4 ms·

Ask HN: Lightbulb moments: Concepts and ideas that made you go forward

8 points by xcubic 6y ago

codegeek 6y ago
My lightbulb moment was that I was pushing 32 and life was running away and I was not working towards my goals of starting my own thing. Didn't really have a specific idea but I got started by buying someone else's validated idea and went all in.
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  Nice. Hope that goes well. Any tips on buying an idea that you learned? Did you buy a business with revenue or something very early?
  - codegeek 6y ago
    Oh yea. This was 6+ years ago and haven't looked back. At the time, it was hardly a business but technically had like 10 paying customers.
    - xcubic 6y ago
      What was your process to find such an opportunity? I actually am 33 and I'm pretty much in the same situation actually.
      - codegeek 6y ago
        Honestly, it was a lucky day when I found a gem on flippa.com as it usually has garbage. But again I got lucky because I look at flippa almost daily even now :). Just a hobby.
      - quickthrower2 6y ago
        Ha I’m 40 same boat!
- koolk3ychain 6y ago
  I'm turning 27 soon and honestly I'm feeling this sneaking up on me. I'm not sure if I'm afraid I'm not improving fast enough or that I don't have the drive to be a founder. Previously, I've basically only worked at growth stage startups except for a brief stint at a FAANG.
alkaline9 6y ago
Some years back, I was a senior software engineer and I was becoming less productive, because I was afraid I might produce code that wasn't judged as senior-software-engineer quality. My manager started to get a little concerned. One day I realized that If I just got stuff done that mattered, the judgment of other people about my code quality really wouldn't matter. Ever since then, I have just written the code I thought needed to be written, without a care about how anyone might look down on it, regardless of whether they are a higher or lower level than me. I have gotten consistently good ratings with this approach. Later I learned about an experiment that compared different groups of photography students, and the ones that were instructed to produce more pictures without regard to quality actually produced better pictures in the end than groups who were told to produce 1 perfect picture. Produce a lot and the quality will naturally come! https://jamesclear.com/repetitions https://jamesclear.com/repetitions

8 points by xcubic 6y ago

My lightbulb moment was that I was pushing 32 and life was running away and I was not working towards my goals of starting my own thing. Didn't really have a specific idea but I got started by buying someone else's validated idea and went all in.

quickthrower2 6y ago
Nice. Hope that goes well. Any tips on buying an idea that you learned? Did you buy a business with revenue or something very early?
- codegeek 6y ago
  Oh yea. This was 6+ years ago and haven't looked back. At the time, it was hardly a business but technically had like 10 paying customers.
  - xcubic 6y ago
    What was your process to find such an opportunity? I actually am 33 and I'm pretty much in the same situation actually.
    - codegeek 6y ago
      Honestly, it was a lucky day when I found a gem on flippa.com as it usually has garbage. But again I got lucky because I look at flippa almost daily even now :). Just a hobby.
    - quickthrower2 6y ago
      Ha I’m 40 same boat!
koolk3ychain 6y ago
I'm turning 27 soon and honestly I'm feeling this sneaking up on me. I'm not sure if I'm afraid I'm not improving fast enough or that I don't have the drive to be a founder. Previously, I've basically only worked at growth stage startups except for a brief stint at a FAANG.

alkaline9 6y ago

Some years back, I was a senior software engineer and I was becoming less productive, because I was afraid I might produce code that wasn't judged as senior-software-engineer quality. My manager started to get a little concerned. One day I realized that If I just got stuff done that mattered, the judgment of other people about my code quality really wouldn't matter. Ever since then, I have just written the code I thought needed to be written, without a care about how anyone might look down on it, regardless of whether they are a higher or lower level than me. I have gotten consistently good ratings with this approach. Later I learned about an experiment that compared different groups of photography students, and the ones that were instructed to produce more pictures without regard to quality actually produced better pictures in the end than groups who were told to produce 1 perfect picture. Produce a lot and the quality will naturally come! https://jamesclear.com/repetitions https://jamesclear.com/repetitions