

Ask HN: Advice with launching a multi-year "Lone Wolf" project? - throwawayAskHN

I've been working full-time on a rather large Java project for several years.<p>I have no experience working at startups or real-world knowledge of putting together an office and hiring people, so I don't have a good idea of how to get from guy-in-a-room to office-full-of-people, which is going to have to happen.<p>I'm not very good at networking, I'm more of a head-down sort of guy and have too many responsibilities just handling the work itself. I'm also pushing myself extremely hard, isolated, and overstressed, and I'm not an easy person to deal with socially. This is a reality that I can't easily change as long as I've got my nose to the grindstone.<p>I have very little funds other than what I need to pay living expenses for myself, which was originally personal savings, and now loans from friends and family.<p>I don't believe I can/should get investment capital given my lack of leadership and business experience.
The limited experiences I've had with investors has not gone well, I believe in myself and my product 100% but I'm not socially aggressive or good at pitching, and I am easily frustrated by their standard political procedures.<p>I'd like some realistic advice on how to take off with this. My current plan is to launch it myself and grow organically, but that isn't a solution in itself, it will just give me a little more cash in my bank account and I'm in the same situation.<p>I need a building with desks and equipment. I need HR. I need Legal. I need DevOps. I don't know what else I need, because I've never worked at a startup.<p>How does a guy with a product in my situation realistically go about getting this stuff done?
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nimstr
You've been working on this project for several years; is there a monetization
system in place yet? If not, your first step should be to build one. I've
found that when you can build something that generates a cash flow, it becomes
a lot easier to do all those other important things. Like 10x easier.

Investors are probably going to shy away from something that's been around for
several years with no money.

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throwawayAskHN
Yes there is, it hasn't launched yet so I have no cash flow.

It's a big cloud project and just getting it launched and running is going to
take at the very least some DevOps people.

It doesn't initially make sense to me that investors would shy away from
something with so much existing value. "I've done the heavy lifting, and
that's a bad thing?" But I think you're right, I can see how fast-paced
technology investors would be more interested in snapping up a large stake of
a project with a greedy, determined leader.

I need more of a bank-loan sort of investment, which unfortunately I can't get
because I trashed my credit.

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kylelibra
Hire someone as a generalist who you trust to just get stuff done. If they are
smart, they can figure stuff out or find someone who knows.

~~~
throwawayAskHN
This sounds like a good first step, thank you for the reply.

Here are the issues from my standpoint:

Even if I could afford it, I don't know how to hire someone or how to tell
them what I need done (or especially actually motivate them or enforce that
they'll do it).

I also don't know anybody like this personally, and it's going to be hard to
trust random people from the internet.

~~~
gee_totes
My suggestion (if you have the money to hire someone) is to put up an ad on
the web (angelList, craigslist(maybe), StackOverflow jobs, etc. (some of these
sites cost money for job ads FYI)) and then, if you find what might seem like
the right generalist, offer them a week or two week trial period of seeing how
you like working with them. That would go a long way towards dealing with the
trust issue.

Or you could also find generalists at meetups (in theory, I'm always terrible
at networking at meetups).

Or you could find generalist at tech job fairs (those have been easier for me
to network with).

A good generalist will only need your passion and the challenge of the problem
to motivate them and won't need enforcement that they'll do the work. In fact,
trying to enforce that they'll do the work (w/o a track record of bad results,
in which case you should let them go) is bad management.

~~~
throwawayAskHN
This is a great suggestion. I don't have the extra funds to hire anybody, but
if I manage to launch this on my own it's likely I will.

What I meant by "enforcement" is my understanding that leadership/management
has a lot to do with things like firmness in language and body language cues,
etc. to maintain a power hierarchy. Most of the people I know who are able to
assume a leadership role are exactly the kind of person I'm afraid to trust to
get on board since I can't defend against them taking control of the project.

~~~
argonaut
Huh? Of course you can defend against them taking control. If they're an
employee, you fire them. Here's how to do it: "You're fired."

Sorry, that was a bit over the top, but you see what I mean? I sense a sort of
self-fulfilling prophecy in what you're saying. If you believe you can't do
it, then _you can't do it_. Leadership and control has nothing to do with
firmness of language and body language. Leadership and control has everything
to do with _clear_ communication, not necessarily aggressive communication.
Aggressive communication makes people leave. Leadership is communicating your
vision and finding agreement, and only overruling them if you've discussed the
issue at hand but can't find agreement.

You might consider looking for a technical co-founder. Someone you'll give
something like 30% equity to, but no salary.

On to another issue:

 _You need to launch._ Think about how this sounds from an investor's point of
view: "I've worked on this project for several years alone. I think there are
customers for it, but I've never launched it so I don't know if there are
actually any customers for it. I'm running out of money..." I would not
invest. You will have a lot of trouble finding investment. And if you do find
investment, it will probably be on extremely unfavorable terms (giving up
control, usually), because the investor will know/sense that you are desperate
for the money (in order to have leverage in a negotiation, you have to be in a
situation where the other party wants the deal _equally or more_ than you want
the deal). The attitude of "I've done the heavy lifting, and that's a bad
thing?" is the wrong attitude, because heavy lifting is useless if it doesn't
accomplish anything: as far as the investor knows, all the heavy lifting is
useless and won't ever generate money.

There are two reasons an investor will invest: 1) They believe in YOU, or 2)
They believe in the product. You can fulfill criteria #1 by having social
proof that demonstrates your brilliance (i.e. Harvard PhD, famous researcher),
having a strong team with you of experienced programmers, or having experience
starting profitable companies. Criteria #2 is NOT solved by having a great
idea; it is only solved by having growth (users or revenue, doesn't matter as
long as there is tangible growth).

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ibudiallo
I think it is time you launch your project. You are finding all kind of
excuses before the product is even out. Launch it, have people here at HN help
you beta test it. Show it in relevant forums. You either fail or you succeed.

