5 ms·

It was a fun read. But also a bit sad that it takes thousands of dollars and a lot of available time (which many people don't have) to do something as fundament

by njepa 7y ago

It was a fun read. But also a bit sad that it takes thousands of dollars and a lot of available time (which many people don't have) to do something as fundamental as this.

latexr 7y ago
I have available time. Get me someone with thousands of dollars (and willing to risk them) and let’s collaborate!
- hopler 7y ago
  Drop in on your local bank and SBA. They are looking for people like you.
  - latexr 7y ago
    A loan has to be repaid. Since most projects fail, odds are not on my side. I have no desire to dig myself into a hole. This is why it’s more common for people that are already well off to be entrepreneurs[1] — they have a safety net. [1]: https://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-for-risk-they-come-from-families-with-money/ https://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene...
    - freeone3000 7y ago
      A business loan is issued to the business, not to you as an individual. Failing to repay the loan means your business goes into collections (and possible bankruptcy), not that you as an individual suffer for it.
      - cm2012 7y ago
        No one gives out unsecured business loans to start-ups.
      - deadmetheny 7y ago
        Please don't speak of things you know nothing about. No brand-new business would ever get a loan issued without a signature from some person or established entity who can be held liable if the business defaults. Source: I have owned multiple small businesses.
- phil21 7y ago
  I've thought about this a lot lately. I have (some) money, but not a whole lot of time. It's really hard to find reasonable direct investments for "down payment on an investment property" style money, with "rent from an investment property" expected returns. Seems all that's available at that level is more or less gambling on potential unicorn style stuff. Or put other way - I'd love to find some great "regular" business ideas to both fund and assist in getting off the ground to the tune of $5-50k, and if successful make a few thousand a month down the road in a couple years - not millions on some future exit. Basically I want to seed-fund/invest in/be involved in what HN calls "lifestyle business" - just a regular old sustainable business expected to grow 10% a year and comfortably employ a couple founders and employees. Many good reasons this market doesn't exist and is "hard", but one can wish. It would feel fare more satisfying to invest money in actual hard working people with real but boring (read: low risk) business models than tossing it into the S&P500 or engaging it yet more rent-seeking by buying up small properties to turn into rentals.
  - latexr 7y ago
    I do agree it’s an ideal kind of business to invest in, but it seems to me there’s one major reason they’re hard to find: had I that type of business, I wouldn’t accept outside money. I’m frugal in my living, so any business that brought in a few thousand a month would be enough to live from. I could scrape the $5K to get an idea off the ground, but if it failed I’d regret it. Simply put, it’s not money to risk.
  - dharma1 7y ago
    It gets better - in the UK you can offset 50% of the investment directly against your income tax (up to a limit, and if the company qualifies for SEIS) + and the returns are free of capital gains tax. The issue is finding good enough "regular" business ideas/teams
  - HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
    I listened (again) to an Indiehackers podcast with Rob Walling this morning where he described pretty much that problem. He had "lots of" cash and "little" time to spend in building a business from scratch. What worked was to find a business he liked that wasn't making much money, but could be bought for cheap (he overpaid!) and turned into something that made money. To respond to the "rent from investment property" concept, you can get in on investment properties at a fairly low price (IIRC 40% discounts) if you invest when builders are looking for prospective buyers. i.e., before anything is built. I looked into doing this some time ago, but the builder couldn't find enough buyers, so the property was never built.
kbenson 7y ago
I think the thousands of dollars really just sped up the timeline. The domain definitely helps, but I don't think it's required. There's others that could have been used for a good business, it's only integral to this specific story. The $10k loss in boxes to me seems like he got ahead of himself and took a risk to save on shipping supplies, and got bitten for it. A slightly more conservative approach might have put that off and paid more for shipping for a while until some smaller amount of boxes could be tested from that supplier. The good thing about a business like this is that it's much less likely someone is going to swoop in and steal your idea and customers because you took a little longer to work out the kinks.
- njepa 7y ago
  True. You could to some extent. I think part of the story is the opportunity though. The domain name, the boxes and the time are all things that grant him the opportunity to do it. He probably could have sold them in plastic bags on eBay (someone probably already does), but it wouldn't be same thing. We all seem to agree like things like this is a good thing, but then we undermine people's ability to do it by favoring things like real estate, domains and "middle man businesses" instead. I guess bunnie said it best: "supply chains are made out of people" https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4266 https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4266
  - bluGill 7y ago
    He could have sold them on ebay in plastic bags - but then he would learn a different expensive lessons: onions need to breath, don't ship in plastic. Actually it is more complex, if you ship fast enough in plastic you might be okay, and some types of plastic are better than others, thus this is a lesson that he might or might not have learned the hard way depending on if he was lucky enough. Real business is hard because of all the not obvious things you need to account for.
    - njepa 7y ago
      Right, but that is a factor of your supply chain. In Shenzhen you might make hundred boards, go down to the market and buy a hundred boxes and leave them with the shipper. Boards don't work? Re-work them or make another hundred. Box doesn't work? Buy another box. You don't like your box supplier? There is a hundred others on Taobao. In NYC it might take you weeks to do the same thing while you are bleeding rent (and everything else) so you need the thousand boards and boxes to make it work (or you are selling very few in your spare time). And if something goes wrong you are probably fucked. I am exaggerating, but you get the idea.
pjc50 7y ago
That's why it's a fundamental thing: it takes time, effort, and money. Things that take neither time nor effort vanish as trivialities, even if there's an interesting story in how they got reduced to that point.
driverdan 7y ago
All businesses take time and money to build. How is that sad?
- hopler 7y ago
  More generally, all open problems are hard, because the economy's limiting reagent isn't mildly intelligent people willing to do easy work for good money.
- njepa 7y ago
  It is sad because it doesn't really go into the core business. He spends thousands of dollar on marketing, domains and suppliers just to have a farmer sell to consumers. It should almost be two clicks on "etsy for farmers".
  - omarchowdhury 7y ago
    > It should almost be two clicks on "etsy for farmers". Sounds like a viable startup opportunity. Especially with the Beyond Meats S-1 post from yesterday where hackers talked about buying meat directly from farmers.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - benj111 7y ago
    Would spending thousands of $ developing "etsy for farmers" be sad also? Its the nature of the beast, you invest money to make money, the internet is no different.
    - njepa 7y ago
      No, because the money would be going into the business of serving an entire nation of farmers with these services. The cost for each instance of doing the fundamental thing, having a farmer sell to consumers, would hopefully be low.
HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
Growing the onions is even more fundamental. It also takes even more money and a hell of a lot more time! That's life in a nutshell, I guess.
sealthedeal 7y ago
I bet if you added up all the time in your day and cut things out you could find the time! :)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

by njepa 7y ago

It was a fun read. But also a bit sad that it takes thousands of dollars and a lot of available time (which many people don't have) to do something as fundamental as this.

latexr 7y ago

I have available time. Get me someone with thousands of dollars (and willing to risk them) and let’s collaborate!

hopler 7y ago
Drop in on your local bank and SBA. They are looking for people like you.
- latexr 7y ago
  A loan has to be repaid. Since most projects fail, odds are not on my side. I have no desire to dig myself into a hole. This is why it’s more common for people that are already well off to be entrepreneurs[1] — they have a safety net. [1]: https://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-for-risk-they-come-from-families-with-money/ https://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene...
  - freeone3000 7y ago
    A business loan is issued to the business, not to you as an individual. Failing to repay the loan means your business goes into collections (and possible bankruptcy), not that you as an individual suffer for it.
    - cm2012 7y ago
      No one gives out unsecured business loans to start-ups.
    - deadmetheny 7y ago
      Please don't speak of things you know nothing about. No brand-new business would ever get a loan issued without a signature from some person or established entity who can be held liable if the business defaults. Source: I have owned multiple small businesses.
phil21 7y ago
I've thought about this a lot lately. I have (some) money, but not a whole lot of time. It's really hard to find reasonable direct investments for "down payment on an investment property" style money, with "rent from an investment property" expected returns. Seems all that's available at that level is more or less gambling on potential unicorn style stuff. Or put other way - I'd love to find some great "regular" business ideas to both fund and assist in getting off the ground to the tune of $5-50k, and if successful make a few thousand a month down the road in a couple years - not millions on some future exit. Basically I want to seed-fund/invest in/be involved in what HN calls "lifestyle business" - just a regular old sustainable business expected to grow 10% a year and comfortably employ a couple founders and employees. Many good reasons this market doesn't exist and is "hard", but one can wish. It would feel fare more satisfying to invest money in actual hard working people with real but boring (read: low risk) business models than tossing it into the S&P500 or engaging it yet more rent-seeking by buying up small properties to turn into rentals.
- latexr 7y ago
  I do agree it’s an ideal kind of business to invest in, but it seems to me there’s one major reason they’re hard to find: had I that type of business, I wouldn’t accept outside money. I’m frugal in my living, so any business that brought in a few thousand a month would be enough to live from. I could scrape the $5K to get an idea off the ground, but if it failed I’d regret it. Simply put, it’s not money to risk.
- dharma1 7y ago
  It gets better - in the UK you can offset 50% of the investment directly against your income tax (up to a limit, and if the company qualifies for SEIS) + and the returns are free of capital gains tax. The issue is finding good enough "regular" business ideas/teams
- HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
  I listened (again) to an Indiehackers podcast with Rob Walling this morning where he described pretty much that problem. He had "lots of" cash and "little" time to spend in building a business from scratch. What worked was to find a business he liked that wasn't making much money, but could be bought for cheap (he overpaid!) and turned into something that made money. To respond to the "rent from investment property" concept, you can get in on investment properties at a fairly low price (IIRC 40% discounts) if you invest when builders are looking for prospective buyers. i.e., before anything is built. I looked into doing this some time ago, but the builder couldn't find enough buyers, so the property was never built.

kbenson 7y ago

I think the thousands of dollars really just sped up the timeline. The domain definitely helps, but I don't think it's required. There's others that could have been used for a good business, it's only integral to this specific story. The $10k loss in boxes to me seems like he got ahead of himself and took a risk to save on shipping supplies, and got bitten for it. A slightly more conservative approach might have put that off and paid more for shipping for a while until some smaller amount of boxes could be tested from that supplier. The good thing about a business like this is that it's much less likely someone is going to swoop in and steal your idea and customers because you took a little longer to work out the kinks.

njepa 7y ago
True. You could to some extent. I think part of the story is the opportunity though. The domain name, the boxes and the time are all things that grant him the opportunity to do it. He probably could have sold them in plastic bags on eBay (someone probably already does), but it wouldn't be same thing. We all seem to agree like things like this is a good thing, but then we undermine people's ability to do it by favoring things like real estate, domains and "middle man businesses" instead. I guess bunnie said it best: "supply chains are made out of people" https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4266 https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4266
- bluGill 7y ago
  He could have sold them on ebay in plastic bags - but then he would learn a different expensive lessons: onions need to breath, don't ship in plastic. Actually it is more complex, if you ship fast enough in plastic you might be okay, and some types of plastic are better than others, thus this is a lesson that he might or might not have learned the hard way depending on if he was lucky enough. Real business is hard because of all the not obvious things you need to account for.
  - njepa 7y ago
    Right, but that is a factor of your supply chain. In Shenzhen you might make hundred boards, go down to the market and buy a hundred boxes and leave them with the shipper. Boards don't work? Re-work them or make another hundred. Box doesn't work? Buy another box. You don't like your box supplier? There is a hundred others on Taobao. In NYC it might take you weeks to do the same thing while you are bleeding rent (and everything else) so you need the thousand boards and boxes to make it work (or you are selling very few in your spare time). And if something goes wrong you are probably fucked. I am exaggerating, but you get the idea.

pjc50 7y ago

That's why it's a fundamental thing: it takes time, effort, and money. Things that take neither time nor effort vanish as trivialities, even if there's an interesting story in how they got reduced to that point.

driverdan 7y ago

All businesses take time and money to build. How is that sad?

hopler 7y ago
More generally, all open problems are hard, because the economy's limiting reagent isn't mildly intelligent people willing to do easy work for good money.
njepa 7y ago
It is sad because it doesn't really go into the core business. He spends thousands of dollar on marketing, domains and suppliers just to have a farmer sell to consumers. It should almost be two clicks on "etsy for farmers".
- omarchowdhury 7y ago
  > It should almost be two clicks on "etsy for farmers". Sounds like a viable startup opportunity. Especially with the Beyond Meats S-1 post from yesterday where hackers talked about buying meat directly from farmers.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- benj111 7y ago
  Would spending thousands of $ developing "etsy for farmers" be sad also? Its the nature of the beast, you invest money to make money, the internet is no different.
  - njepa 7y ago
    No, because the money would be going into the business of serving an entire nation of farmers with these services. The cost for each instance of doing the fundamental thing, having a farmer sell to consumers, would hopefully be low.

HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago

Growing the onions is even more fundamental. It also takes even more money and a hell of a lot more time! That's life in a nutshell, I guess.

sealthedeal 7y ago

I bet if you added up all the time in your day and cut things out you could find the time! :)

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]