

Ask HN: no co-founder, no business plan, no funding? - captaincrunch

I am a busy guy, 4 kids, full time job and a wife.  I am near completion of a project that I think will do well, fixes a problem I have had as a developer several times... But have no partner, formal business plan or funding... Should I release it anyhow or am I doomed?
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ErrantX
Here is your answer:

 _I am near completion of a project that I think will do well, fixes a problem
I have had as a developer several times_

If you've worked on the project at least give it a shot!

I'm guessing this is that little slump of confidence just before completion;
don't let it put you off. I've been there a few times and if you power through
you'll start to reach a real high which peaks on "launch day"

There is no requirement to have a co-founder for things to work, "formal"
business plans could well hinder you (in my experience anyway). As to
funding... can you bootstrap? What are your costs likely to be?

As to the potential success of your project; add some details here and we
might be able to comment on that :)

EDIT: wuh, huh? would the downvoter care to comment (so I can improve my
response)? :)

~~~
captaincrunch
Well, it would cost me about $200.00 a month for dedicated hosting, I've
looked into VPS/Shared and even non VPS/Dedicated, but found that for the
quality of service I need to provide, as well the space requirements, and
memory requirements are a lot higher than a VPS would provide.

On top of that, I want to do a couple advertisement campaigns on Google, as
what I am providing surprisingly doesn't have a lot of adwords competitors,
however the google tools show that its a highly searched service.

It will require a dedicated server to start, and $30 - $100 per month
advertising. Subscriptions will likely be about $14.99/month though, I have
been contemplating $9.99 as its more pleasing to my eyes.

~~~
michael_dorfman
So: your costs for the first year will be $2760-3600. That shouldn't be hard
to raise.

Here's what you do: put up a web site describing the product, giving a demo,
etc. Make a sign-up button (with the $9.99 price), but when people click on
that, give them a message that sign-ups are currently unavailable, and take
their email address to notify them when they are.

Now, spend a small amount (<$25) on Adwords. See how much you have to pay for
the relevant keywords, and what your conversion rate is (considering clicks on
the "sign up" button as a conversion.)

This will allow you to verify that a) there is a market for your product, b)
you're able to reach this market via Adwords, and c) your pitch is compelling
enough to convert.

Armed with this information, it should be easy to raise a few thousand bucks.
In fact, e-mail me the results, and we can talk.

~~~
captaincrunch
Send your email address to mikecurry74 at gmail dot com

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patio11
What would you change about your business if you had those things?
Specifically. Release, then figure how to get those minigoals under your
constraints.

If the answer is just "Execute", well, go execute then.

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bgnm2000
Definitely release it. The only way you're guaranteed to fail is by not doing
anything at all.

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ecaradec
If your project is near completion, you should release it, you may encounter a
partner on the way. A cofounder if not a requirement, confronting your ideas
to others IS.

Beyond that, releasing is only half of the job, you'll then have to get some
people use it, then pay for it (if not free ).

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petervandijck
Do a limited (closed) beta, and test your hypothesis, which at this point
currently goes something like: "This will be useful for other programmers and
they would pay for it." So get some other programmers, privately, ask them to
use it. See if they will. If nobody uses it, not even free, it's not useful.
Once you have 5 people using it, invite more people and ask them to pay
10$/month. If nobody wants to pay for it, look harder, invite more people. If
you do find some people, NOW you've got something.

Now finish and polish the product and release.

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gyardley
Thinking you're doomed is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why don't you release it
and see what happens?

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malbiniak
GO FOR IT!

1\. Plans are for investors, to keep teams on track, or documenting wild
guesses. You're not taking on investors, you're flying solo, and you don't
need to document your guesses (yet).

2\. Founders are great for analog load balancing and as a support system. If
your wife is supportive, keep moving. If she's not supportive enough, start a
local HN meetup or tap into other existing groups.

3\. I can only imagine trying to budget with 4 kids that $200/mo might be hard
to come by. Plead your case on kickstarter, and be sure to tell HN.

In conclusion, GO FOR IT!

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0nly1ife
You are in an ideal position. A co-founder, business plan, or investor will
distract you from finishing your project or will interfere with your vision.
Finish the product and release it. Once you start making revenue look into
building a formal business.

tl;dr First you build a product, then you build a business.

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retroryan
I am a busy guy with 5 kids, full time job and a wife but would still be very
interested in helping out. That is if the business is interesting of course. I
have experience with scaling on the cheap, technical development, etc. Contact
is in my profile.

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NEPatriot
Checkout venturehacks' interview with Sean Ellis. The site seems to be down so
I can't link it. It should be one of the popular posts called "how to bring a
product to market".

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k0ban
there are always two sides of the story. You spent a lot of time on that, this
is your idea and your fifth kid. So you are scared that it will be stolen away
from you.

However one you will pass this fear, and slowly show it to the world, you will
face another kind of problem - how to promote your solution and do a PR noise.
So you will spend enormous time promoting, publishing talking about the
product.

You have nothing to loose.

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Scott_MacGregor
Yes release, but I think you should spend some time and learn how to make a
PowerPoint pitch deck. Then spend some more time and make one.

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quizbiz
Do you have passion for it?

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adrianscott
you are only doomed if you don't release it.

go for it.

you can get a dedicated server via amazon ec2 for less than $200/month to get
started.

go for it!

