
Ask HN: Side business – how to get started? - yokutown
I see so many people doing side projects or business. I have excellent backend data engineering skills in the data analytics space.<p>However, I honestly don&#x27;t know anything about front end and don&#x27;t know where to start?<p>I don&#x27;t feel motivated enough to learn Javascript&#x2F;Node etc. Frameworks are evolving very rapidly. I am sure how much learning front end will help in day-to-day job as well. I am good at getting things done. When I look at good freelancers they are often charging $50 or more per hour. I don&#x27;t want to spend a lot of money just to build a website.<p>Do you have any suggestions on how to get started and what are ways to build a side business?
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kjksf
I've collected 35 stories of solo-preneurs at
[https://blog.kowalczyk.info/article/wjRD/collected-
stories-o...](https://blog.kowalczyk.info/article/wjRD/collected-stories-of-
solo-founder-with-profitable-businesses-for-your-startup-inspiration.html)

This might be of some inspiration.

That being said, the one thing you cannot skip is building the product.

If your product is a website, then you either have to learn how to do it, both
front-end and back-end, or hire someone to do it.

If you don't know where to start learning, you can start at
[https://www.udacity.com/](https://www.udacity.com/). They have free and paid
(but still cheap) web dev courses.

There's really never been easier to learn web programming, with so many free
resources.

If you're overwhelmed with choices, learn React + HTML/CSS (frameworks like
React are about easy way to create HTML; you still need to know what HTML/CSS
to create).

~~~
swah
^ This guy wrote SumatraPDF, everyone's favorite PDF reader on Windows. Thanks
Krzysztof!

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nfriedly
I think there's two questions here:

 _1) How to start a side business?_

Make something people want, charge money for it, and figure out how to market
it. Not necessarily in that order.

 _2) Where to start with front-end tech?_

Use as little of it as possible. Plain old HTML, and forms that submit to a
server are all you really need. No fancy JavaScript. CSS is nice, and probably
a bit more important but also not strictly required.

I say this as someone who makes a living writing JS/Node and charges well over
$50/hr. After your project is bringing in money, then you can look into
learning front-end fancyness. Or just hire me ;)

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rpeden
Maybe partner up with someone who does have full stack web development skills?

I think there are plenty of good side businesses where data analytics combined
with a great interactive web front end to visualize the data could be
profitable.

Such a partnership need not cost much money at all to get started. You could
launch a product on an inexpensive Digital Ocean VPS.

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mindcrime
_I don 't feel motivated enough to learn Javascript/Node etc._

Well, there are two basic paths.

1\. Pay somebody to do that stuff.

2\. Learn it and do it yourself.

You've already eliminated option 2, so the equation doesn't seem very
complicated to me. Maybe you can find some offshore talent, or still-in-school
(or just-out-of-school) folks who would be willing to work for a relatively
inexpensive rate? Or you could "pay" in equity and have a co-founder.

I guess you could argue that there is also a hidden "option 3" \- invent an
artificial general intelligence and make it do the work for you.

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richardknop
Well you can either learn how to build frontend yourself or pay somebody to do
it. And as always you get what you pay for so somebody good will charge a lot.
That should help motivate you to learn.

You don't need to learn JavaScript or Node initially. It's perfectly fine to
start with old school front end built with Rails or Django.

Dynamic HTML generated on the server. Which could be Node but doesn't need to
be. PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby will do just fine.

You need to learn HTML and how submitting forms works at the very least. And
probably some CSS. You can start with that.

And by the way, $50 per hour is not even that high. There are some too
frontend experts charging double that or more.

So unless you got big budget for this side business I'd recommend to learn
very basics yourself and start with simple UIs that you can write on your own.
Later if the side business takes off you can hire front end experts to take it
from there.

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SirLJ
Maybe check the algorithmic stock market trading, looks like you have the
background, just get some data and start testing different trading strategies,
the upfront cost if minimal and if you find something that is working for you
you can start trading with real money and then do it for friends and family,
etc...

~~~
nanospeck
I have tried this. Very good chiice. You can easily make more than bank
interest.

~~~
jetti
You can also easily lose money too.

~~~
SirLJ
That's why you have to test a lot before putting a single penny on the line...

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12s12m
I have built a few startups in the past, and am currently building 12 startups
in 12 months at
[http://blog.12startupsin12months.in/](http://blog.12startupsin12months.in/) .
Like the @nfriedly mentioned. You really have 2 questions. I always ask people
to get their product validated with at least 20 customers. For this you
probably just need a simple landing page asking for an email. Make sure you
are building something that provides value.

The next part is actually building the app. I am a developer so my advice may
be a bit biased. But, I would ask you to learn a front end framework. If you
don't know an JS frameworks yet, I'd ask you to take a look at Elm. Once you
have the first version out, and grows beyond your capabilities you can hire
folks to work on it.

~~~
maxwin
you can't build 12 startups in 12 months. You are building 12 hobby projects
in 12 months. Big difference.

~~~
12s12m
Well, what is the difference between a hobby project and a startup? Is a
startup something that brings in money? If so, I am definitely planning to
monetize all the 12 startups. Does a startup need someone who works on it full
time? If so, I am working on these things full time. These products may be
_small_ but they are real products which will have real customers.

~~~
jf22
You seem pretty sure you'll have real customers.

~~~
12s12m
Yeah, The first app that I am building has a lot of competitors. So, it is not
really a question of whether the market is there. I definitely need the
confidence If my startups are going to be successful :)

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helen842000
It sounds like you are worrying about skills & tech before having a problem to
solve or a product to build.

Investigate some ideas, find a need and a solution you want to build. Keep
things simple and see if there is demand.

You can decide then what skills are important and either learn as you go or
hire. You will be much more motivated to learn if you have something specific
to build & customers waiting.

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mapster
Do you feel motivated to learn marketing? Because you will need that too. Its
ok to farm out or even team-up with people though, so build a network of
potential partners.

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lalwanivikas
Do you have good ideas? And can they become viable side businesses?

I do frontend mainly and know a bit of backend as well. But don't have good
ideas to work on :(

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nanospeck
You can hire me for 20$ per hour. I'll help you build the mvp if you have an
idea. PM me if you're interested.

