Ask HN: How do you find a business idea and motivation to leave the 9-5 grind

43 points by shetill 5 years ago | 27 comments

I often read here of some success stories about people making thousands off of their business idea (usually people who never even got into the 9-5 grind in the first place).

99% of the projects I see of these successful people are things that I would personally never pay for and are some very specific things that I would think already have a solution and I'm genuinely surprised that anyone is paying for. Basically they boil down to a web app offering subscription service to make some menial task slightly more comfortable.

1. How did you come up with this idea? Is it something you actually care about or found out it would make cash? Personally if I am to make something similar it rather be about something I care about and would use, sadly I don't care about many things.

2. How do you actually find the time/motivation to start some side hustle when you spend 8+ hours in work (even if it's from home). Last thing I feel like doing after work is more work.

jfengel 5 years ago |

Because you want to replace it with the 996 (9 AM to 9 PM, six days a week) grind? Because that's what a startup is, with no guarantee that it's ever going to drop back down to merely 40 hours a week.

Anyway, if that's what you want... the secret is to know your customer, which usually means knowing yourself. Find some domain that interests you, something you're already doing, and say, "Hey, I could automate that." It's easiest to see that something is slightly uncomfortable when you're the one being slightly uncomfortable.

You relieve that discomfort, and then you look for other people who are similarly uncomfortable. And convince them to pay for it, either in money or in attention. "Free with ads" is very low friction and helps you find those people.

This is the reason I encourage programmers to have interests outside of programming. Nobody wants to pay you to program. They want to pay you to make their lives better. That's easiest if you know their lives. Any outside interest -- ballet dancing, glassblowing, small engine repair -- puts you in touch with other people who might have needs that can only be recognized by other practitioners.

That you don't have any interests -- honestly, that sounds like a question for a therapist, not HN. You're doing something with those 8 hours you're spending neither working nor sleeping. If they're spent staring at a wall, or even a TV or a monitor, it might be worth taking a look at just what it is you want out of life.

notoriousarun 5 years ago |

> How do you find a business ideas?

Watch out for unbundlings ... https://twitter.com/notoriousarun/status/1351529651567398917

madmadjo 5 years ago | |

Very interesting thread. Thanks!

zn44 5 years ago |

I had exactly the same problem, my solution was to not come up with the idea myself and instead to join as a technical founder to a very early stage venture. There is plenty of teams looking for cofounder, it took me 18 months to find one I was aligned with. Bonus is that you will hear lots of ideas so that might inspire your thinking as well

In terms of motivation I went all in and quit my job for it.

eecks 5 years ago | |

How did you search through those teams?

zn44 5 years ago | | |

I’m uk based and ended up finding the team on workinstartups.co.uk. Other than that angel list has a lot of early stage offers and networking on startup related meet-ups.

pknerd 5 years ago | | |

Not the OP but there are sites like CoFounderLab.

amzans 5 years ago |

Every business is a roller coaster, no matter how small or big it is. The name of the game is: long-term thinking.

I've built several products over the past decade outside of my day job, including non-software products. Most of them failed financially, but that's the reality of it. For every successful story you hear, there will be 100s of failures you never hear about.

After talking with many founders who "made it", most of the time those successes came after years of struggle, and continuously learning and re-inventing the product. Once the success comes, the media will tell a very glamorous story, inspiring lots of new founders too.

What has worked really well for me: "scratch your own itch". Build something you wish existed, it's much easier to stay motivated and know what to build when you are your own customer.

No list of startup ideas can give you this, be observant and constantly get out of your comfort zone for inspiration. "Comfort" is a bubble which blinds you from the problems that need solving. I mean, it's right there in the word: comfort = problem-less :)

It also makes answering this question easier: "would you pay for the product yourself"? By scratching your own itch, you're also putting yourself in the shoes of your potential customers when it comes to evaluating the value you get from the product.

Also, if you want to escape the 9-5 grind, don't build something just for the money, it won't be fulfilling down the road either. Once it's financially successful, the last thing you want is to dread waking up each day to run your company.

Regarding your point on finding time, I personally work about 2 hours per day on my projects. It's surprising how much you can get done when you are in your best shape (physically and mentally). Look out for quiet spots too, I'm most productive when there's not much else going on, either early in the morning or late at night.

The most important thing: give yourself time to relax after work, last thing you want is to burn out. Enjoy time with your family, and friends (once the COVID situation is better of course). When you’re not working on your project, be present (stop thinking about what you will do next). Really take a break from it. I cannot stress how important this is, and I made this mistake far too many times.

In short: build a sustainable model for yourself that you can stick to for the long-term. If things get complicated, cut scope. If things aren't working out, pivot or move on to another project. Above all, prioritize your wellness and quality time with your loved ones. Time is your currency, you will never get it back.

bitxbitxbitcoin 5 years ago |

I've got a suggestion for 2.

Wake up hella early and work on your side hustle before work. Your after work time will feel much more desereved at the least, and maybe just maybe something will stick in your mind from the morning that will make you want to continue on it later.

But maybe the last thing you feel like doing before work is more work.

shetill 5 years ago | |

Already struggling to get up even for regular work

> But maybe the last thing you feel like doing before work is more work.

- read my mind

bloodorange 5 years ago | | |

If the work you are doing is not stimulating and is merely a means to get a salary, then of course, you will eventually be drained of motivation and energy and it gets harder to wake up for it with every passing day.

On the other hand, something to look forward to, might give you the spark to "rise and shine".

If on top of uninteresting work, you pick up an uninteresting side-project, you are bound to make things worse. However, if the side-project is something for which you are itching to make time, then you might in fact wake up with excitement for it.

adingus 5 years ago | | |

Is there anything you enjoy doing that you could eventually be paid for? I would say that spending that morning time developing the skill that is fun for you could be a good use of your time.

joshxyz 5 years ago |

Here's a short story that might give you some perspective:

Watch the Company Man Give Away His Life

https://wallstreetplayboys.com/watch-the-company-man-give-aw...

timed0 5 years ago |

For me, I made something that I wanted for myself. Originally it was just a script I used myself - I built the web service after, once I realised that this might be useful for others. It's B2C and transactional rather than SaaS, which is against the usual wisdom and but there's upside in that it is a more comfortable, less exigent business to be in.

It's not in my usual domain but still technically interesting - that's a large part of the reason I was motivated to work on it outside of the 9-5. Build it lean so that you don't need to spend too much time on it. Your product will look more focused to boot.

6DM 5 years ago |

A quick linux script is easy for one person and a nightmare for another. You can capitalize on that desire to automate that simple task with a clean ui.

Most categories already have a product, what you really want to look for is called a unique value proposition, or what makes you different. With this in mind, the product can already exist, but you can make a _better_ one. So that toaster you use that you wish was just a little better, or doesn't have a satisfying click or doesn't have wide enough slots... you get the idea.

I don't have much to offer for point #2. In fact, I need to stop procrastinating and get back to work now.

jhunter1016 5 years ago |

Coming up with ideas is a people watching process combined with a life experience process. But ideas aren’t businesses. They aren’t even side hustles. I keep a list of ideas in a note pad and add to them as they come to me. Most have been sitting there forever, likely never to be worked on. However, one idea stood out to me.

Here’s where the my path and yours might diverge. I had already done the startup thing-both bootstrapped and VC-funded. I currently have a job that pays well and I enjoy. So, this idea, I specifically didn’t want it to be a full time job. And I went about building it know the goal was to maybe make a bit of supplemental income, but nothing more.

What that did for me is it took the pressure off of having to find time before and after work to work on it. I worked on it when I truly wanted to. That’s worked well for me, and it’s about to launch (It’s a writers critique group community, if you’re interested - https://perligo.io).

If you aren’t in the same boat as me and are looking to find motivation and time to work on a product you want to end up as your full time job, my suggestion would be to stop trying to work on it after work. People, in my experience, tend to be more focused in the morning before work. Even if you have to get up super early, I’d bet your output is significantly better than anything you do after work.

Good luck!

dojorno 5 years ago |

How do you provide value to Betty who can't pay her rent from working at wal-mart.

& you build ur hierarchy of needs

NiagaraThistle 5 years ago |

TL;DR: 1. Ideas are super easy. You just need to realize they don't need to be ground-breaking. The simpler the better. 2. None of us WANT to work more after 9-5 work, especially those of us with families, kids, other non-work commitments. So we need good HABITS and lots of DISCIPLINE to FORCE us to work when we don't want to. Motivation is overrated.

1. This always seems to be the easiest part for me. I never understand people who say 'i just don't have any ideas/problems to work on.' WHAT?! There are literally 100s of tasks you do everyday, that you can turn into a small app to help others do that thing, or take the pain points out of doing that thing.

You don't NEED to care about the task that much, just care enough to spend some time building an app to help others do that thing.

Ideas don't have to be 'earth-shattering', or 'game-changing', or 'industry-changing'. They just need to be something that will help someone else do something. It's insanely simple to 'come up with ideas'. They won't all be MILLION DOLLAR ideas, but ideas are the simple part, imho.

Also, YOU don't have to want to pay for your idea. Most times you never would. Why? Because for whatever reason, you've already found the solution to the problem of your idea? I would never pay for someone to teach me about about underwater basket weaving. But 1. this doesn't mean under water basket weaving is not worth paying for BY THOSE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO LEARN THIS SKILL, nor 2. that just because there are other underwater basket weaving experts out there, that i can't find a small niche of people to teach them what i know about underwater basket weaving.

I am not an underwater basket weaver. But my point is: Just because YOU wouldn't pay for X, doesn't mean X isn't valuable enough to pay for to others. Your goal, no matter your idea, is to find where these people are and show them your finished product. Some of them will buy. If enough don't to replace your income, move on to the next idea. Ideas are a dime a dozen.

Maybe i just have TOO many ideas. Maybe i just have too many BAD ideas. But ideas have never been my problem. EXECUTION is my problem. Which leads to...

2. This can be difficult. When you come up with an idea, you'll get super excited, and have all the motivation in the world to work 10-, 12-, 24-hour stretches, no matter what constraints you have...for the first couple days. Then you'll lose that motivation and will have to rely on DISCIPLINE and HABITS. Motivation is overrated. No matter how motivated you WANT to be, life destroys your motivation: You'll get tired, stuck in the code, bored with non-cool parts of the app, family responsibilities will take priority, your friends will want to hangout, etc. This is when you need to be DISCIPLINED and hopefully have good time management HABITS. I lack both of these integral skills :(

However, they are also simple to build...over time.

You say you don't feel like working on side-projects after working 9-5. Well most of us don't want to either. But the alternative is sticking with the 9-5 grind. If you're like me, that terrifies the F out of you. I'm 42, have a great family, a good 9-5, but everyday of my life i think only of leaving my 9-5. Maybe this is the source of my motivation - i want the freedom to work on what i want when i want, and in this day and age, it has never been easier to do so.

I built out a blog site to make myself accountable and publicly track the progress of building my ideas. I let my bad habits (I hate you, procrastination!!!) and fears stop me from following through last year. I'm on a decent run building , but not publicly discussing/sharing, this year so far). To see what I'm building check it out here: https://solomaker.life/ (at the bottom: click 'Show Startups'). They may not all be the GREATEST or MOST UNIQUE ideas, but everyone of them COULD be monetized, and everyone of them solves some sort of problem i have in my daily life or have faced in my daily life. And by 'problem', i simply mean, 'some sort of task i needed to do that took longer than 15 minutes'. Doesn't matter if something similar already exists: i just want to carve out a small sliver of a small sliver of the global population online.

If the last thing you feel like doing after work is more work, then regardless of any ideas you might come up with, you are simply not ready to build side projects for profit. This is hard, lonely, and takes discipline , time management skills, good habits, and hard work. It doesn't have to for very long, but to get something built, launched, and grown, you've got to have the discipline to work on it when you don't want to work on it. Or just quit your job and work 9-5 on building a profitable start-up. Don't fall into the trap of 'I want the thing, but i don't want to put in the effort of making the thing, so I'm going to ask others how to get the thing, but not put in the necessary time to make the thing.'. Trust me, don't wasted 15 years wishing about it, when it's so simple to just make it happen. All you have to do is start right now.