

Ask HN: How did you get started?  - hajrice

Hi. I'm wondering how the rest of you got started, what was your first step, what was your "initial motivation"?<p>Before I decided to be an Entrepreneur(I can't really call myself an "official one" but I'm getting there), I first wanted to be a programmer because I had watched a short video clip of the work enviornment of a programmer. I was fascinated, I was 11 at the time and for a kid that age it seemed like heaven!
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jacquesm
Running my own business:

Necessity.

I simply had to get some food on the table, it was a pretty good motivator I
can tell you.

Programming:

Because it seemed like a better way to build logic stuff rather than to use a
bunch of 74 series chips for it. I was always hooking stuff up to the
centronics port or other io ports.

My first 'programmable' device I think was a ti 57 calculator, then one of
those radio shack/sharp pocket basic computers (I still have that thing
somewhere here!), then a KIM-1.

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elblanco
First half dozen or so jobs were startups and small businesses, so I learned
not to fear those environments. Plus I got to see the entire lifecycle from
incorporation papers to exit. This was very helpful.

After working for a while in some very large mega-corps got tired of the grind
and decided to join up with some folks I worked with for a very long time and
have a go at the startup thing again with some specific technology and a
target vertical I know very well (with not to mention about another decade of
experience under my belt from my early jobs).

First one never got off the ground too many issues between the founders, and
the second one is currently off and running (with a bit of a limp, but it's
still drawing air).

What's helpful though is knowing that if it all fails, I have an established
career I can fall back on without too much hardship.

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jmonegro
I was young(er) and wanted money. Now, I'm not greedy or anything: I just
wanted spending money so I did some freelance web design. I amassed some cash
and bought all the gizmos and gadgets I wanted.

Then I thought I should learn to turn those fancy psd's into live websites,
which, after learning HTML/CSS got me into PHP and WordPress.

Then I realized I hated PHP syntax so I learned some ruby along with my formal
programming classes, then, I realized I like doing this stuff, so here I am.

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scorpioxy
I am not sure if i qualify as an entrepreneur, but I like to call myself that.

It started by accident. I started freelancing, mostly for start-ups and other
entrepreneurs. And along the way, I started picking up ideas and people
offered me partnerships.

I'm more into starting lasting businesses than into flipping startups, and I'm
not a success yet. But that's where I'm at.

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mailarchis
In my first job I discovered my passion for consumer facing internet products
and services. While job was good, you have to work within a certain framework.
And I was always impatient. So started my own thing and took the plunge. Its
been a great learning experience and we are still learning.

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chrischen
My dad showed me how to setup a web server. Imagination took care of the rest
(mostly motivated by money).

