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fhd2HNSource author
Business & incomeExperience excerpt · English

I started my business a year ago, and there is no "we"

… I started my business a year ago, and there is no "we". There's me and (at this point) enough clients for comfortable living. I went completely scrappy on my website ( https://dahlke.tech ). Felt rebellious in this day and age, but it doesn't seem to hurt. I don't think that stuff matters in the beginning, clients see right through it from what I've heard. Some people get off on trying to look and feel like "a real company". I find there's joy in accepting that my company is not that, not yet, and putting all of my energy into getting there.

Original discussionAsk HN: What happened to startups, why is everything so polished?130 source comments · at import
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KE
keepamovinHN

At launch everyone has the complete package: polished website looks like they already have 1000 customers, are hiring, have investors, and ... well, it's all a bit generic and potentially ... phoney, right? Wind back the block to Microsoft and Apple, and those guys were super scrappy, not an ounce of polish at the outset, yet they made their dent in the universe. Now everybody's fronting like they're making a dent, but maybe it's just a slick template from WordPress again.

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jacknewsHN

For the time being, I, Firstname Surname, am the main product; love it all the stock websites with photos of suited 'professionals' (usually just models) are a real turn-off, unless they show the actual team; customers want to know who they're dealing with.

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MattGaiserHN

In a past role, one of the things done was to create an IVR system that had all manner of different menus for sales, support, or technical questions and they were split by whether you were a casual or enterprise user. There was just one person answering, no matter what you selected. The goal was to seem sophisticated and thus more reliable and trustworthy.

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kingkongjaffaHN

Some feedback: If im a prospective customer I dont care about “Over time, I aim to use this income to bootstrap a software business based on one of my side projects.” Tell me how you can help me make more money or save more money. Your side project ambitions are not relevant to your customers. Instead I would recommend personal info on an about page or a separate site for your side project. For your background info this should come later, please tell us what skills you have and recent projects you have done straight away so I can understand if you are the right consultant for me, I dont want to first read your life story! Note: feedback can be hard to receive and give, please treat feedback as a gift, I am trying to be kind, but also nice and kind are not the same thing, so if my feedback is unwanted or seems blunt that is why!

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AeolunHN

> my answer is usually that I refuse to chose just one Refuse to choose. Not sure if spelling mistake or typo, but since everyone is doing feedback, thought I’d point it out.

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abhinavstartsHN

Honestly, I liked your website. It's clean, minimalist, professional & to the point. In future, I will make for myself similar one.

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zipping1549HN

I'm curious: how come there are no German version of the website? Are most of your (desired) clients not German? Or is it that practically everyone speaks English in Germany so it doesn't matter?

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iancmceachernHN

Very cool! I thought the same thing when I started my consulting company 10 years ago. It'd called Nerdian Inc (My name is Ian). My website and brand name is simply my name: www.iancollmceachern.com

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