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Comment by everfree | Hacker News Reader

My advice is this: Think about your unique domain knowledge.

Ask yourself:

* What do I know that gives me an advantage over the average joe?

* What other resources do I have that give me an advantage over the average joe?

Generally speaking, if your idea to make money sounds really lame, boring, risky, complicated and/or esoteric to an uneducated layperson - but due to your domain knowledge you know that it's not - you're on the right track. Bonus points if it benefits from obscure, difficult-to-get resources that you already have (for instance, a best friend who owns a niche website you can advertise on, or family connections in the X industry, or you live in a town that has a huge Y industry.)

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"What do I know that gives me an advantage over the average joe?

What other resources do I have that give me an advantage over the average joe?"

What if my answers are none and none?

Some of the best advice I've ever heard regarding this is that you don't have to be an expert, you just have to know a little bit more than someone else. So take whatever you've recently learned, write it up, package and sell that. People tend to overestimate the level of knowledge required to sell advice. People pay for beginner level courses all the time.

Marge to Lisa: “I could give piano lessons!” Lisa: “But you don’t play the piano…” Marge: “I just gotta stay one lesson ahead of the kid!”

Chances are, you're not thinking about it hard enough.

If you truly think you have nothing to offer, then start acquiring something to offer. Put in the hard work and thought into acquiring specialized skills and relationships with people. It takes time (usually a lot of it), but it is not complicated.

Eh, I've done that in the past and it didn't mean anything. They just outsourced the tech/system that I became an expert at. You need luck in addition to expertise, and that's something I can't control.

Yeah, nobody can control that, so you can either give up or keep working hard at things until you "get lucky". One has the possibility of success and one doesn't.

Not necessarily. You get hit by a Mercedes while crossing the street and you could just luck into money without hard work.

I used to work at an insurance company. It was interesting to listen to some of the underwriters talk a bout how trivially easy it can be to scam a small mom & pop business through a fake trip & fall "accident".

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