4 ms·

"I literally built a business in an afternoon and so can you." Are you charging money and have customers actually paying you? If not, it's not a business yet.

"I literally built a business in an afternoon and so can you." Are you charging money and have customers actually paying you? If not, it's not a business yet. It's a website. This barely functions as a website and looks like a few components thrown together using a bootstrap template.

TheCoelacanth 7y ago
If they were charging for it, they would have called it "revenue-earning" instead of "revenue-ready". What does "revenue-ready" even mean? They're willing to accept money for it? Really high bar to clear /s
- uoaei 7y ago
  I'm revenue-ready because I'm capable of holding my pockets open.
  - 1_over_n 7y ago
    I honestly feel like these comments are quite elitist. I can programme if i need to but will often use convenience tools to quickly test ideas. Thats kind of the spirit of (many not all) startups right now. Isn't the magic in figuring out what people are willing to pay for? That's definitely PGs message, along with speak to customers and do things that don't scale. And now someones getting flamed for attempting to do all three (whether it's worth blogging about is another thing). I believe i'm ok to comment here as I have worked at both ends of the scale (B2C super fast and dirty vs super deep scientific medical software with long time line to market).
    - aguyfromnb 7y ago
      >I can programme if i need to but will often use convenience tools to quickly test ideas. I don't think people are making fun of the "low-code" aspect as much as the "I literally built a business in an afternoon" part. It's a job board, implemented 2 months ago, that has a handful of postings. How is that a business?
      - 1_over_n 7y ago
        Well to be fair the title is "How I built and shipped my revenue-ready MVP in 4 hours" not "how i built my business in 4 hours". The claim is an MVP. I've seen people raise money with less than this so at least something was built. I've also seen people raise money to hire people to build an MVP which ended up being something built using "low programming tools". At least the poster is making an effort to take some action. I cant speak for how they will iterate etc but many people with an idea never actually even get started. Don't get me wrong. I don't think the world needs another jobs board but at one point airbnb sold cereal boxes so who am i to judge on what a persons ambitions will look like in 12 months time if they continue to learn and get some feedback. I mean, if they are reading the thread there is a bunch of feedback here they can assess. Everyone here who is commenting on scaleable systems had to start somewhere, i would bet for many that start was not with something that was at least halfway functional and could accomodate users.
        bdv500 7y ago
        I can confirm that I am reading all the feedback with avid interest. There are lots of fair and constructive comments here which I'm going to be taking on-board both for York Tech Jobs and for future projects. As many people have pointed out, the claim of being a business may be a bit farfetched at this stage. The spirit of the article was to show that building and validating a basic MVP is possible in a few hours, I added the last sentence about it being a business as a bit of a perhaps misplaced barb at people who are all talk, no action. Thanks to everyone for their comments. It's really appreciated.
        aguyfromnb 7y ago
        >"not "how i built my business in 4 hours" She says at the bottom of the article: I literally built a business in an afternoon and so can you. I also appreciate the effort to put something like this together, especially for a person without minimal coding ability. That part is great. Calling it a "business" is everything that's wrong with the Silicon Valley mentality. It isn't something you do in an afternoon. It could be a business one day, heck, it should be! But emphasizing the technical component over actually doing business is how many so-called companies get into trouble.
    - uoaei 7y ago
      The challenge being levied here is against vacuous self-inflationary language that applies to nearly any person at any point in time.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
shantly 7y ago
Shit it takes me about four hours just to get a few basic services set up & configured for a new business idea, before any kind of product work can start. Could throw up an experiment without doing that but it wouldn't really be ready for customers, just faux-ready enough to prove demand (which is still nice and all). Having done that one would not yet have "literally built a business", though.

TheCoelacanth 7y ago

If they were charging for it, they would have called it "revenue-earning" instead of "revenue-ready". What does "revenue-ready" even mean? They're willing to accept money for it? Really high bar to clear /s

uoaei 7y ago
I'm revenue-ready because I'm capable of holding my pockets open.
- 1_over_n 7y ago
  I honestly feel like these comments are quite elitist. I can programme if i need to but will often use convenience tools to quickly test ideas. Thats kind of the spirit of (many not all) startups right now. Isn't the magic in figuring out what people are willing to pay for? That's definitely PGs message, along with speak to customers and do things that don't scale. And now someones getting flamed for attempting to do all three (whether it's worth blogging about is another thing). I believe i'm ok to comment here as I have worked at both ends of the scale (B2C super fast and dirty vs super deep scientific medical software with long time line to market).
  - aguyfromnb 7y ago
    >I can programme if i need to but will often use convenience tools to quickly test ideas. I don't think people are making fun of the "low-code" aspect as much as the "I literally built a business in an afternoon" part. It's a job board, implemented 2 months ago, that has a handful of postings. How is that a business?
    - 1_over_n 7y ago
      Well to be fair the title is "How I built and shipped my revenue-ready MVP in 4 hours" not "how i built my business in 4 hours". The claim is an MVP. I've seen people raise money with less than this so at least something was built. I've also seen people raise money to hire people to build an MVP which ended up being something built using "low programming tools". At least the poster is making an effort to take some action. I cant speak for how they will iterate etc but many people with an idea never actually even get started. Don't get me wrong. I don't think the world needs another jobs board but at one point airbnb sold cereal boxes so who am i to judge on what a persons ambitions will look like in 12 months time if they continue to learn and get some feedback. I mean, if they are reading the thread there is a bunch of feedback here they can assess. Everyone here who is commenting on scaleable systems had to start somewhere, i would bet for many that start was not with something that was at least halfway functional and could accomodate users.
      - bdv500 7y ago
        I can confirm that I am reading all the feedback with avid interest. There are lots of fair and constructive comments here which I'm going to be taking on-board both for York Tech Jobs and for future projects. As many people have pointed out, the claim of being a business may be a bit farfetched at this stage. The spirit of the article was to show that building and validating a basic MVP is possible in a few hours, I added the last sentence about it being a business as a bit of a perhaps misplaced barb at people who are all talk, no action. Thanks to everyone for their comments. It's really appreciated.
      - aguyfromnb 7y ago
        >"not "how i built my business in 4 hours" She says at the bottom of the article: I literally built a business in an afternoon and so can you. I also appreciate the effort to put something like this together, especially for a person without minimal coding ability. That part is great. Calling it a "business" is everything that's wrong with the Silicon Valley mentality. It isn't something you do in an afternoon. It could be a business one day, heck, it should be! But emphasizing the technical component over actually doing business is how many so-called companies get into trouble.
  - uoaei 7y ago
    The challenge being levied here is against vacuous self-inflationary language that applies to nearly any person at any point in time.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

shantly 7y ago

Shit it takes me about four hours just to get a few basic services set up & configured for a new business idea, before any kind of product work can start. Could throw up an experiment without doing that but it wouldn't really be ready for customers, just faux-ready enough to prove demand (which is still nice and all). Having done that one would not yet have "literally built a business", though.