"Conventional Engineer" wanting to build a product company - How to do that?
Hello,
I am a conventional engineer (mix of startup experience + service industry).
I am thinking of starting a product company but had a few questions.
I think I am comfortable from a technical standpoint and no dearth of ideas.
But my questions are more centered around funding. I have not made a similar effort before and almost all of my experience is mostly technical and not managerial.
For such a scenario, do you think the best best is to be able to garner a large amount of users?
![Mid-Level Software Engineer [SDE 2] at Amazon company logo](/_next/image/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffirebasestorage.googleapis.com%2Fv0%2Fb%2Ftech-career-growth.appspot.com%2Fo%2Fcompany_logos%252Famazon_logo.jpg%3Falt%3Dmedia%26token%3Dff5f2302-08be-43bc-b7b1-d381ba508d99&w=48&q=75){kind=logo}
Discussion
(2 comments)- 12 years agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
Happy to help another engineer on the startup journey! I recommend these other discussions around this topic:
- "One of my dreams is to start my own venture someday. How do I tailor my career accordingly?"
- "Career advancement or building a startup? Which one is harder?"
But my questions are more centered around funding.
In this economy, fundraising is extremely tough - We went through this raising our seed round for Taro. To help with this, I highly recommend applying to startup incubators like Y Combinator.
For such a scenario, do you think the best best is to be able to garner a large amount of users?
At a high-level, here's my quick advice here:
- Talk to users - Build something that solves a problem, not just something that "feels cool" for the sake of starting a company. Having honest conversations with users helps you figure that out. I highly recommend this book to help with that: The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers & Learn If Your Business Is a Good Idea When Everyone Is Lying to You
- Avoid writing code - A lot of products can be "hacked" without a full-stack of proper software: levels.fyi for example started off with Google Sheets as a back-end. Do the manual hacky thing for as long as possible - Focus on getting user signal.
- Create something you would use - Your genuine level of passion will make or break your startup dreams. Avoid starting something in a space purely for the sake of it being trendy.
These are a bit different as they're about side projects, but I highly recommend these masterclasses anyways as many principles still apply:
- 07 months agoTech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
You should come to startup office hours at Taro! Hosted roughly every month, with the next one on June 28: Starting A Startup - Idea Feedback And Sharing.
A few notes on what how to evaluate your ideas:
- What change in the world are you benefitting from? Some good candidates are regulation, technology, or demographic changes.
- What do you know about your users that others don't understand?
Some things I've learned from YC about what makes a good pitch (some great thoughts from this Tweet thread):
- The person receiving the pitch should feel like they're learning something.
- At the end of the pitch, the VC should ask the question "how does this not exist already?"
