
Ask HN: What are the first steps to starting a startup? - removetheduck
Hey Hacker News, I&#x27;m looking for some advice. I&#x27;m not entirely sure this is the right place to ask, but here goes anyway.<p>I feel like I&#x27;ve been doing a whole lot of learning about entrepreneurship, yet I never take the plunge and actually act, and I really don&#x27;t know how to get started.<p>A little bit about me: I graduated with a CS degree from a very strong engineering university in May, and I&#x27;m now a software engineer at a major tech company. I took lots of elective classes in school about entrepreneurship, from idea generation, to funding, to legal aspects of startups. I&#x27;ve been to plenty of talks and ask questions whenever I can at them, from people like Max Levchin (PayPal), Roger Dickey (Gigster), and Jess Lee (Sequoia Capital). At times I feel like I&#x27;m being quite proactive towards my goal of one day starting a startup...<p>And then I realize that I don&#x27;t output anything. I know backend and frontend web dev, infrastructure, some machine learning, and other odds and ends, but the most I find myself actually doing is writing little scripts to save myself a couple minutes here or there. I find myself so enthralled by consumer tech, and I have plenty of ideas, but I find it very hard to actually act on them. Any time I start to work on a project, I end up getting caught up trying to brainstorm how to build the perfect application, or I&#x27;ll start programming it but I&#x27;ll just keep adding more and more complexity before I even get an MVP. And the result is probably 15-20 projects that are all only between 5 and 30% done.<p>Some of you guys have experience taking a vision you have, and making it a reality. You juggle creating a product, marketing and selling it, iterating, coming up with a decent business model, and a hundred other things. Can you offer me any advice on what I should do first? Because I can&#x27;t keep sitting on my couch reading Paul Graham essays.<p>A huge thank you to anybody who&#x27;s willing to give me some pointers.
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arjunmenon1899
Try to figure out a problem you yourself face on a regular basis. That you
have a certain depth in understanding your users who will also be facing the
similar problem.

Don't worry if the problem seems to general at first. Just keep thinking about
it and you will come to something specific, and soon you will have an idea for
a product.

Creating something that solves your own problem is generally a good way to
start a start-up.

Good luck! :)

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jmnicolas
Buy a domain, put a single page with a description of your project with a
delivery date on it. Add a short bio with a photo and an email address.

Now you're committed.

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cefthurston
Instead of build, launch the landing page and do it concierge, by focusing on
the skill set you have (building) you'll likely miss out on the most important
first step - seeing if there's a market and learning how to make sales.

Right now, sounds like you're focusing on the solution. Just look for
interesting problems and go from there.

