[For Forks Sake]

Originally Posted by irishgrover

I made 1.2million when I was 26 , I lost 1.16milion when I was 27 .

You either bought a football club, or a racehorse

[For Forks Sake]

Originally Posted by The Tetrarch

How about setting up a public relations company to improve Trump's image?

Mission : Impossible

[Ubbquittious]

Originally Posted by The Tetrarch

How about setting up a public relations company to improve Trump's image?

Maybe build a pocket sized cold-fusion reactor first just to get you warmed up for the challenge

[10000maniacs]

It all depends on the idea. If the idea is original and people like it, then here is where the good look kicks in. You need good luck even if you have a great idea.

[ednwireland]

Originally Posted by SouthWesterly

I was in a company who were in business 10 years and had 5 staff. The economy hadn't recovered and they crashed after being unable to sell.

worked in an internet startup late 90s early 00 went bust in 01. ran my own sole trader company for a few years closed in th 08 crash. worked since the for a niche tech company and we were sold last year twice got a few quid out of the first sale. (nothing to write home about but nice to get !)

[Brendan Flowers]

Originally Posted by 10000maniacs

It all depends on the idea. If the idea is original and people like it, then here is where the good look kicks in. You need good luck even if you have a great idea.

This is something I would completely disagree with it. You dont need to have an original idea to start a company. In fact if another company is doing the same thing and are profitable, its actually reaffirming the potential of the business. More important then an original idea in my opinion is to be able to execute an idea brilliantly.

As for the OP's question, is it difficult to start a tech company? How long is a piece of string? Because I could throw together a website in a couple of hours and put some articles on it. Separately I could also spend the next 2 years working on a prototype of a SaaS and then start licensing it to companies. Both could be considered tech startups, but with very different costs, amount of time required, etc

[riclad]

Many tech companys make no profit,
the goal is once you have a large no of users google or facebook will buy the company.or just make an app ,theres a free version ,for extra features theres a paid version.
the usp of zoom was its free ,its easy to use,.you dont need to be a tech expert to use it.no one is going to make a new version of twitter.
its hard to think of an original idea that is not already on the app store.
no one knows what will be the next tik tok or zoom that will get millions of users.chrome and firefox work fine, its hard to think of a reason to use
edge browser,

[ApplyLiberally]

Originally Posted by mariaalice

How difficult is it to start a tech company? and make it successful?.

Why tech?

How difficult is it to start a fashion company?
Surely it's just picking fabrics, cutting them in different shapes and colours and a bit of sewing.

[completedit]

Very hard now. It was probably a bit easier in the wild west days of the internet but again that's probably an illusion.

Plenty of opportunities in the decades ahead but the chances of actually creating a company that becomes successful are so unlikely. I heard it compared before that nobody born in the lower classes in the 1700's thought that they would one day rise to become part of the Aristocracy but today we have this illusion that we can all become part of the 1% if we just work hard enough and keep hustling. Thought it was interesting. Okay not everyone thinks they can become the next Zuck or Musk but there is that sort of feeling that if you just work at it enough, greatness awaits.

[bnt]

I took part in an “incubator” conference a few years ago, as a technical adviser to the starter-uppers: the #1 thing I took away was “know your market”. It doesn’t matter how wonderful you think your product or technology is, if you can’t find the people who (a) really need it and (b) are willing to pay real money for it. So many tech things these days fall under the heading of “it’s nice, but I don’t need it enough to pay for it”.

[Ush1]

Originally Posted by ApplyLiberally

Why tech?

How difficult is it to start a fashion company?
Surely it's just picking fabrics, cutting them in different shapes and colours and a bit of sewing.

You would need massive amounts of marketing to stand out.

[arccosh]

Originally Posted by mariaalice

Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and the like basically any information-sharing platform have made their founders billionaires in a very short time, so could someone found a system that could replace them.

Twinstatube

[touts]

Originally Posted by mariaalice

How difficult is it to start a tech company? and make it successful?.

Very easy to start a tech company or any company for that. Tech may be slightly easier as there are groups like Techstars who do everything possible to get people to start tech companies.

But successful. Well that's the real difficulty. Any muppet can set up a company. Half the millennials in the country seem to have some side hustle going as an influencer or some such. But being a success. That's a very different story. That takes a great idea and then years of hard work and persistence. And still after all that your luck and timing have to be right.

[jimmycrackcorm]

Originally Posted by Atlantic Dawn

This industry moves so fast it's really hard to tell. That's why you need a name that's cutting-edge, like CutCo, EdgeCom, Interslice.

To be sucessful you only need to have a non-tech company and simply rename to include blockchain.

[Aongus Von Bismarck]

I've moved out of traditional banking, and now work for an investment firm who invests on behalf of clients interested in cleantech, renewable technologies, and bioengineering.

We don't do seed capital investments, so the companies we see have already reached some sort of product development stage. Even then it's obvious how difficult it is to succeed in creating a viable business. There's a huge amount of luck involved, and most of the successful companies will have been founded by people who are already successful. There's also a huge bias towards investment in companies created by graduates of elite universities.

A lot of these early-stage businesses struggle with believing in their core idea, and decide to pivot their product so it includes the latest buzzword or topic de jour. The European investment landscape is filled with former businesses who decided that blockchain was something they needed to include, for example. That has almost completely gone away at this stage, and you'll see a lot of presentations including the word infodemic at the moment. Altruism as well.

Advice - you almost certainly won't be creating a unicorn tech company. Areas to focus on - sustainable agriculture, trades (plumbing!), and services related to heritage and nostalgia.