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A couple of questions to getting started and general advice

By WombatExpert
August 27, 2018

Hey! I'm a 21 year old student that's been in love with programming for as long as I can remember, I'm currently in college and I'd like to think I'm a pretty experienced programmer. I also have a ton of crazy ideas which I do believe could take off eventually, but I have no idea as to the how part. Here are a couple of things I'm having trouble understanding in general.

  • How do I find an idea that I could build that doesn't have too much competition or isn't too saturated? Way back in the day I remember using something called Google AdWords(?) that showed me how much something has been googled/searched which allowed me to find nice niches. I searched again recently and all I found was something called google trends which doesn't seem nearly as useful.

  • One of the biggest problems I haven't figured out is how to start off websites where it's user driven and not really offering a product as most of the ideas I get go along these lines. For example, say I create a website for rating Nike shoes. Users can sign up, and simply rate the shoes they like so others can visit the website and see which shoes others favor and base their decisions off of that. Well the problem is that for the first couple hundred or thousand users, the website is practically useless since it serves no purpose to them. So how do you begin to build a userbase in that sort of websites?

  • Is there a general consensus on which type of venture is better between building a company with SaaS type things, or a type of website that just has a ton of visitors and make money off ads, and whatever other categories are there.

  • Say I created a website and I would like to begin marketing it or start driving traffic, no matter how minimal it may be. Is there a free way to do this without buying google ads or facebook ads and etc. I know reddit is a good platform but it's heavily looked down to try to sell your product, but is there any others.

And lastly, are there any free tutorials or guides that could help me with these type of questions, and more importantly, any free tools or websites which could be of great benefit when just starting out.

Thank you!

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  1. 1
    One thing I would add is that getting started is often less about having every answer and more about creating a process for learning quickly. Talk to potential users before building too much, test the smallest version of the idea, pay attention to what people actually do rather than only what they say, and keep your assumptions visible so you can challenge them. I’d also recommend documenting important decisions and agreements early, especially when other people are involved. Clear expectations around roles, ownership, and responsibilities can prevent unnecessary problems later. The goal isn't to eliminate uncertainty. It's to learn which uncertainties actually matter.
    Advocate Peesh Chopra's avatar Advocate Peesh Chopra
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    a day ago
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  2. 1

    On competition

    Sam Altman sums it up pretty well:

    A quick word about competitors: competitors are a startup ghost story. First-time founders think they are what kill 99% of startups. But 99% of startups die from suicide, not murder. Worry instead about all of your internal problems. If you fail, it will very likely be because you failed to make a great product and/or failed to make a great company.

    http://playbook.samaltman.com/#competition

    On creating a community/user base

    @csallen has written a bit about how he started Indie Hackers with no community. One thing that fascinated me is how he created different accounts he would post as to Indie Hackers. I believe Reddit also faked part of their initial community when they first started.

    On business models

    Michael Seibel said it best when people apply to Y Combinator:

    There are two types of startups, those that know how they’ll make money and those that haven’t figured it out yet. By and large, if you’re in the second category you’re going to either make money by growing big and turning on advertising or you’re going to copy the predominant business model in your space. A small subset of companies in the second category will propose a new business model that makes sense given how you product changes the market–freemium is a good example of this.

    One mistake I often used to make at Justin.tv was offering a potpourri of business models (virtual goods, product placement, chat ads, contests, etc..). I was embarrassed to say Justin.tv would monetize with advertising when clearly that was the only answer. Own the simple business model.

    https://blog.ycombinator.com/how-to-pitch-your-company/

    On Marketing (for free)

    There will always be options to market "for free", but you'll have to base your expectations low and understand that free is either slow and long and/or overly competitive. You will also notice that once you find something that works, it will fade out and be less effective over time. You will continually need to experiment with new ideas for marketing (be it channels, messaging, audience, etc.).

    Where to start?

    Some good places for information:

    https://www.startupschool.org/library
    https://stripe.com/atlas/guides
    https://www.startups.co

    I like reading through Quora as well. Some of the people who answer questions have very deep domain expertise operating businesses.

    Tobin Schwaiger-Hastanan's avatar Tobin Schwaiger-Hastanan
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    8 years ago
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