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Comment by adyus | Hacker News Reader

Most successful entrepreneurs failed at least once until they made it. I can only speak from experience, the startup founder that I worked for had three failed attempts before he made it (relatively) big.

My other point was exactly that. Most small businesses will fail, but the ones that succeed will be the job creators (I hate that buzzword!) and hire the ones that didn't make it.

After having worked for a startup myself for a while, I am now ready to try it on my own. If I fail, there's always other successful startups I could work for. If I succeed, I'll need good employees, and someone who tried and failed (but learned from the experience) would be a prime candidate.

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Don't most kinds of business require some capital to start?

Less capital now than ever. Local service businesses like "Mop It Up" would cost almost nothing to operate. The barrier to entry is simply that the work is undesirable. This makes it valuable.

How large do you suppose the market for a $20 an hour cleaning service is in most cities? For comparison, how much do house cleaners charge?

I don't think your conclusion at the end is true. Most undesirable work is in fact not valuable, in the sense of being paid well or easy to get, because, at least if it's also unskilled, there is a large supply of labor relative to demand. Stuff like janitorial work does not pay well and has no shortage. Similarly with McDonald's: they typically get many more applications than open positions, and not because they're paying $20/hr.

There was a story (I think it was on reddit, not HN) of an entrepreneur who bootstrapped a local cleaning business in something like three months, by hiring his maid as his first employee. The guy does not mop up himself, but runs an incredibly successful business with a web-based reservation system. The rest of his job is people and asset management.

So even with janitorial work, an educated graduate can turn it into a profitable business, without actually doing the cleaning himself.

Edit: his site is http://www.maidsinblack.com/ and he does a great job of documenting his startup experience step by step on reddit. If I find the thread, I'll post it here.

That's one guy. There are millions of unemployed people.

Anyway, this kind of business would have been possible in the past with local newspaper ads and the Yellow Pages.

Well, I certainly hope you're right, but I have my reservations about small businesses, particularly those run by young, inexperienced people, scaling in order to employ others. I do think that the recent trend of staying "at home" longer may help with this. Also, if we can get more affordable housing in areas populated enough to support commerce, things might improve a lot.

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