I literally thought that was the case until I went full-time on my start-up. I was delusional to think I could do a 9-5 well while trying to build a company.

Frankly, I should have realized this was the case when some moderately complex problems felt impossible (because I was giving the best hours of my day to my 9-5).

I think people get confused by the wide spectrum of businesses that the word "start-up" represents. You can't build a VC-backed 10-person B2B company as a side gig. You can build a small profitable SaaS business on a few hours a week.

>> You can build a small profitable SaaS business on a few hours a week.

Sure but that’s a wide spectrum too. How profitable? Do you want to make $200/mo profit, $2,000/mo or $20,000/mo? You can do the first with a few hours a week. The second, maybe if you’re lucky or have a wide network you can sell to. The last one? I doubt it’s possible with anything less than 20-30 hours a week, at least upfront.

The second definitely doesn’t require luck. I built a $3k/mo app in a couple hours a day for a few weeks.

People think it’s all luck because they build things just hoping someone will buy it and when they don’t “ah well, bad luck on this one”.

Instead you need to find a problem people actually have first and then build something to solve that. Then its much more likely that someone will pay for that solution.

It is not luck when you hear several people say something like, “I really wish it was easier to do x” and then you build a solution that makes doing x easier.

It most certainly is luck if you just think of a random cool idea and it happens to be profitable.

Correct! I may have forgotten to include a disclaimer that I am only referring to first time builders, those who want to build a lifestyle business or just test the waters with a new product idea.

What I don’t not get is that people are often way more productive in their job than when they are trying to do something on their own...

I don’t get it insofar that the latter (your own goal, e.g. becoming a writer or your own business) has way more potential in the long run than the former.

One thing might be: In a paid job you can focus on your job. As founder/freelancer you have to handle everything. Some people are good in diving deep but slow to context switching.

In best case they can pair with a co-founder that has a good intuition about „good enough“ and handles all the chores. But then a co-founder also adds its own set of problems.

Most people are more motivated by external factors than internal ones, so they simply work better when they are accountable to someone else. When you are working on your own, there isn't usually anyone making sure that you are actually getting things done.

It’s easier to risk failure at things that aren’t important to you is one example. A great book explaining all the reasons why is War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

There are important psychological advantages to going on all in. If you still have a job, every time the going gets tough you can just focus back to your job. Startups typically require much more stress and effort to succeed than jobs do.

There are both good and bad psychological implications. Personally, for me it allows me to approach my business without the pressure that it needs to be successful. Having a more relaxed attitude prevents me from panicking and making stupid mistakes.

> Well, I think that’s bullshit.

I think people underestimate why running a startup is so time-consuming. Having real users with real business needs is like having a family with children. You don't take it easy when your kids hurt themselves or need help with homework. In the same way if a customer is having problems and needs a fix ASAP. In either case if it happens at 5am on Saturday morning you are on the hook to ensure it gets fixed--either do it yourself or roust out others to help, then make sure it gets done right, then make sure it does not happen again.

Over time you eliminate common problems. Moreover you can hire people to handle these issues so they don't bubble up all the time. But in the meantime there's no viable way other than putting in a lot of time.

p.s. Many startups are blessed with an offering that only needs 9-5 answers. I've never worked in one, though. It sounds really nice. ;)

YMMV but either way its for the owners. The rest are more or less in a job

Yeah, also what's wrong with making a product first, marketing it, and seeing if it sells? No need for this landing-page-with-fake-pre-orders lying to your customers overhead.

I guess that's the luxury of keeping your day job. If the product doesn't sell, oh well. Bills are still paid. Try again. If you're banking your entire livelihood on the product, you have to know there's at least some chance of success, even if it means alienating potential customers with bullshit

> Yeah, also what's wrong with making a product first, marketing it, and seeing if it sells?

It breaks your heart? To spend all kinds of time building something, figuring out the best way to solve a problem, tweaking stuff, banging your head against a wall, all to announce it to the world and then? Crickets? (Source: been there.)

Put another, more bloodless way: opportunity cost?

Not to say you can't have fun making a product no one wants, but it's more fun to make a product that people want.

I hear what you are saying about landing pages lying, but if it says "coming soon" is that a lie (assuming you really plan to build it soon if the demand is there)?

And if your requisite level of demand isn't there then "coming soon" is a complete lie.

I suppose I would never want to start a business with a product that I didn't at least get some intrinsic benefit out of building. Worst case scenario I learn new skills that can be applied to future endeavors. Besides, if you solve a problem and no one is willing to pay for it, well at least the problem got solved. Maybe that tool will be useful later in some other context.

Plus I don't like relationships built on sand. Fake-it-till-you-make-it is to business what steroids/doping are to athletics. Sure maybe it's necessary at the Cutthroat-Business-Olympics where everyone's doing it and you won't win if you don't, but most businesses aren't playing at that level, and do the equivalent of taking Lance-Armstrong-Style blood transfusions to win their local bike club's weekend race.

> And if your requisite level of demand isn't there then "coming soon" is a complete lie.

That's an interesting perspective. You aren't lying when you post "coming soon" originally but later it turns into a lie?

Frankly, not sure how you solve this chicken and egg problem in a way other than what we've already detailed:

* put the chicken first: build the product (at least as minimal of a product as you can). Invest your time.

* put the egg first: suss out demand (and don't build it if you can't find any). See if anyone will bite based on words, not product.

You can try to split the difference. By building a bit, using low code tools, for example, or by being transparent that you are thinking about building this and talking to potential customers about what they'd want.

I think that "coming soon" if you don't plan to build the product at all is a baldfaced lie; we can probably both agree that is bad.

Personally, I think that "coming soon" as a way to assess demand, especially if you send out a message saying "things changed, sorry I won't be building this" (not that I've ever gotten that kind of message) is not a lie. Things change all the time.

Have you ever left a job? Typically one doesn't say out and out "I'm leaving" until they submit a resignation letter. Is being part of the team and being enthusiastic about the company and product even if you are interviewing lying?

You can also lower the impact on your users during the "coming soon" phase by

* refunding their money if you charged them (this is a no brainer, hopefully everyone agrees with this)

* providing some additional resources (presumably you have some insight into the problem space you could share, even if you don't build the product) during the "coming soon" exploration process

* asking for emails rather than $$$ while you are unsure of delivering the end goal. You could ask for emails first and then $$$ later.

I guess I was picturing it as "coming soon" but with unrevealed contingencies. So it's a lie by omission. You actually haven't made the decision that anything is "coming soon", because the contingencies haven't been met yet.

Being transparent would be something like Kickstarter/Indiegogo, where you have stated objectives and if those objectives aren't reached the thing doesn't happen, or happens to lesser degrees. I'm not sure how you would translate that into a market-research product page, as you'd need a way to positively spin the fact that the product doesn't actually exist yet. You're basically seeking funding more than marketing a product.

Emails would probably be the best happy middle ground. People sign up for news/info regarding a product that's under development, no promises are made, hell if you decide to start development you could even publish a dev blog documenting the experience and providing updates, depending on how technical your audience is.

I've just read so many startup-advice blogs that seem to recommend bait-and-switching the customer just to gauge interest. That seems counterproductive to me in the long run. Sure maybe the world is big enough for software that you can afford to screw over some people and there will be plenty more where they came from if demand is good. All I know is despite moving some distance away in recent years my family still goes to this one independent mechanic we discovered. He's gone out of his way to save us money when he could have screwed us (I requested repairs that were unnecessary), takes time to explain the repairs he's making and why, charges a decent rate (frankly I'd pay more if he asked) and hasn't broken anything. That's the kind of relationship I would want with my customers, and sure enough he gets every oil change from us despite being a 35 minute drive away.

> Yeah, also what's wrong with making a product first, marketing it, and seeing if it sells? No need for this landing-page-with-fake-pre-orders lying to your customers overhead.

The overhead of actually building the product is WAY more than just making a landing page.

Plus, knowing that there are people who are willing to give you money for a thing is very motivating.

Also, having pre-customers while you are building is a great way to know which parts of the product to focus on. The features you think are important may not be what your customers think.

Certainly there is a range of approaches in between vaporware and building in secret. But if you actually want to make money, you should start selling as soon as possible, even before it’s ready.

Sounds an awful lot like that kid in the group project who lies about doing their piece of the work and then throws it together at the last minute out of guilt. Tends to result in a half-assed, low-quality effort that brings the rest of the group down.

Granted you should establish hard criteria for an MVP and not try to make everything perfect, the temptation for feature creep as you further explore the problem space is real. But if I'm offering someone a shovel I at least want a competently built V1 of a shovel, not a pinky swear that I'll have an awesome shovel for them in 2 months.

Features are a little trickier. Whatever the customers say they want may or may not be what they actually want, depending on the specific context of course. Or the customers say they want X, but they aren't actually willing to pay for X. There's a lot of noise that looks like signal. You see it in startup blogs all the time "I thought customers wanted this, and they kinda did, but it was actually this other variant that we didn't discover until we analyzed data from the first year of sales" Rather than debate on what may or may not be on the other side of the hill, I'd land on the side of going and taking a look, even if that means some extra time/effort/money climbing said hill. You'll at least get a good workout and be stronger for it even if there's nothing of value on the other side. Meanwhile your day job covers the downside risk :)

I guess it comes down to your last line "if you actually want to make money". At what scale and to what end? Waiting to start selling until you have something to sell might technically be leaving money on the table, but if it makes enough money and results in a better overall product, and you have a more long-term outlook, can be worth it. Granted not every sector and objective is amenable to that strategy, but there are so many in this space who dismiss it outright as naive, as if business with physical products don't do it all the time.

Not romanticised — VCs rationally cultivate a standard of founders spending every resource, personal, spiritual, and financial, towards making their investment back 1% more likely. Having a life “Plan B” is taken as a Bad Sign. After all, necessity (and deprivation) is the mother of startup invention, etc. all the better of necessity is existential.

And after a day of meetings, the VCs lean back on their chairs and scratch their head over the dismal state of their founders’ mental health…