Ask HN: I'd like to start a company, where should I begin?
&quot;I mean a startup with a team that is working on something innovative together&quot;<p>I am a bootstrapped SAAS founder in our 7th year. It took me a while to build a real team especially bootstrapped (2+ years). So I will share my experience and thoughts.<p>Don&#x27;t aim so high right away. You will be disappointed. You want a team right away AND innovative stuff ? That&#x27;s like having your cake and eat it too. Forget about that. Start low. Forget the team. Build something yourself first. You are a programmer with decade of experience. List down your ideas on paper. Then choose 1 and run with it. Try to find product market fit. If you already know your competitors, the idea is most likely validated and you just have to focus on execution.<p>&quot;How would I get to a point where I could get initial funding to start something? &quot;<p>Do you really need initial funding ? Is that really the goal or do you think you can start it bootstrapped and go from there ? I am obviously biased as a bootstrapped founder but this is also something to think about. Ok some concrete steps :<p>1. List down your top 10 ideas on paper. Do competitor search on those ideas [0]. If you cannot find competition, i would say forget about that idea for now. No need to change the world yet.<p>2. Every 24 hours, cross one idea out that you can out of the list. Repeat for next 7-10 days. Whatever you are left with, go with that idea. Yea that&#x27;s it. What&#x27;s the alternative ? You are going to analyze and paralyze ?<p>3. Build a prototype alone. Forget partners. Forget freelancers. Figure shit out. You are a programmer with decade of experience. Get it done. There are tons of tutorials out there for your favorite language or framework of choice.<p>4. Marketing. Marketing. Marketing. While building the prototype, setup a Landing Page (use CMS like WordPress if you have to). Use the fastest an d most tested way. Don&#x27;t look at shiny tools that increase time to market even if they are technically cooler.<p>5. Get access to tools like moz [1] or ahrefs and learn how to do SEO, content Marketing etc. Yourself first. Forget about partners.<p>6. Once steps 1-5 are in motion, only then even think about getting help because unless you have done steps 1-5, no serious person worth their time would want to talk to you unless you can convince a buddy or you are famous already.<p>7. Use your own money initially if you can. Programmer with decade of experience. I assume you can spend a few hundred bucks ? Sorry if I am assuming too much but forget about funding.<p>8. More marketing. SEO, Content Creation, Backlinks [2], keyword research [3]. Yes they are required. Doesn&#x27;t matter if you think it is scummy. Work on it. Create good content. It works.<p>9. At this stage, try to find experts&#x2F;freelancers who can help you. Still hard to convince someone just with equity unless you are well known. Ideally, you want someone who is really good at Marketing. Yes Marketing.<p>10. All the best. If you put time and effort, you may see results. But you could totally fail. Don&#x27;t give up too quickly. I would say 12-18 months before you call it quits. If you fail earlier, you wouldn&#x27;t learn much. My 2 cents.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ahrefs.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;competitive-analysis&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ahrefs.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;competitive-analysis&#x2F;</a><p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;moz.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;moz.com</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ahrefs.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;link-building&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ahrefs.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;link-building&#x2F;</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ahrefs.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;keyword-research&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ahrefs.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;keyword-research&#x2F;</a>