Ask HN: What's keeping you from starting something?

Over time, we've added two co-founders, and I've gained a lot of experience "learning as I go". I still have no money or investors (the latter by choice) and we're working very aggressively ont he "customers" part. We have a couple of deals we're working on, and hopes are high for getting some stuff signed in the early part of 2014.

One thing we've doing is shifting slightly towards more focus on SaaS deliverables. Our software will certainly still be applicable to "on premises" deployment, and some customers will favor that model for various reasons, but we're now starting to put more emphasis on getting the SaaS deployment model going. The main reason here is simply that we believe we can build traction faster and more readily, with hosted offerings. And since we're bootstrapping, anything that gets revenue coming in sooner than later is a Good Thing.

Anyway, my mindset is "If you have an idea, start building it". If you have the luxury of being someone who can code, you can get an awful long way down the road, just coding in your spare time, without spending any money. Our "burn rate" is nearly negligible to date, as all three founders are coders and we're building the product(s) ourselves.

Others will think it's a stupid idea

Screw the "others". Who cares what they think?

I'm not smart enough to get this done

You might be. You won't know unless you try.

The idea takes too much money

See above... if you can code, maybe you don't need much money. If it is something that does require money, well... there are options that involve spending other people's money instead of your own.

Family is a priority

You want to make it big so you can provide for your family in the best way, right?

Need to learn more skills first

Learn as you go.

Need a business partner

Start now, acquire a partner when the time is right.

I don't have domain expertise

Partner with somebody who does. Or pick a different domain. Or buy a book.

I'm not sure I can put in the effort needed

You won't know until you try.

90% of businesses fail

And 10% don't. Be part of that 10%.

So why bother?

Freedom. Financial independence. The joy of creating something and building it and watching it grow.

I really need to work on this idea on my own before launching

Well, do it.

This is not the right time for my idea

Come up with a better idea. And/or revisit your assumptions about why this isn't a good time.

I would've done it if I were in the 'valley'

Successful startups emerge from just about everywhere in the world. Being in SV is not a prerequisite for success.

I am not sure I have the right personality for starting

There's only one way to find out.

"You don't trust yourself"

All the reasons you see listed in this thread are rationalisations your mind comes up with to trick yourself. When you think of them logically, they are pretty trivial.

Through our upbringing, we are taught to listen to others. That our ideas and opinions must be suppressed because it could make others feel bad. After years of this brainwashing we start to believe it deep down. Watch children. They just say things and do things without thinking. They are acting naturally. They don't worry if something isn't going to work out. They just do it. "Excuse" doesn't exist in their vocabulary.

You used to be like this. And you can train yourself to be like this again.

If you're interested in trying to overcome these obstacles, I've put together a course relating to these topics as it relates to programming. It's available at https://www.programmingspiritually.com

1. Compile-time/linking errors with every C++ serialization library I've tried so far (boost, autoserial and cereal, so far). Half joking here, this has been screwing me up all week.

2. Lack of experience and lack of collaborators means projects that would take others days or weeks take me months or years. I hope I'm at least improving, though.

3. Lack of funding to hire said collaborators, and unwillingness to commit my few savings to something that may not have a guaranteed ROI. I'm not interested in seeking funding or trying something like YCombinator since I don't really want to share ownership in my vision, and figure it wouldn't be enough to last very long anyways.

4. Having to stop to deal with other life stuff, such as classes and moving to a new place.

My biggest reason is the "if I build it, they may not come".

I have plenty others like:

I really don't want a snake/VC on my back I couldn't afford to pay employees without VC cash I'll need to generate money before bringing someone onboard A 1 man team takes all other factors of failure and multiplies those factors by 100/1000