
Ask HN: What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced when building your startup? - bozkan
Building startup is difficult. I am now trying to build another, but having similar problems as always, which annoys me: finding product-market fit &amp; early adopters.
What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced? How did you tackle them? (Or did you manage to tackle them?)<p>I am asking it because if there is a pattern about those problems, and if they still exist, maybe we should do something to solve those common problems first.
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dangerface
> What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced?

Finding customers

> How did you tackle them?

Marketing budget and plan. I know the whole bootstrap thing is in vogue but
it's extraordinarily hard to do. You need to build a customer base big enough
that word of mouth through social and SEO can take over, not the other way
around.

You can do it all yourself on a shoe string budget if you have the contacts
but building the contacts to do that takes years.

I think its often easier to find a market you can market too and then find a
problem in that market, than it is to find a problem and then figure out how
to market it.

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hitsurume
If you're having problems finding early adopters, this is a sign that you
possibly built something no one wants. So ideally, the first step should be
finding out a problem, hopefully your own, that someone needs solved and would
pay money for it. If you're building a product on say, blockchain technology,
because its cool and you think everyone should use it, you're going to get
crickets because it doesn't solve any problems that people care enough to
switch and adopt.

~~~
non-entity
I recently ran into a problem, and started to bring together and idea for a
project that could help solve it, but I'm worried that the problem is born out
of a set of unique problems I have that not enough people would care about.

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JSeymourATL
> solve those common problems first...

My Personal Psychology.

Love him/Hate him, TR has formed an entire course and business model around
this theme. > [https://www.tonyrobbins.com/leadership-impact/leadership-
sec...](https://www.tonyrobbins.com/leadership-impact/leadership-secret-four-
eliminate-the-chokehold-to-growth/)

Only wish the frameworks were more open sourced.

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billconan
finding product-market fit & early adopters.

~~~
bozkan
sometimes I wish there was a tool/personal advisor helping me to find those
easily

~~~
dangerface
A marketing agency will do that.

Disclosure: I work at a marketing agency.

~~~
bozkan
agree but I have a very limited budget which doesn't allow me to work with an
agency, yet.

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spalmrich
I think one of the biggest problems I faced was honestly managing personal
expectations and self-care. While finding PMF etc are hugely important,
they're also difficult to do if you're not in the right mindset - meaning not
only that you're thinking clearly and intelligently but also creatively.
Managing time for exercise, friends and general relaxation proved more
difficult for me during crazy startup times than any other job I've had.

~~~
bozkan
definitely agree. I was going to gym 3 times a week but for the last 2 months
I have been working on my startup, I could only go once. Besides, # of
arguments with my wife increased a lot, although she is my biggest supporter.

