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    12 videos · 9 hr 20 min
    Playlists

    Small, Profitable, Nobody's Unicorn

    Curated by HackerTube · 12 videos · 9 hr 20 min

    Hacker News is funded by a startup accelerator, yet a large share of its readers don't want venture capital, and these are the talks they pass around. It opens on luck and cheap experiments, then gets to the 2008 argument for charging customers, then practical advice on pricing, contracts and solo shipping. It ends with people who have kept small, independent operations going for decades.

    Play all on YouTube
    1. 1
      21:40

      Darius Kazemi, Tiny Subversions - XOXO Festival (2014)

      XOXO Festival · 82K views · 12 years ago

      Opens with how luck works: 72 odd side projects in one year, and HN's favorite answer to survivorship-bias success stories.

    2. 2
      31:56

      David Heinemeier Hansson at Startup School 08

      startupschool · 202K views · 17 years ago

      The founding text, given at Y Combinator's own event: charge money, stay small, ignore the exit, which founders still call career-changing.

    3. 3
      41:39

      BOLTR: Juicero, Cold Press Juicer for Rich Weirdos

      AvE · 2.5M views · 9 years ago

      The counterexample: AvE takes apart a venture-funded juicer and shows what unlimited money and no constraints look like in machined aluminum.

    4. 4
      39:23

      Maciej Ceglowski - Barely succeed! It's easier!

      webdirections · 22K views · 12 years ago

      The Pinboard founder's dry case for aiming lower, and a gem HN found inspiring even though few have watched it.

    5. 5
      58:50

      David Heinemeier Hansson-Unlearn Your MBA (Entire talk)

      Entrepreneurship.org · 85K views · 13 years ago

      DHH five years on, with the argument expanded: planning is guessing and constraints help you.

    6. 6
      4:56

      Understanding the Job

      Edward Capaldi · 508K views · 10 years ago

      Five minutes of Clayton Christensen's milkshake story, the simplest tool here for working out what customers would actually pay for.

    7. 7
      1:05:37

      Designing the Ideal Bootstrapped Business with Jason Cohen

      Rob Walling · 552K views · 6 years ago

      The practical core and the top-scoring video in the startup section: start from your own life and constraints, and work back to pricing and market.

    8. 8
      37:54

      Mike Monteiro: F*ck You, Pay Me

      CreativeMornings HQ · 860K views · 14 years ago

      The part bootstrappers forget: contracts, lawyers and collecting payment, which HN sends to every freelancer whose client won't pay.

    9. 9
      1:00:00

      How to Build a Startup Without Funding by Pieter Levels @ Dojo Bali

      @levelsio · 356K views · 8 years ago

      The solo-maker version: a tour of many shipped projects and why being a generalist matters when nobody is paying for a team.

    10. 10
      30:58

      Emojli: Behind the Scenes and Why You Should Never Build An App

      Tom Scott · 1M views · 12 years ago

      A funny cautionary tale about a joke app that got real users, and the support burden that came with them.

    11. 11
      59:47

      Failing to Fail: The Spiderweb Software Way

      GDC Festival of Gaming · 570K views · 8 years ago

      Long-run proof: Jeff Vogel has made a comfortable living from indie games since 1994, and HN calls the talk legendary.

    12. 12
      1:46:51

      "Money doesn't interest me" - Ton Roosendaal 2017 Interview

      Blender Guru · 1.2M views · 8 years ago

      Ends with the furthest version of the idea: Blender's creator on building world-class software without running it as a business at all.