
Ask HN: How did you start a business? What was the first step? - codesternews
What was your first step to start a business or startup.<p>Was it side project?
or was it hobby?
or was it remote work?<p>Did you just left the job or pursue it? or you grow your business first?<p>I wanted to do business but I do not know where to start. what did you do as a first thing to start a business?
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buttminer
The first thing I did was find paying customers, as brudgers mentioned.

There are many many many business ideas that are hard to generate a single
dollar of revenue off of because the problem you're solving is not big enough.

I'm in the cannabis point-of-sale space. The problem I was solving was
inventory management for a single store I knew. If could help him track his
numbers better, that was worth money to him (because he would save money for
his business), and he was willing to pay $100/month for that right off the
bat.

If I was solving something like, have a cool iPad display to show your
products to your customers, that wouldn't be worth any money. It's not solving
a big enough problem.

As we scaled, our value propositions shifted from a micro-scale more towards
government compliance. Now we charge $500/month because we are solving a
bigger problem.

Long story short: find a problem people are willing to pay for. If nobody's
willing to pay, that's because the problem isn't big enough.

~~~
ny8jjang
well said sir.

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brudgers
Find _paying_ customers.

