How much time have you invested on your startup idea?
José Herazo
45 replies
Since the first moment you had a startup idea, how much time have you invested on it? If it's profitable, how much did it take for you to make it profitable? Could you also talk a bit about your startup idea? Lots of questions but I'm curious about your stories as entrepreneurs, specially the time you've invested on your startups
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Eric Bae@eric_bae
HN+ : HackerNews Plus
Been spending ~2 hours per day for the past 12 moths on Newsy http://newsy.co - not yet profitable, but generating revenue. 💪
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I haven't slept in 36hrs since we started our launch, and haven't had a real salary in 3 years.
Lots.. everything... but it's also kind of a life choice. Life = mission.
Never found that with a salaried job, but could be I just worked in the wrong places :)
@geigster wow that's extreme =) sleeping is non-negotiable... as for salary it's important to have one as a good practice, it sets the bar higher which is a good thing plus reduces anxiety. In terms of mindset it forced me to find users early on to be able to self-fund right from the start. I think that's a good thing. :)
Illusion - No-Code Generative AI Builder
Hey José, I have changed my mind multiple times thought the years on this. Read about it too much too.
Well with the tech space evolving so much there are 2 approaches I usually take. If you are disruptive and you try to solve something new then, time to market, MVP and not a lot of time is my approach. But if you are trying to solve an old problem, then usually, the product/service will need a lot of time.
We launched Airdesk today and we were under the radar for 3 years. Not investing enough time was just not an option.
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@igcorreia thanks for sharing! This helps. These two approaches will certainly help me understand how to invest my time
For the latest one, https://thepodosphere.com probably been percolating for over a year. Finally getting ready for an MVP
Find Your First Frontend Job
In some cases I invested way too much time, but I'm restless when it comes to building things. I'm lucky to have a great team so we can do a couple of things at once, but still there are some ideas from way back that are waiting for their market validation while being semi-built and not launched.
All of it, everyday.
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First co from idea to exit 2 years 3 months, profitable day zero because was services centric co. Second co idea to exit 1.5 yrs, not profitable not revenue generating when sold. Third co idea to now.. still building and pivoting and pivoting.. about to hit 1 year of dev time, no revenue.. but now we have firm direction and we're hoping to drive hard to get revenue in. All attempts have been full time so there has to be some source of funds to keep you going.
First time startup launch 9 months ago. Grown to a user base of 1,500 users across 12 countries. Since day 0 till today total revenue generated 210$. In terms of time invested, to be honest I invested all of my time to develop it.
TapeReal.com
Just passed the 2 year milestone... incorporated in Nov '18, worked on designs Jan-Mar, started development Apr '19, launched Alpha Aug'19, and we've been iterating since. 2020 was a challenging year with a few setbacks, but now we're gearing up for a massive update in Mar '21. We're not profitable, but generating some early revenue.
koinju
it is not the time we devote to it but the will and the passion that we put into it
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@nazim_m @joseherazo04 totally agree with the passion argument. You would never start if it were not for the passion. But a bit of realism is important. Time & Profitability are critical.. you can't live on nothing and unless you have funds sitting in your bank, its near impossible to build something, no matter how passionate you are about it, full time. A great thing to do is do what you're passionate about as a side project.. build it till it can sustain you financially and then go all in. The passion bit will be way more relevant at this stage and help you 🚀
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koinju
@joseherazo04 @singhanurag Absolutely agree. An astronaut needs air to breathe and live, it's something critical in space. But his missions are not just to precisely control this critical resource. I think they have much more challenging things to do :-)
@nazim_m This is so true! Because there is no guarantee that some venture will take off within a little time period - there are ups and downs. What's more important is the devotion to the idea - either you generate it your self or find among already developed one (e.g., https://topdevs.org/blog/top-mob...). The startuper should definitely understand that the true satisfaction comes from the desire to witness your idea development that is turned into a valuable digital product.
We're building EmployPlan.com for almost a year now. At first we started as a work radar app, but quickly shifted towards upskilling and now, at the final form, EmployPlan is a Talent Management tool. Final, of course just for now, cause we all believe that the future will bring us more challanges and we're open for them! :)
keypup.io
I tend to totally agree with @nazim_m - it's all about passion. When you love, time doesn't matter ;)
On my side, first startup took 8 months from "idea" to MVP. From there, 4 more years to global group and IPO on London Exchange. Total "idea" to exit: 5 years. First meaningful revenue (circa $1.5 m annual) end of Year 1.
Personal time: about 18hrs a day, every day.... And it was by sheer ignorance. Never got a medal for it, nor should I have gotten one. I should have been smarter.
Second one (current): 1 year in the making. No revenue yet on purpose (product for developers - so first Key Metric is users and usage). By comparison with previous, about 150% higher users on the product and 6 months ahead in terms of maturity.
Learnt a stack load from 1st one. Now working a reasonable 50 hours a week. More focused, more efficient, better results. It's not about time spent - it's about how you spend it!
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@stephane_ibos thanks for sharing. Agree, when you love time doesn't matter. It's cool to know you became more efficient after your first startup, just curious: what things you are doing now differently that help you be more efficient? I think there is something to learn here
keypup.io
@joseherazo04 Keeping it short, I'd say the most important thing I've learnt is to keep laser-focusing on what truly matters - i.e. what makes your product excellent and gets it to a maximum of people.
Anything that does not participate to these 2 goals should simply be parked.
Of course, as the business grows, other matters become equally important, but unless you want to be in a situation where a straw breaks the camel's back, first you have to have the best product to the maximum of right people.
Next top priority is to build an incredible team of efficient, smart, independent people. They are the strength behind your growth.
Then - monetising it right, running fancy marketing, buying a tennis table will come in due course.
Too many times I see founders who "play startup" and go all the wrong way about it. Make it work. Make it good. Make it known. In the first stages that should be all that founders should focus on. ;)
Mobilo Metal Card
Last three years I launched at least 4 ideas. You get super handy with putting together the website, landing page, MVP, etc. So every time you start, it takes less time.
For me it's a great way to try new things as a hoppy. But early 2020, I transitioned to full-time working on https://mobilocard.com 5 months after launch. There was an inflection point where I saw that if I would put 100% of my time in it, I could at least pay for rent.
Fast forward to today, our product has been used 186,000 times in 137 countries and we are a team of 14.
!kiter.app First idea to now 7 months. No revenue yet, but seeing increased user use and working on converting users to subscriptions. Definitely testing at times to figure out if this idea is the right idea or if we should pivot...
From finding a co-founder to launching a sellable product took us three years. Spent 1 whole year full time. We found it practically impossible to launch something while we were working full time. And so few support for early stage founders. We are france so for any kind of support they ask us a full fledged business plan which annoys us since we barely know what our product is capable for. To those struggling, hang in there. We went through 5 pivots and 4 different ideas to get here. What a joyful ride. Only downside is financial difficulties. But we know there is some light at the end of the tunnel especially since our startup is looking for positive impact in society
Coloban - 2 years in a row and not going to stop :) With every new feature everyone loves it just more and more
Never thought the work can be fun until started to use it actually, ha-ha :)
Fexspace
I have invested almost all my adult life in my startups, most of them failed while I have only succeeded in two. My first success was in my small software company (ExcellentBridge) that develops business management solutions for small businesses. I have run ExcellentBridge full time for 9years. I have used profits from ExcellentBridge to try to develop software that can be useful to the world. First I tried Ecommerce (it was a big failure, lost thousands of dollars) I failed in Ecommerce, mostly because I didn't understand the market (Ecommerce is not really a Tech business). I tried online Ticket platform and that failed too. Tried Online freelancing platform that failed before I could launch (ran out of cash and failed to close a seed round).
In 2018, We started developing a collaboration service app.fexspace.com/explore to simplify collaboration by having the important collaboration tools organized in one place. Before we could launch to the market it was already 2020 and the collaboration market has become saturated after the Covid pandemic.
So we started working on something new in the crowded collaboration market. We created a service to allow people to easily collaborate with their network. More like a social media but for collaboration
https://www.producthunt.com/post...
Entrepreneurship is a very time-consuming venture and very emotionally draining when success doesn't come too fast, believe me, it almost always doesn't come too fast as you expected when you first got the idea.
***No matter how exciting an idea is to you, it doesn't mean is a good idea to the world. Always try it out with a small group before you commit fully.
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@promise_emeka there is a lot to learn from your story. Thanks for the advice, I think I'm making the mistake of not validating my idea with users before I put more time on it
@promise_emeka @joseherazo04 you have to valid the idea with users asap. Try searching for Build-Measure-Learn loop
Fexspace
@joseherazo04 @vivalavladislav Yes validating the idea is a very important part of the process. Another important point is the time, Once you validate the idea move fast to get your MVP to the market because at least 10 people around the world might be working on same or similar idea. If you don't to the market on time, you may have to start trailing and running catch-up.
This actually makes me feel better. I thought I was way behind but I'm technically right along with everyone else. I've been working on it for 5 months now. Only one product out of the suite is operational and in use. In addition to the question when do you get investors on board? More specifically an enterprise SAAS startup.
Well, time invested in thinking is 3 years, but time invested in actually putting up the effort and working is 10 months.
Sales Playbooks
4 years :O