Comment by foundersdilemma | Hacker News Reader

Comment by foundersdilemma | Hacker News Reader

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foundersdilemma

Thanks for the feedback, I'll answer this by providing some more context.

a) I've done well when you consider revenue/global brand reach/spread

b) I've spoken informally to trusted board members nobody seems to have clarity on the best way forward

c) Option 7 seems to be the best way out

d) on point number 9, yes I'm distracted, but I've understated how much thought has gone into the second idea; it's something that's constantly come up when I'm with my customers with whom I have a remarkably intimate relationship with. I live for them and this one issue keeps coming up. I have toyed with the idea of getting someone else to build it, but it requires some industry good will, customers willing to pilot it etc and so far that rests with me. I meet with my customers on a fairly frequent basis to figure out where their general pain points are, what their industry vertical trends are and what other issues I can solve for them (typically this involves an introduction to one industry vendor/company or another). In the course of these conversations you can unearth a lot.

To use a theoretical example. I will use Square. If in the the process of meetings with customers in say retail figures out that nobody has built for purposes of this conversation a CRM that addresses their needs and it's a pain point that keeps coming up in every single conversation with retail customers what would you do? Over several conversations you have industry members nagging you for a solution because over time you have become their trusted advisor.

One thing you will have to recognize is that this will happen over and over again. So you are not going to find 'The Product' because there will always be other products that you could make and chase. And new development is so much more fun than maintenance, the same goes for new companies.

In your shoes I would analyze myself first before making a decision: are you just good as a starter or are you able to go the distance? And then to recognize that most of the value creation happens early on in the life cycle of a company but most of the value capture happens later on. So if you exit early you will financially hurt yourself.

Interesting example with retail and CRM (called "point-of-sale" in retail, but I understand this is not your real product.)

You're right that POS is the #1 pain point retailers have, even though you used it only as an example.

I bring this up because the problem is not what you'd think it is.

You can't just "build another one and they will come", because each different business who might be a customer has slightly different needs and wishes to implement the software in a different manner.

For clarity's sake, we run 8 retail stores, and since I have a background in software my partner wanted me to build a POS, since none of them on the market met our needs. I know enough to stay far away from that gig, though, because it's a rabbit hole of custom engineering.

I don't know what your business is or what people have asked you to build, but if it's anything like what I described above, you'd essentially be downgrading yourself from "funded software company CEO" to "paid consultant."

And even if you think you can sell it with minimal modifications to other customers, you better be 101% sure of that before jumping off this cliff.

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