

Ask HN: When people ask you what you do, what do you say, and how do they react? - massarog

I'm an entrepreneur and I currently run an online business that is very profitable and it is my full time job. I'm a non-technical person, but I come up with ideas, and work with a designer/programmer to build them out, and I take it from there.<p>I'm 22 years old, graduated college 3 months ago. At my graduation party I saw a lot of family and friends, and a lot of people said: 'so what are you doing now?'...and I told them I run an online business and I always got a weird look or a comment such as "so does it make any money?'<p>What are your stories on this? It just seems these days that people don't think you can run your own business online or work online as a designer/programmer and actually make enough money from it to be considered an actual 'job'.
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kayhi
I tell people the part at which the transaction occurs.

'I sell research chemicals online.'

The aggregating, tracking, sales, design, etc... are interesting follow up
discussions.

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daimyoyo
I simply say that I'm in sales. Unless I'm talking to a good friend or a
potential investor, people don't need to know what I do. Perhaps that's just
me.

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tryitnow
Well, what do you market? Instead of saying anything about "online", just say
that you market X and that the online channel is your exclusive focus.

A lot of people make money online as "internet marketers" by engaging in some
shady operations (or at least what society consider shady). Perhaps some of
these people think that is what you're up to. So instead of saying "online
business" just go ahead and elaborate on what it is specifically that you do.
They're probably curious anyways. And if they're not, well then, they
shouldn't be asking an entrepreneur what he does :-)

I've never known an entrepreneur who has this problem - the elevator pitch is
pretty important and most entrepreneurs have it down and if they don't it's
because they talk TOO much about what they're doing. People might not
understand really technical stuff, but it doesn't sounds like you're doing any
heavily technical stuff.

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photon_off
I usually say: I help build an online advertising platform. Nope, I don't buy
and sell ads. I work on the platform which we license out to people in the
business of buying and selling ads. It handles more than 8,000,000,000
requests (200,000+/s peak) and several TB of data a day. From there discussion
turns to their questions about advertising or scaling.

Alternatively, I'll answer "Internet stuff, and some personal projects in my
spare time".

At any rate, a lot of people will always be misinformed about stuff they don't
know much about but which they hear a lot about. Technology is definitely one
of those things, as is the ".com garage millionaire" thing, as is this new
work-from-home-x-hours-a-week. I wouldn't worry about it, but rather think of
it as a chance to educate them a little bit.

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ohashi
Was in the same position, making money online since high school and people ask
'what do you do?'

My answer really depends on what I want the reaction to be. Do I want to
really explain what I do to this person and have a long conversation? Do I
want them to just satisfy social norms and move on?

If the former, I would say something like I built such and such which does
this and that. (Fill in blanks as appropriate).

If the latter, I would answer online marketing or software development. That
generally kills it pretty fast if that was the intended goal and I read the
persons interest correctly.

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mbenjaminsmith
If I'm talking to someone I don't know I say I "sell software" or "run a
software business". If it's a close friend and I want to communicate how
successful the business has become I'll say "back in _ it made sense for me to
start working on it full time." For anyone who cares to listen I'll usually
talk about a couple products I'm proud of and their position vs the market or
similar products.

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bartonfink
How do you respond when people ask "does it make any money?" How do they react
when you tell them that it does?

I think the problem here isn't necessarily etiquette so much as it is
ignorance. Most people don't know anybody who works for themselves, and a
little education will probably go a long way towards maintaining normal
relations.

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massarog
I say yes it makes money, it is my full time job. They just reply with "oh,
well that's good, good for you". Instead of saying I run an 'online business',
I've just started telling people I run a marketing company (which it is), and
that seems to fix the weird looks and comments that I have been getting from
family.

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e1ven
Right. Why would you focus on the fact that it's online? That's almost an
irrelevant detail to "What do you do?"

You run a marketing company. Just say that.

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whichdan
I tell them what I do (website development) and follow up with a few examples
of what I've been working on recently. Most people have no concept of what web
development is, but saying that you built a system to report user statistics
or to manage website content adds a lot of context to your job title.

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fezzl
What about "I run a software company. Like Microsoft, like Google. Only
smaller but nonetheless growing."?

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rick888
Most people won't think anything you are doing is "real work" until you are
making a substantial income.

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massarog
I make enough from my online business that it would be the same as me getting
a full time job making 65-70. The thing is, many people that are not in the
tech world have no idea how much money can be made online.

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qq66
And, you may be able to grow your business 10x where a salaried person
generally cannot.

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massarog
Exactly :).

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diolpah
Depends on who is asking. My stock response is "I work for a web retailer". I
generally only mention my ownership or role when it's relevant to the person
or the context.

