Learning From Other Startups – 6 Real Life Stories

We are relatively new to Hacker News. We always felt this forum best catered for programmers. However after spending several hours of reading through old and new posts we were pleasantly surprised that the audience may be slightly bigger than first thought.

Yes, the majority of submissions and discussions are technology focused, but there are stories that stand out for us. These are where members share their honest and open experiences of getting their idea to the marketplace.

This week alone we found the following amazing submissions. These are truly inspiring!

1. $17k in eBook Sales (HN Link)

@jstorimer shares the success of his very own eBook. His blog post and Hacker News discussion outline important tips – including setting up a sales splash page to gauge interest BEFORE writing the book.

The blog post can be found here – 4 Months of ebook Sales (jstorimer.com).

While the eBook title “Working With Unix Processes” may not appeal to all, the niche content has found popularity in his $17k+ of sales!

2. $42k of Funding in 1 Week (HN Link)

@Scirra share their impressive crowd funding round on Kickstarter. They recommend doing sufficient homework on the process to achieve maximum results for the crowd funding process.

The story is available here – How we got over funded in just 1 week on Kickstarter.

And more information on their products at their website scirra.com.

3. 800k Unique Visitors in One Month (HN Link)

@thederek describes his milestone of reaching 800k unique views last month. An astonishing result from leveraging traffic from social media sites and writing super content with fantastic photos.

Read more here – Lessons Learned After Year One As a Startup Founder.

4. 400k Subscribers in 3 Months (HN Link)

@pud posed the question “I have 404,772 users. Now what?“.

Three months ago he started a social network for musicians called Fandalism. His goal was to build a database of every musician on the planet and give them a place to show their work and meet other musicians. He exceeded on his goal and now has the fortunate problem of deciding on where to take this venture. Good luck!

5. Full Time Salary in 4 Months (HN Link)

A contributor describes how he built his online cleaning business in 4 months.

The full story including discussions are available here – From an idea to replacing my full-time salary in 4 months. How I did it, and what’s next!

6. Want More?

There are many more stories available on Hacker News. Another great source is Reddit’s Ask Me Anything Section.

Check this link out for a summary of remarkable contributions – A (non-exhaustive) list of Redditpreneurs who have shared their experience with Entrepreneurship in r/entreprenuer, r/startup, r/askreddit, and r/iama

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You might also enjoy:
+ Lessons Learned From A Hacker News Traffic Spike
+ Startup Weekend: What to expect? How to prepare?
+ Samsung’s Pivot From Dried Fish to Smartphones
+ Project Trout – Social Media Experiment Update #3

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