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Ask HN: For 10 years I've been trying various projects, still clueless

41 pointsby superdarioalmost 2 years ago
I have a lot of experience with side-projects and startups. I will briefly explain my experience. I&#x27;m coming from small eastern European country, so my perspective on everything might be different.<p>1. My country is too small and market is small. You can do something here, but everything is so limited that it&#x27;s terrible. 3.5M people and then when you target certain people who wants your product or service or app or website, you get super small amount of people<p>2. The Balkans (group of countries around my country where people speak the same language) is a better story, but every nation is so isolated. I asked yourself, how often do I use products&#x2F;app&#x2F;websites from the other countries and vice versa? Very rarely. Every country is in its own bubble.<p>3. European market. Every country has its own language, culture, mentality, etc. it&#x27;s hard to get into those countries especially if you don&#x27;t know the lang.<p>4. The US market is great because it&#x27;s unified, it&#x27;s easier to go viral, the language is the same, purchasing power is great, but it&#x27;s a bit of a problem because me as an European don&#x27;t know their habits and thinking, I have no connections or friends there, I don&#x27;t know where and how to start. The market is saturated, something is happening there all the time, and now you have to break through with something new.<p>5. The UK is ok market, they are more related and similar to the USA. For example OnlyFans is from the UK, MillionDollarHomePage the same etc.<p>I had quite a lot of partners, it didn&#x27;t really work out. But I think it&#x27;s me, I think I function better alone. Everything I tried failed, and I tried exactly in those countries that I mentioned. Worst of all, I wasn&#x27;t persistent enough.<p>I have the feeling like I&#x27;m trying impossible. I had no money or capital, everything I did I relied on word of mouth, but that&#x27;s shit. Without good capital that will support the marketing, it&#x27;s all a shot in a dark.<p>Sounds like I&#x27;m complaining here or trying to find excuses but I&#x27;m not, I&#x27;m still trying to make it. I&#x27;m just confused, I don&#x27;t know what to pursue, where to try, which market to try

11 comments

kebsupalmost 2 years ago
I&#x27;m from central Europe and while I agree with some of your points, I see it as an advantage. If I manage to get 1-2k in passive income, it would completely cover my expenses, so the bar for success is much lower than in the US.
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js4everalmost 2 years ago
Focus on B2B products, if you are able to convince 5 customers to pay 5k per month or 50 customers to pay 500&#x2F;month it&#x27;s enough for you as a solo entrepreneur.<p>B2C is another beast and indeed needs tons of capital.
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dionysalmost 2 years ago
I&#x27;ve had similar experience, also coming from a small Eastern European country. It feels like the market within the country is not big enough, including two nearby countries improves the situation, but you still need to deal with the language differences. To me it just feels there&#x27;s not enough money, both from the possible customers as well as from investors.<p>My current employer is originally from the UK, but they started in the US. That included a corp in Delaware alongside the main office in the UK. The product is B2B and it worked quite well in the US, but expanding to European customers in the recent years has been more complex. Luckily since it&#x27;s a B2B product, the language differences are less pronounced. The product itself is only provided in English and luckily we have European CS colleagues so we can offer support in other languages as well. I think the main challenge in this space was that in the US there was only 2-3 big players who we partnered with initially. In Europe, each country has 5 of them and each of them work slightly differently. The company never needed outside investment, we kept lean for a very long time and we were profitable very early on.<p>My recommendation - focus on US, English-speaking customers first. If you can, do B2B and provide excellent customer support. B2B customers have different expectations, but they are also easier to deal with from my experience. If you can, try to bootstrap and become profitable as soon as possible.
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tudorwalmost 2 years ago
&#x27;I have the feeling like I&#x27;m trying impossible&#x27;, with no resources, network or prior successes, you pretty much are, this is not to put you off, but to acknowledge that what you experience is common to a lot of people.<p>Having great ideas, being able to code, understanding markets, understanding promotions and advertising, knowing how to craft and ship a product to your market is all well and good, however, look at the &#x27;success&#x27; stories in detail, not to detract from the hard work and oft deserved success, on the whole there are some supporting factors that enabled the business, networks, grants, money, connections, wealthy family or friends or all the above.<p>I&#x27;m saying this not because I am mean, but to share that your experience is perhaps not so different to others around the world.<p>&#x27;I think I function better alone&#x27; I&#x27;d say this is going to need addressing, I work great when I am on my own... however, to get paid... at the bare minimum I need to function with a client, so there&#x27;s 2 of us. Don&#x27;t base future opportunity on previous partners, finding a partner is very hard, but in your situation, sounds like it might be a good plan, perhaps you could just make a few notes to yourself about previous partners, strengths and weaknesses, try and identify some core principles that you&#x27;d need a partner to fulfil.<p>To find that partner you are going to need to get out there, I would suggest that a partner from a non-technical area who has good knowledge of a business or user need, perhaps some experience in running a small business and demonstrated skills at networking and making new connections.<p>Re-reading your story, perhaps 1) reveals opportunity, perhaps there is a hyper-niche market you could address locally, perhaps one known to rely on your local language, unsupported by tools aimed at other markets, where the market would be accessible and your local knowledge an asset. If you could find 20 customers paying $300 a month would $72,000 a year enable you to grow?
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beardywalmost 2 years ago
&gt; how often do I use products&#x2F;app&#x2F;websites from the other countries<p>Well, if the product is web based, the answer would be &quot;am I likely to know?&quot;.<p>As to your market, you are well placed to do business in the Balkans in a way that a US start up is not - the opposite is not so true. Your appreciation of varying conditions in other countries is also to your advantage. If you make progress you will be less likely to have big companies trying to stifle you.<p>&gt; Worst of all, I wasn&#x27;t persistent enough.<p>You need to overcome that! I had big plans for a subscription based product. But early on I realised that growth was likely linear and cancellations would be proportional. As a mathematician I could see that would tend to a limit. But I persevered, and even though I was right I got a decent income from it until I retired. Modest growth beats none at all.
WheelsAtLargealmost 2 years ago
Doing it alone is a big disadvantage. You need people with diverse backgrounds to get a business running for the most part. You are the tech brain now focus on finding someone that can sell and manage a business structure. All countries have businesses so it&#x27;s possible where you live. Start small so you can figure out what it takes to have a continuing business then build upon that.
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Jimmc414almost 2 years ago
&quot;The brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things&quot; - Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cmu.edu&#x2F;randyslecture&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cmu.edu&#x2F;randyslecture&#x2F;</a>
dave333almost 2 years ago
Some areas don&#x27;t depend much or at all on language such as games and puzzles e.g. Rubik&#x27;s Cube from Hungary. However creating a viral game is hard. Some niches are easier and less demanding such as daily puzzles for seniors or bedtime story sites for parents with young children just use Google translate or it&#x27;s API.
DougN7almost 2 years ago
It sounds like you believe in “overnight success” which only exists via lottery tickets (with similar odds).<p>I spent 10 years of weekend and evenings before my product sales could support me comfortably full time. That was a single project.<p>When you’re small&#x2F;starting out, your only competitive advantage is persistence and patience.<p>If you somehow MUST be the next tech billionaire, move to Silicon Valley and try there. Or buy lottery tickets.
namanyaygalmost 2 years ago
What all have you tried and how did each of them fail?
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go_discoveralmost 2 years ago
I know you said you aren&#x27;t looking for partners but if you change your mind I would like to build something with you. Contact me at t0v2v5njk@mozmail.com