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Want to Start a Startup, as a Software Engineer? Sell Something Online
- marc_io 4y agoI wanted to hear more about the “is there a demand for this?” part, as choosing a suitable niche is one of the most important tasks before starting any kind of online venture. Finding a middle ground between “what do I want to do” with “what people want” and “which specific niche still has some space available” is a tricky task. One simply shouldn't even think about doing any real product work without pondering about and validating this choice, as a bad one can pretty much invalidate all the solid work done afterwards.
- acuozzo 4y ago> Finding a middle ground between “what do I want to do” with “what people want” and “which specific niche still has some space available” is a tricky task. … made even trickier when the hopeful founder is a self-admitted weirdo. The itches I want to scratch are not the kind most people have. Over the past decade+ I've been here I've read something akin to "Ideas are cheap. Execution is everything" over and over, but I have yet to come up with an idea that would have even modest appeal. Ideas don't seem cheap.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago> For the book, I spent 2.5 months writing, editing, and refining the content of over 200 pages. Two and a half months to write, edit and refine 200 pages? Kudos!
- borroka 4y agoI guess it is probably 1000 words a day on average. I don't know whether the book have plots, graphs and other illustrations. It is fast writing, but doable. It requires knowing the subject in advance well--that's a given--consistency (starts and stops double the time, the longer one writes, the easier it becomes), and to copy and paste here and there paragraphs and articles that one has written and saved through their career--there are many "additional_material.txt" in my folders.
- gregdoesit 4y agoThanks. The book ended up as 61,000 words - which is not that much compared to all-text books - but lots of pages of resume examples. A "normal" 200 page book could have up to double the number of words (100-120K words). Just want to add that detail, as a "normal" 200-page book in two months would be much more impressive. I originally aimed for a ~40 page book - a PDF initially -, assumed it will have a few chapters at most. As I started writing and pulling in more advice from recruiters and hiring managers, the chapters added up. In what is pretty usual for projects you do the first time, I under-estimated the scope, as well as the time it will take. My original budget for time was a month. Not too different from some software projects in a completely new domain :)
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoI can relate. I have done my share of writing (and missing deadlines). I don't know if I could match your velocity, though. Good luck!
- LAC-Tech 4y agoI wrote a Show HN post, then crossed my fingers... and with luck, the post ended up upvoted, and eventually on the front page of Hacker News. I genuinely have no idea how that happens. Everything I've submitted falls immediately off the front page and gets zero comments. At first I figured it's just because it was my blog (hello imposter syndrome), but I've also posted old classic articles from others that usually get a heap of comments, and they too got nowhere. I'm guessing HN front page is either dumb luck, or requires some deep SEO voodoo that's beyond me.
- synu 4y agoIt does happen sometimes. It’s actually allowed to repost something that didn’t originally get traction, as long as it isn’t excessive.
- LAC-Tech 4y agoI've submitted 11 things on HN. Three things were my content, three I'd seen posted here before that got a lot of comments but hadn't been posted for a while, and the rest were just random things of interest. Had much more success submitting stuff to reddit. So I guess I'll stick to the comment section on HN :)
- yamrzou 4y ago11 is not that much. Out of my 442 submissions, only 35 reached the front page and had significant activity (>= 20 points and >= 10 comments). That's an 8% chance of reaching the front page without optimizing anything (apart from the interestingness of the submissions themselves).
- synu 4y agoLooking through your submissions, all of those are such interesting topics. It’s a shame there isn’t time and space for all the interesting topics that must be being submitted all the time.
- 4y ago
- Brajeshwar 4y agoA good book (free to read online) for founders getting to sell for the first time - https://www.foundingsales.com https://www.foundingsales.com
- jdthedisciple 4y agoOh nice, seems very relevant to me - Thanks for sharing!
- kubami 4y agoI'd also recommend - The Mom Test - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52283963-the-mom-test https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52283963-the-mom-test
- synu 4y agoI'm working through this book now, and it's incredible. It really makes sense for my engineering brain.
- amelius 4y agorule #1: don't take advice from soneone who sells shovels.
- Kaze404 4y agoIs this an actual saying? It made me think of Twin Peaks (season 3) where one character runs a conspiracy, conservative radio show and sells golden shovels that his listeners proudly display.
- croes 4y agoMore like this, don't try to mine gold when you can sell shovels.
- corobo 4y agoDon't take advice from the only person making money? I'm not sure the metaphor fits
- thenerdhead 4y agoThe saying needs context. Not everyone can infer the gold rush aspect.
- throwaway743 4y agoKinda confused. What ended up working in the long run in terms of their marketing? Am I wrong to think they left that out and only mentioned the success of their marketing for launch?
- PragmaticPulp 4y agoThe author of the Pragmatic Engineer once posted a list of his previous failed startup ideas. Nothing wrong with failing, of course, and it’s important to understand that it can take multiple attempts to find something successful. However, it’s worth cautioning everyone to note how much his success revolves around newsletters, ebooks (as used as an example in this article), and the job boards that go along with his newsletter. I generally like and appreciate Pragmatic Engineer content, but it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The premise of this post is about starting a startup as a software engineer, but the example content is an information product (ebook) and the “startup” is just selling that ebook through content marketing. In fact this basically a cookie-cutter copy of the early 2000s self-help guru books where someone became successful selling books on how to become successful, but targeted at software engineers. This feels like someone read a Tim Ferriss book from the early 2000s and asked themselves how they could resell the same idea to software engineers. The author does have some good resources explaining the internal processes at companies he has worked for (Uber), but lately a lot of his newsletter content is recycled from The Information and random Tweets. In fact, he had to retract a claim that he reported on recently because it turned out to be a completely untrue rumor that was circulating on Twitter, which he reported as a “scoop”. I suspect a lot of the quotes where he says “I interviewed an engineer at _____” might be just be sourced from random Tweets. As with all content marketers selling advice, please take this all with a grain of salt. Some of the information is definitely accurate and actionable, but framing this ebook marketing story as “how to start a startup as a software engineer” is pure marketing spin.
- gregdoesit 4y agoThe Pragmatic Engineer here :) And here is the list of side projects and their status I posted about you might have referred to [1]. I never posted about failed startup ideas. As I wrote in another comment, this post is from late 2020, when I planned to start a startup, and when I had no idea I would be successful with my writing - it was maybe a month or two after publishing my first book. The context of this article was the skills I thought I'd use when going down the startup route. On some assumptions of my recent writing: > "I suspect a lot of the quotes where he says “I interviewed an engineer at ____ might be just be sourced from random Tweets" When I write that I talked with someone at a company, it means I connected with them directly on various channels (e.g. over DMs, Signal, video call etc). I talk with lots of people, and incorporate some of these into the "The Scoop" articles and sometimes tweet about them (like this [2]). If I base something on a tweet, I'd share that. If I use something else as a source of information I share that as well. If I come across things that are not true, I aim to correct it immediately (like this [3]) In my new career, integrity is the most valuable asset I have, and I aim to make it very clear when I share information that comes with directly talking with people, versus taking things from other sources. > As with all content marketers selling advice, please take this all with a grain of salt. Agree on this, and please see the context on when I wrote this article. [1] https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1481195527467319297?s=20&t=DHsofF-OJnhR-raDT0mJTg https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1481195527467319297?... [2] https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1549867691346956288?s=20&t=OFWrZau3bUCjOGXoqaybNg https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1549867691346956288?... [3] https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1534884178428366848?s=20&t=efKkXXiKMzu0kIIRIZt_Rw https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1534884178428366848?...
- gizmo 4y agoThis guy puts a LOT of effort in marketing. Much more than the typical software engineer is willing to do. Twitter, substack, blog, youtube, SEO content, ads, he does it all. Of course you'll be successful if you spend years marketing yourself and learning all the tricks of the trade. What most engineers want, though, is to do well online while spending most hours on interesting software projects and putting in a minimal marketing effort. I'm happy for the guy, but I'm pretty sure most people here wouldn't be happy if we had to do his job.
- sanderjd 4y agoYep, I won't work anywhere that doesn't have a good marketing department that I'm not involved in. Marketing is super important, usually more important than what I'm doing, but I'm not the right person to do it.
- aidaman 4y agoSo I see you don't want to start a successful business.
- quickthrower2 4y agoA regular job has similar issues. Instead of marketing it is meetings, estimates, status reports, process, politics, etc.
- sanderjd 4y agoThis isn't the same thing. All of those things are part of the overall effort to engineer some kind of software artifact, which is what I enjoy doing. A meeting trying to come to consensus on an approach or to prioritize competing work or what process we should be using to avoid production issues or keep documentation up to date is not the same thing as running a twitter account or experimenting with different headlines or copy. Both kinds of work are very important, but the first kind is what I enjoy doing and the second kind feels like pulling teeth to me and that makes me bad at it.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
- jordanmorgan10 4y agoI never know what to think about these posts. As I've mentioned in other comments or posts around similar topics, I've had a successful eBook and still do. But when I'm asked for advice, I'm not really sure what to say. It just feels like dumb luck sometimes, honestly.
- Kaze404 4y agoLuck is always a factor in everything, but what really matters is being prepared to take advantage of it when luck strikes.
- jordanmorgan10 4y agoThat is true. I often fluctuate between thinking I’ve done something right and just got lucky, or perhaps a combination of the two.
- orzig 4y agoCertainly a combination! Here’s a study I think every child should be taught, where they created artificially compartmentalized worlds for new music. They found: 1) many songs had almost no downloads in any world. They were “truly bad“, and avoiding that is the skill 2) amongst the non-bad, different song is went viral in different worlds. That is the luck. So you’re both; half-congratulations! https://www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/salganik_dodds_watts06_full.pdf https://www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/salganik_dodds_watts06_full....
- gregdoesit 4y agoI'm the author of this article. Please note that 2020 should be added to the title, as I wrote it late 2020, after I left Uber and my plan back then was to start a startup some months later. I had recently left Uber, and launched this e-book, and wrote this post with notes on what I thought might be useful skills as I go ahead with that startup. Note that I did not go ahead with founding a startup, so most of this post should be taken as "skills I thought would have been useful if I launched a venture-funded startup." I do think you can learn things better if you have some skin in the game. Specifically, learning about entrepreneurship can be easier if you start a small venture, even if on the side. Also, as PragmaticPulp pointed out, the title is misleading given my advice is based on a book launch, not a startup. I changed the title on the original blog post to "Want to learn about entrepreneurship, as a software engineer? Sell something online."
- tarsinge 4y agoI have an alternative for B2B that worked not too bad for me as a typical introvert sales-averse SE: working a few years in customer support, pre-sales and solution engineer, ideally all three at the same time (in B2B obv.). Then you’ll hopefully have a good grasp of the sales process, how to make a good demo, how is organized the typical medium big company, which will help both close deal and build relevant features by talking to the relevant persons. Then by knowing both how to build software, how works a typical company and how to sell, I was ready when an opportunity showed up.
- moneywoes 4y agoDo you have a blog? Alternatively are you open to questions
- sanderjd 4y agoBut, like, do you enjoy that work? I got bit by this same "I want to run a business" bug in the past, but I've been much happier since I concluded that it's actually better for me personally to do engineering work on successful products that I believe in.
- hopineer 4y ago
- gls2ro 4y agoWhat is wrong with leaking news about layoffs? Or to ask the reverse: in case of layoffs that are kept secret who is benefiting from secrecy: the users/consumers, the employees, the investors, the founders?
- davidw 4y agoRob Walling's book, "Start Small, Stay Small" was full of great advice for exactly this demographic. Some of the advice is kind of dated at this point... what would people recommend these days? It's still probably worth a read, because some of the advice is fairly timeless.
- thosakwe 4y agoI read "Start Small, Stay Small" in 2021. More modern advice is on YouTube instead of books. Try channels like Noah Kagan, or Microconf.
- moneywoes 4y agoMuch easier to build a brand online as this guy has done
- tiborsaas 4y agoTitle: "Want to Start a Startup, as a Software Engineer? Sell Something Online" Post TLDR: it's hard to do it, but it's possible. Takeaway message: "If you're considering starting a company: sell something online first to get a better feel of all the other things you'll need to focus on top of building a product."
- jollybean 4y ago'1st time founders talk about product, 2cnd time founders talk about channel'. If you go to the Drug Store and look at the variety of aisles, note that the products don't change much. The channels to those spots on the shelf are locked down hard. New products into that space are usually by companies who control distribution. What happens when a crack dealer shows up on the corner in someone else's turf? They get shot. Well, you're not going to just walk into some market without being a target. Hence the dilemma. Products that have natural breakthrough aspects already have a big advantage. There are so, so many cool physical products that would exist but don't because channels are locked down by big players. Also another note - the author's attempt at digital advertising seemed to be a big glib! Throwing $40 on Twitter won't get you much. Most of it has to do with the ad and the target market. The author definitely has some natural marketing skills, due to their obvious ability to narrate a story and capture attention with this article I'd recommend he leverage that in some way, possibly with a YouTube ad of some kind to try things out.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- a9h74j 4y ago> If you're considering starting a company: sell something online first to get a better feel of all the other things you'll need to focus on top of building a product. This experience has only made me more excited about doing something from scratch This article did not read to me as Tim Ferris for X. Nothing that couldn't be read elsewhere, but to me not blameworthy or anything. Generically: Don't make your important product to get out there the first product you try to get out there. So business structure first, then important product or service.
- siddontang 4y agoI joined a startup 7 years ago as the first employee to build an open-source distributed database and have been working as a chief engineer since then. I write a lot of code, but most of the time I'm actually doing something other than code: I visit customers to show our product proposition and listen to their requirements, write articles online to introduce our product, participate in meetups to talk about the technical architecture, operate the community to attract contributors, talk to ISVs or other companies about product integration... Many of them are not programming, but why I still have to do these? I think even we have a good enough product, if nobody knows about it, it is nothing. We must try our best to improve the awareness of our product. By the way, doing these things also make me grow faster, become more focused and even better at programming. So if you are a Software Engineer, please have a try, this is another kind of fun :-)
- scottydelta 4y ago> I wrote a Show HN post, then crossed my fingers... and with luck, the post ended up upvoted, and eventually on the front page of Hacker News. Well it doesn't help when HN quietly shadow bans your posts. I have been a member of HN since 2013 and have barely submitted like 10 posts over this time. I only comment where I think I can contribute but recently I have realized that HN has shadow bans my posts. Once I wrote a comment on HN about slippery slope of self hosting apps which I host and people seemed interested. So I decided to write a substack article about it and post it on HN. Guess what, HN shadow banned it because I am not supposed to submit stuff that I wrote but submit things I found on internet interesting. Then recently I shared a reddit post on an Upwork scam and HN shadow banned it too. smh..
- kordlessagain 4y agoIs your first paragraph a quote or your own comment? I usually post a ">" in front of quotes from articles or other users. I've seen posts I put up get lots of votes, go to the top position and stay there. I've also seen others go up, then drop off. It stands to reason if someone reports something for a site guidelines violation that it would weigh the article. However, I'm not sure that's how it really works. You could reference Dang's comments about things like this for more insight. I wish we had the source code of HN to inspect, but then again it's written in a custom language, so I'm not sure I'd understand it! Either way, this place is usually awesome and they do a good job policing it in a way that it has stayed awesome for a really long time. That's not to say some individuals here and there aren't burned by it. It's just letting go of it that is important. I don't think anyone here has time for long term grudges. If they did, they aren't worth the effort thinking about them. This place isn't going to make or break you or your idea. The only thing that can do that is you! Good luck and I hope you do well with the writing!
- scottydelta 4y agosorry the editing got messed up, this is what I meant to write: > I wrote a Show HN post, then crossed my fingers... and with luck, the post ended up upvoted, and eventually on the front page of Hacker News. Well it doesn't help when HN quietly shadow bans your posts. I have been a member of HN since 2013 and have barely submitted like 10 posts over this time. I only comment where I think I can contribute but recently I have realized that HN has shadow bans my posts. Once I wrote a comment on HN about slippery slope of self hosting apps which I host and people seemed interested. So I decided to write a substack article about it and post it on HN. Guess what, HN shadow banned it because I am not supposed to submit stuff that I wrote but submit things I found on internet interesting. Then recently I shared a reddit post on an Upwork scam and HN shadow banned it too. smh..
- postalrat 4y agoThis is how to sell something online for someone interested in marketing and advertising. Where is the software enginneering?