4 ms·

My very brief, hopefully not too harsh 2 cents: The description of what you are building sounds like a deeply technical, profoundly specific thingie for deeply

My very brief, hopefully not too harsh 2 cents: The description of what you are building sounds like a deeply technical, profoundly specific thingie for deeply technical people (with unknown market, and unknown business proposition at best). The fact you have not started with or outlined the problem it solves, the business need, or who is the customer in non-technical terms feels like a massive red flag to my naive mind. Bluntly, at best it sounds like a "tinkering hobby" - NOTHING wrong with that, unless you need to pay the bills :). I would suggest getting a job in a place / position where you can observe the business flow, verbiage, get some mentorship, and not only pay the bills, but set yourself up for long term success should you desire to build something of your own again. I have no idea what your technical prowess is, but it sounds like you may have spent your years building stuff rather than building business, and that's where your growth opportunity lies. To put it another way "Selling and marketing are not my skillset" is almost a token of pride for us techies, but it is empathically not a successful mindset for a potential business owner. If marketing and selling are of no interest to you, and you just want to do the technical part, than accept your own preferences and priorities and go work with/for somebody who does prioritize and excel at sales and marketing :) (all this of course based on reading three paragraphs you've shared and therefore as likely completely misread and wrong as not :). Best of luck! P.S. For what it's worth: nothing prepares and nobody can explain to you the MASSIVE transformation and upheaval of your life that having children will be:). If money is in any way a stressor, to you or relationship, or if this brings you anxiety, that's another good reason to settle that down before kids come along :>

eloff 5y ago
Thank you for being honest. I feel you've described me and my situation pretty accurately. I appreciate the advice and you're right - I need to learn the non-technical skills where I'm weak before doing this again. Or at least meet a co-founder who's strengths overlap with my weaknesses - probably a marketing/sales person.
- mstipetic 5y ago
  What other things did you try to build?
- WestCoastJustin 5y ago
  If you want to develop marketing skills here's some things to research: Start with something called "product marketing" the job titles are typically "product marketing manager" and these folks are typically a group that sits in "marketing" and does things like "messaging & positioning" figures out "pricing & packaging" and comes up with all the info about the product. Basically, works with Eng + PM teams and packages up all their work and makes something you can actually sell. Just spelling this out since you can google it on your own. Look for something called "totally addressable market" (also know as TAM) too and that'll give you the size of the market you're selling into. Some of this is sort of art and science since there is nothing really exact and you will need to test it via trail and error. But, it'll get you pointed in the general direction of what's correct. FWIW, I agree with OP here. Kids are a game changer and having a stable paycheck coming in gives you time to dedicate to your family without stress. This is highly underrated in the first 3-6 months when you're trying to figure out what this new life looks like (living on 2 hour chunks of sleep). Speaking from experience trying to start a company, having a kid, then quickly realising I need a job asap.
  - diminish 5y ago
    Eloff, I'm a `Pgpool-II` & `PgBouncer` user for a long time. Riverdb's https://github.com/riverdb/riverdb/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/riverdb/riverdb/blob/master/README.md seems to appear a bit counter-growth. - A proprietary, alpha software is could be anti-growth in the PG world. I think your README.md can be made more welcoming with - a getting started - tutorial/configuration - install steps - a video link why this is cool. https://github.com/riverdb/riverdb/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/riverdb/riverdb/blob/master/README.md
    - eloff 5y ago
      I understand some people feel that anything short of an OSI open-source license is somehow bad, but I don't agree with that thinking. It's another way that this product is probably a bad idea though - because there are lots of people who think like you on the license issue. It definitely needs documentation, getting started, tutorials etc. But I never really published this or even made a website for it. Thanks for the tips!
- diminish 5y ago
  Hey Eloff, after 4 failed startups from 2012-2018 - I've joined another late-stage high growth startup. Thanks to stock options I ended up having 7 digit wealth in 2 years Now I will go back to startuping.....
  - eloff 5y ago
    Congratulations, that worked out well for you!
    - diminish 5y ago
      Eloff I'm not as special and indeed you are. What I mean is, you can pause your being the founder idea for 3 years and jump on someone who found high growth. One way for you could be to join some database, postgres startups. Join their open source projects and get ideas from the team.
      - eloff 5y ago
        Well I don't know about special. It's good advice though, and your strategy for how you did that is quite actionable. It's still a lottery, but you did things to skew the odds heavily in your favor, which was smart.
  - yibg 5y ago
    That's a great success story and I'm happy for you. But it's not really an actionable advice. How would one go about identifying a late stage startup that will have a 7 figure exit?
    - diminish 5y ago
      That's how I chose the best startup. Went through all worldwide & Ycombinator startups which are high growth. Registered at Workatastartup. Used https://kennytilton.github.io/whoishiring/ https://kennytilton.github.io/whoishiring/ to see what they are searching for. Chose 10 companies with positions where I have very strong hard skills. Interacted with the particular company's product. Wrote a nice paragraph on ideas how I can contribute. - https://www.ycombinator.com/companies https://www.ycombinator.com/companies - https://www.workatastartup.com https://www.workatastartup.com
- hermitcrab 5y ago
  Someone who is a strong marketing/sales person has loads of opportunities. Why would they want to spend their time working with you when you don't even seem to have a product or know what problem you are solving? I would suggest getting a full-time job. Maybe try again in a few year with more savings, a stronger idea of what problem you are solving and more business experience. [Context: Running my own 1 man software product company since 2005].
- mandeepj 5y ago
  > I need to learn the non-technical skills where I'm weak before doing this again. Or at least meet a co-founder who's strengths overlap with my weaknesses - probably a marketing/sales person. Not necessarily. I believe, at first, the only thing you need to do is - talk with people. Start with tech conferences. I believe a lot of them would let you deliver a session. You will create more connections and also you'll get a lot of feedback from people that will help in refining your message and pitch. One talk after another, you will realize how accurately people are able to understand, what you are trying to deliver. Refine, talk, listen - that's your cycle. Also, because you are building an open-source product - you might also find some contributors. Edit - ‘Talk with people’ - you already started here. Good job on that.
smrtinsert 5y ago
A million times this. A cofounder I used to work once told me the only thing you should be looking at is market need. Tech demos don't pay bills.
kbuchanan 5y ago
As a founder myself, I echo this sentiment, that building and selling are indeed not the same thing. They are both important, but having a mindset for marketing, selling, finding an audience, either yourself, or in a co-founder, is essential. And it never stops being important.
NiagaraThistle 5y ago
This is probably the best advice for the OP I've read here.
waterfish 5y ago
Perfectly described and I went thru similar “existential crisis”. I would build off of this and add that taking a job is NOT an admission of failure or defeat in accomplishing your life dreams and goals. You can take a job, and still work on your business on the side. You might be surprised at how well the company you work for can teach you about business and operations and marketing to augment your endeavors. Good luck!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sharkweek 5y ago
Big second vote here for get a job at LargeCo (doesn’t even have to be at a tech company and you might even be better off finding business opportunities working in tech at like some big consumer goods co, insurance, etc…) and observe workflows. People do some bizarre things to get their jobs done each day and if you see enough similar bizarre things from lots of people, you ask questions then present potential solutions to see if there’s a product hidden in there. Wishing you luck!
ChuckMcM 5y ago
This expresses pretty much what I was going to say. To contextualize it a bit, I always mentor people to start by getting a job in a company that is doing something in their skill set. Instead of looking at it as "just a paycheck until I can start my own thing." try to actively learn about how that company works, really works, from marketing to sales to manufacturing to legal to operations. Most people are willing to mentor if you tell them that you are hoping to start your own company one day and want to know what you don't know. Ask questions of people like product managers of the form, "How do you validate your ideas for products before you commit to invest building them?" or "What product did you think would be a hit and was a total flop? What caused it to flop?" Ask people in release engineering or manufacturing, "What takes the most time in getting a product out? How about a feature to a product?" If you are a software developer, imagine that a functioning, growing company is a large legacy code base that you want to learn how it works. How the pieces work together, what the roles of the parts are. If you're a hardware engineer imagine the company is a big circuit you're analyzing, same thing, what do the parts do and how do they contribute to the overall functioning. You will get to know a lot of people in the company and you will get a much better understanding of what it takes to bring a product to market. What ever you do, and this applies to people anywhere in their career, do NOT consider any job "just a paycheck." Use a job to learn more about why people are willing to give this company money so that the company can pay you to work there. The secret, such as it is for entrepreneurs, is "For what reason would people give me money?" And you can also ask "What would I pay for this idea?" and then subtract from that what you've learned from your work experiences would be the costs of producing it. PS> Even the best university education does not train you to build a successful company from the ground up. Nobody teaches that, you have to learn it from people who have done it or even better are doing it.
- WestCoastJustin 5y ago
  > you have to learn it from people who have done it or even better are doing it. I have often wondered how to distil this point down. It's like these people know the patterns/systems that work to generate the results they want. They can replicate them at any company and generally know what needs to be implemented or what's missing. Tune from there. I think the key is somewhere in the patterns/systems but still that's too vague to implement. Basically, you need to join somewhere successful, get to a level were you can see across the org, and learn what patterns/systems they use and replicate them. Mix in competent people too.
lesbianbezos 5y ago
If marketing and selling are of no interest to you, and you just want to do the technical part, I know a ton of YC/Stanford/TechStars sales solo founders who would be down to collab. This one girl Sarah who raised $800k-1million and told me today that she's looking to hire her first engineer. They are all in this YC-Level community https://founderscafe.io https://founderscafe.io
- ElCapitanMarkla 5y ago
  800k-1M with no engineers?! Is that a new startup?

eloff 5y ago

Thank you for being honest. I feel you've described me and my situation pretty accurately. I appreciate the advice and you're right - I need to learn the non-technical skills where I'm weak before doing this again. Or at least meet a co-founder who's strengths overlap with my weaknesses - probably a marketing/sales person.

mstipetic 5y ago
What other things did you try to build?
WestCoastJustin 5y ago
If you want to develop marketing skills here's some things to research: Start with something called "product marketing" the job titles are typically "product marketing manager" and these folks are typically a group that sits in "marketing" and does things like "messaging & positioning" figures out "pricing & packaging" and comes up with all the info about the product. Basically, works with Eng + PM teams and packages up all their work and makes something you can actually sell. Just spelling this out since you can google it on your own. Look for something called "totally addressable market" (also know as TAM) too and that'll give you the size of the market you're selling into. Some of this is sort of art and science since there is nothing really exact and you will need to test it via trail and error. But, it'll get you pointed in the general direction of what's correct. FWIW, I agree with OP here. Kids are a game changer and having a stable paycheck coming in gives you time to dedicate to your family without stress. This is highly underrated in the first 3-6 months when you're trying to figure out what this new life looks like (living on 2 hour chunks of sleep). Speaking from experience trying to start a company, having a kid, then quickly realising I need a job asap.
- diminish 5y ago
  Eloff, I'm a `Pgpool-II` & `PgBouncer` user for a long time. Riverdb's https://github.com/riverdb/riverdb/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/riverdb/riverdb/blob/master/README.md seems to appear a bit counter-growth. - A proprietary, alpha software is could be anti-growth in the PG world. I think your README.md can be made more welcoming with - a getting started - tutorial/configuration - install steps - a video link why this is cool. https://github.com/riverdb/riverdb/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/riverdb/riverdb/blob/master/README.md
  - eloff 5y ago
    I understand some people feel that anything short of an OSI open-source license is somehow bad, but I don't agree with that thinking. It's another way that this product is probably a bad idea though - because there are lots of people who think like you on the license issue. It definitely needs documentation, getting started, tutorials etc. But I never really published this or even made a website for it. Thanks for the tips!
diminish 5y ago
Hey Eloff, after 4 failed startups from 2012-2018 - I've joined another late-stage high growth startup. Thanks to stock options I ended up having 7 digit wealth in 2 years Now I will go back to startuping.....
- eloff 5y ago
  Congratulations, that worked out well for you!
  - diminish 5y ago
    Eloff I'm not as special and indeed you are. What I mean is, you can pause your being the founder idea for 3 years and jump on someone who found high growth. One way for you could be to join some database, postgres startups. Join their open source projects and get ideas from the team.
    - eloff 5y ago
      Well I don't know about special. It's good advice though, and your strategy for how you did that is quite actionable. It's still a lottery, but you did things to skew the odds heavily in your favor, which was smart.
- yibg 5y ago
  That's a great success story and I'm happy for you. But it's not really an actionable advice. How would one go about identifying a late stage startup that will have a 7 figure exit?
  - diminish 5y ago
    That's how I chose the best startup. Went through all worldwide & Ycombinator startups which are high growth. Registered at Workatastartup. Used https://kennytilton.github.io/whoishiring/ https://kennytilton.github.io/whoishiring/ to see what they are searching for. Chose 10 companies with positions where I have very strong hard skills. Interacted with the particular company's product. Wrote a nice paragraph on ideas how I can contribute. - https://www.ycombinator.com/companies https://www.ycombinator.com/companies - https://www.workatastartup.com https://www.workatastartup.com
hermitcrab 5y ago
Someone who is a strong marketing/sales person has loads of opportunities. Why would they want to spend their time working with you when you don't even seem to have a product or know what problem you are solving? I would suggest getting a full-time job. Maybe try again in a few year with more savings, a stronger idea of what problem you are solving and more business experience. [Context: Running my own 1 man software product company since 2005].
mandeepj 5y ago
> I need to learn the non-technical skills where I'm weak before doing this again. Or at least meet a co-founder who's strengths overlap with my weaknesses - probably a marketing/sales person. Not necessarily. I believe, at first, the only thing you need to do is - talk with people. Start with tech conferences. I believe a lot of them would let you deliver a session. You will create more connections and also you'll get a lot of feedback from people that will help in refining your message and pitch. One talk after another, you will realize how accurately people are able to understand, what you are trying to deliver. Refine, talk, listen - that's your cycle. Also, because you are building an open-source product - you might also find some contributors. Edit - ‘Talk with people’ - you already started here. Good job on that.

smrtinsert 5y ago

A million times this. A cofounder I used to work once told me the only thing you should be looking at is market need. Tech demos don't pay bills.

kbuchanan 5y ago

As a founder myself, I echo this sentiment, that building and selling are indeed not the same thing. They are both important, but having a mindset for marketing, selling, finding an audience, either yourself, or in a co-founder, is essential. And it never stops being important.

NiagaraThistle 5y ago

This is probably the best advice for the OP I've read here.

waterfish 5y ago

Perfectly described and I went thru similar “existential crisis”. I would build off of this and add that taking a job is NOT an admission of failure or defeat in accomplishing your life dreams and goals. You can take a job, and still work on your business on the side. You might be surprised at how well the company you work for can teach you about business and operations and marketing to augment your endeavors. Good luck!

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

sharkweek 5y ago

Big second vote here for get a job at LargeCo (doesn’t even have to be at a tech company and you might even be better off finding business opportunities working in tech at like some big consumer goods co, insurance, etc…) and observe workflows. People do some bizarre things to get their jobs done each day and if you see enough similar bizarre things from lots of people, you ask questions then present potential solutions to see if there’s a product hidden in there. Wishing you luck!

ChuckMcM 5y ago

This expresses pretty much what I was going to say. To contextualize it a bit, I always mentor people to start by getting a job in a company that is doing something in their skill set. Instead of looking at it as "just a paycheck until I can start my own thing." try to actively learn about how that company works, really works, from marketing to sales to manufacturing to legal to operations. Most people are willing to mentor if you tell them that you are hoping to start your own company one day and want to know what you don't know. Ask questions of people like product managers of the form, "How do you validate your ideas for products before you commit to invest building them?" or "What product did you think would be a hit and was a total flop? What caused it to flop?" Ask people in release engineering or manufacturing, "What takes the most time in getting a product out? How about a feature to a product?" If you are a software developer, imagine that a functioning, growing company is a large legacy code base that you want to learn how it works. How the pieces work together, what the roles of the parts are. If you're a hardware engineer imagine the company is a big circuit you're analyzing, same thing, what do the parts do and how do they contribute to the overall functioning. You will get to know a lot of people in the company and you will get a much better understanding of what it takes to bring a product to market. What ever you do, and this applies to people anywhere in their career, do NOT consider any job "just a paycheck." Use a job to learn more about why people are willing to give this company money so that the company can pay you to work there. The secret, such as it is for entrepreneurs, is "For what reason would people give me money?" And you can also ask "What would I pay for this idea?" and then subtract from that what you've learned from your work experiences would be the costs of producing it. PS> Even the best university education does not train you to build a successful company from the ground up. Nobody teaches that, you have to learn it from people who have done it or even better are doing it.

WestCoastJustin 5y ago
> you have to learn it from people who have done it or even better are doing it. I have often wondered how to distil this point down. It's like these people know the patterns/systems that work to generate the results they want. They can replicate them at any company and generally know what needs to be implemented or what's missing. Tune from there. I think the key is somewhere in the patterns/systems but still that's too vague to implement. Basically, you need to join somewhere successful, get to a level were you can see across the org, and learn what patterns/systems they use and replicate them. Mix in competent people too.

lesbianbezos 5y ago

If marketing and selling are of no interest to you, and you just want to do the technical part, I know a ton of YC/Stanford/TechStars sales solo founders who would be down to collab. This one girl Sarah who raised $800k-1million and told me today that she's looking to hire her first engineer. They are all in this YC-Level community https://founderscafe.io https://founderscafe.io

ElCapitanMarkla 5y ago
800k-1M with no engineers?! Is that a new startup?