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Ask HN: Did financial crisis ever hold you back to release your product?
I am just thinking out loud. I have been struggling to come up with own idea/product/site. Out of many reasons, one of the reasons that always held me back was that I always thought about my family.
I quit 9-5 slavery a year back, till then I have been working as a freelancer, providing consultancy and working with pals in their company. As it's expected there were some tough days during the course. I had to think about my family first rather than dreaming about my next big idea.
To cut long story short, how did you cope up this situation beside getting investment from a VC(Being a resident of a non-US country its not easy either)? Does this mean I can never be an entrepreneur ?
Your thoughts please?
- byoung2 14y agoIf you want to start a business but your appetite for risk is low (you have a family to support), you should look into a lifestyle business. It's like a startup, but instead of swinging for the fences and seeking VC investment and looking to be aquired or IPO, you seek to maintain a certain level of income to support your lifestyle. This may be easier for you in Pakistan than in a more expensive country. Take me, for example. I make $100k+ as a software engineer, so if I wanted to quit my job and start a business, I'd need $9k per month to support my current lifestyle (pretty difficult to do). Maybe in Pakistan I would only need $1k per month (a little easier). Ideas for businesses to make $1k per month include selling stock photography, WordPress templates, simple iOS/Android apps, etc. If you want something with more potential (but with more effort), try something like Skype tutoring, being a virtual assistant, or a content writer.
- pknerd 14y agoThanks for your valuable comment. In short you're saying to juggle so many balls at once but it does make sense. What I guess it also requires good at marketing which I am not. In past few year I did try to work on different technologies and could not restrict myself to a few but I still could not develop skills to sell myself or my skills. Being a developer it's pretty hard but not impossible.