High Tech Start Up

What Hacker News says

1. throwaway5566Jan 2010
   Invest in yourself.

   You've already proven that you are capable of doing great things. Work to increase your capabilities.

   To generate wealth, in my opinion it's best to do things that are aligned with what you are interested in. Since you have demonstrated ability with business and technology, and some capital, start with that.

   One way to generate wealth is to start a company, then sell it. There are many skills necessary, but the essential one you already have - being able to just plunge in and do it.

   I'd say, dive in and see if you can learn to build a small company by bootstrapping it - without taking investment money or going into debt... take it slow and incremental, not going into debt or taking investment unless you think you have a winning team and product. Usually at that point you don't really need investment, but can use it to expand a lot.

   These days, software development done by yourself or a few friends and servers in the cloud are so cheap that you can build whole software or software-as-a-service companies with your existing cash flow. Learn the technical and business skills you need. Plan experiments that help you learn - that won't kill you if you fail. You can learn much more from failure than success, so make mistakes as fast as you can.

   Oh yeah, and find a good accountant and make sure you pay your taxes.

   Here's some resources:

   Cheat sheet on how to get people to change - and buy your products. The best summary I've read:

   http://www.chrisoleary.com/projects/TheParadoxOfPain/Documen...

   . . . .

   My bible on how to learn customer problems and turn them into money. Also has a great annotated bibliography of other good books to read, and a methodology for becoming a self-taught entrepreneur. The author founded 5 well-known tech companies that did IPOs, generating a great deal of wealth, and now teaches at Stanford business school. I can't say enough good things about this book:

   The Four Steps to the Epiphany - Steve Blank http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven-Blank/dp/09...

   . . . .

   The inside story on nitty-gritty details of how to start a start up, do the legal work necessary to create the machinery for wealth generation. Written from the perspective of helping tech entrepreneurs protect themselves. If I would have had this book when I was starting out, I'd have held on to much more of my wealth:

   High Tech Start Up - John L. Nesheim http://www.amazon.com/High-Tech-Start-Revised-Updated/dp/068...

   . . . .

   Last but not least, a very important short text on how money works. Written by the founder of MasterCard. Extremely helpful in thinking about money, how to work with it and think about it, what it's good for, not good for, and its capabilities and place in ones' life:

   http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Money-Shambhala-Pocket-Classics/...

   Bonus text - the classic manual on leadership - really helpful instructions on gracefully working with others. How to lead effectively and with a minimum of muss and fuss. This is my favorite translation.

   Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu, translated by Stephen Mitchell http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Te-Ching-Stephen-Mitchell/dp/00608...

   - a serial entrepreneur

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2. FlemlordMar 2008
   High Tech Start Up - John L. Nesheim

   Crossing the Chasm - Geoffrey Moore

   One Minute Manager (but only if you've never had management experience)

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