the difficulties of running a business and the difficulties of running for your life is Intel chairman Andy Grove: " He was born András Gróf into a not religious Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, which was ruled by a military dictator whose government persecuted Jews. That Gróf was not a Jewish surname may have helped his family avoid some of the worst of the persecution. As a small child, Grove had scarlet fever, which not only nearly killed him but also rendered him partly deaf. With the advent of World War II and Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, Hungary abandoned its official neutrality and joined the Germans. In 1944, when the war went badly for Germany, the Nazis overthrew the Hungarian government, fearing that the Hungarians were about to make peace with the Soviets. The rounding up of Jews for death camps and slave labor soon began. Grove's father was forced to serve in the German army at the Eastern Front, where he endured appalling tortures for the amusement of German soldiers. Grove and his mother hid under false names with a Christian family; almost every day was a close call, as soldiers snatched Jews off the streets and out of their homes. Then the Soviets fought their way into Budapest, bringing with them more persecution (and the rape of Grove's mother). Grove wanted to be a journalist, but he discovered that journalistic success depended on the whims of political correctness, and he decided to enter a field where subjectivity would not affect judgments about his work; he chose to study chemistry. In 1956 Hungarians tried to replace their Communist government with a democracy, and the Soviet Union in vaded their nation. There was fighting in Budapest's streets as young people tried to repel soldiers and tanks with small weapons and bottles filled with gasoline. Soviet troops began snatching young men and imprisoning, torturing, or killing them. Grove and his best friend, Janos Lanyi, fled to Austria, dodging Soviet troops, crawling in mud, afraid all the way. He had lived 20 years under murderous oppression, surviving by always remaining alert to the possibility that even a simple attempt to purchase a loaf of bread could cause him to disappear along with many other young Hungarians." -- https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/biography/F-L/Grove-Andy-1936.html https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/biography/F-L/Grove-And...

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

I don’t find the problem of creating a company to be an interesting benchmark of discussion. Why aren’t we talking about creating ethical companies and how to make it easier for companies to not seek to be corrupt, or set up barriers to corruption that are more verifiably not manipulable by those already with wealth or power? I can’t see how any other angle of discussion about creating companies can be worth anyone’s time until that is better sorted.

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
> I can’t see how any other angle of discussion about creating companies can be worth anyone’s time until that is better sorted. People differ regarding their personal ethics, ambitions, interests, and abilities. If you make a compelling argument that your concerns are objectively the highest priority for discussion, even then only a fraction of the community will care to engage on the topic.
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  I think that standard sort of reasoning is inadequate given the degree of corruption that is deeply evident in corporate behavior and the impact it has on basic lives. For your explanation to be adequate, there would have to be such extreme indiosyncratic variation in the most common of human ethical standards relating to murder, sexual assault, gross scale bribery, child exploitation and many other issues that, from a cultural anthropology point of view, seem to yield a very highly correlated set of ethical norms across almost all of the developed world. It just seems implausible compared with alternative explanations, like intentional large scale paychological manipulation.
sealthedeal 8y ago
Could you give some insight into young companies/startups that are not seeking to ethical or are corrupt? That seems like a super broad statement.

davidscolgan 8y ago

Yes it is. Finding a community has helped me greatly. Two years ago it was literally just me. Now I have a therapist, a coach, a private freelancer community, three mastermind groups, an in-person entrepreneur meetup, three Slack groups, and a mailing list I write to and get feedback from. The difference between now and two years ago is massive. Something else that helps is not having a runway. After taking a year off and spending all of my money without much to show for it, I'm all in on the strategy of spending 50% of my time on freelance and 50% on building a business. Infinite runway and way less stress. YMMV.

tw1010 8y ago

I mean, if you're experienced, plan ahead (mentally and economically), and have a good idea and product market fit, it doesn't have to be torture, or even that hard. It's like trying to prove a really hard theorem. For Goedel proving the incompleteness theorem was probably incredibly hard, but he did achieve it in the end (thanks to previous experience and training and because he tackled a good problem with respect to his skills), but for most mathematicians that'd be impossible or torture. I know what I'm saying sounds mean or cruel, but I mean it's the truth.

ryanmarsh 8y ago
Business is hard when you get emotionally invested. Otherwise it’s just work. As I’ve gotten older I feel like the latter perspective has helped me handle the challenges better and make better decisions. The more I look at my business as “just work” and not some egotistical search for meaning the better I am at it.

retube 8y ago

> I have yet experienced more in these four years than most people do in all of their lives. oh please. how embarrassing

jacknews 8y ago

Some very good points, though the tone slightly reminds me of the the Mark Twain quote: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” It's certainly very difficult to start a business from scratch, and to grow it. A trick is if you can spin off a job into a contract, into a larger contract, etc, with the same customer(s), ideally people who may move to larger companies, and carry the relationship with them.

PopeDotNinja 8y ago
> A trick is if you can spin off a job into a contract, into a larger contract, etc, with the same customer(s), ideally people who may move to larger companies, and carry the relationship with them. Similar story for me. I had what I thought of as a temp job Client #1. The CTO of Client #1 liked the work I was doing & introduced me to the CEO of Client #2. I was like, "hey, am I allowed to work for 2 companies at once", and they were like "sure!". And that's how my brain flipped from temping to consulting.
theoretick 8y ago
As a sidenote: I looked it up because I was curious and apparently that quote is a misattribute: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/10/10/twain-father/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/10/10/twain-father/
- jiveturkey 8y ago
  lol. famously, most Mark Twain quotes are misattributed.

pplonski86 8y ago

Building is hard in general. I don't like if people say I need to hustle - I like to build in peace in my mind.

joering2 8y ago

Can we alter the title somehow? I know for a fact that kids age 13 and 15 are reading HN daily...

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
Same for me. The language adds approximately nothing to the discussion.
- freehunter 8y ago
  I would argue that complaining about the language adds nothing to the discussion. Whether it's in the title or in the comments, you can't reasonably expect to censor bad language across the entire site, let alone the entire Internet. Far more offensive content gets posted here than a single swear word in the title of an article.
acct1771 8y ago
Welcome to the internet?

the_clarence 8y ago

I like the fact that quotes keep you going for long period of time. I am exactly the same, different quotes have kept me going at different point of my life. This is such a simple trick that many would be quick to dismiss it or to forget about it. One reason to subscribre to /r/getmotivated I guess :)

tnolet 8y ago

Not dissing the general message. Startups can be brutal, but still. Dude is 22 and claims having seen more hardship than others. Try dealing with raising kids, health issues, sick family members, dying friends, mid life (all of which will probably happen as you near the age 40) and a startup will look like a pleasant distraction from the actual hard stuff in life. I,d say enjoy being 22, don’t take yourself to seriously and reflection will come with age.

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
I agree with everything you said, but it really feels like you're laying the groundwork for a smackdown by an 80 year old.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  Everyone you love will die and you will be a stranger in your own country.
  - isoskeles 8y ago
    Not if I die first!
    - informatimago 8y ago
      You could as well buy a lottery ticket!
    - hinkley 8y ago
      By 80 you have already outlived a lot of your friends.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Luckily we all get a lifetime to make peace with this.
    - 8y ago

ryanmarsh 8y ago

I can remember feeling similarly at his age and expressing myself similarly. I think others here shouldn’t fault him for behaving in a manner commensurate with his age and experience level. This guy will mature over time. He will some day be 40 and if he keeps learning like this he might be pretty successful. You could use this opportunity to get to know him.

_zeek 8y ago

Is it just me or is this article just fluff? I would classify it as simply an entrepreneur venting... It does not seem like there is any valuable insight in this article apart from what conventional wisdom tells you: "You will need friends", "You will need mentors" is really applicable to any job / experience in life. I'm not sure why this is at the top of HN.

_zeek 8y ago

Is it just me or is this article just fluff? I would classify it as simply an entrepreneur venting. It does not seem like there is any valuable insight in this article apart from what conventional wisdom tells you. The advice of "You will need friends", "You will need mentors" are really applicable to any job / experience in life. I'm not sure why this is at the top of HN.

jonbarker 8y ago

To complicate matters, you really have to decide ahead of time whether the licensing route a la Stephen Key isn't a better or more efficient option if what you are looking to do is just get a product out there and help people. Not a company, yet potentially more impact.

lgys001 8y ago

Have a chance to building a company is fucking hard.

meesles 8y ago

I've already ranted against blog posts titled 'X is Hard'. Yet another hits the top post on HN. Yes, most things are hard, especially when you can describe it in detail as an 'expert'. To a layman, anything can be hard. These always come off as ego pieces to me justifying why they're worth money or why they should be hired. How about you just let your work represent you?

randomsearch 8y ago
I agree the title is a poor one, but I think there is some useful advice in the article, e.g. taking it easy when the week is hard.

ErikAugust 8y ago

"Most start ups will die because of mistakes made from the one bucket of common errors – about 90% of them. These include bad financial management, hiring errors, product errors, marketing errors, etc. I believe they can be easily avoided, but can also be easily forgotten about when you’re busy hustling." As far as I remember the reason most companies were dying (from a YC survey, I believe?) was product-market fit. This is not something that can be "easily avoided", and certainly not by simply having a mentor.

sealthedeal 8y ago

I applaud the kid for taking the jump into entrepreneurship at a young age. The one thing I think young entrepreneurs like him make is never working in industry/corporate/working for multiple startups before they start their own. You need to walk before you run. Its like apprenticeship, you go to a company/companies and learn how processes work, learn what efficiency means, learn how decisions get made, learn different ways of management or how different CEO's run a company, etc. I wish the OP best of luck, dont get to down in the dumps, you are only 22 and have already had an acquisition, and employed 15 people!

danielovichdk 8y ago

Life is fucking hard. Deal with it. Next story...

glenrivard 8y ago

It is easier the second time. What is hard is how much you have to learn.

b0bby_tabl3s 8y ago

Another headline today read: "Breathing is essential for life".

mrcoder111 8y ago

This article would have been way more interesting if you filled it with actual business lessons and examples. Instead, it's filled with vague self help messages...

ixtli 8y ago

I would pay to see a video of this person reading this again when he's 44.

SpecialistEMT 8y ago

If running a company as a young white male from the west is hard then i dont know what is easy. Smh