Top all-time · #4249
Michael Karnjanaprakorn
Personal blog · mikekarnj.com/blogbusinessstartupscareer
Michael Karnjanaprakorn's personal blog at mikekarnj.com covers business, startups and career. Since 2009, 18 different Hacker News readers have linked it 43 times, most often “How to Launch Your Startup Idea for Less than $5K”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-26, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (7) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Michael Karnjanaprakorn's posts on startup building, product-market fit, selling before building, and startup hubs like New York and Silicon Valley, mostly as references for their own startup points.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 7 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
“I'm Mi-chael Karn-ja-na-pra-korn. I’m an entrepreneur, writer, investor, philanthropist, collector, partner, and parent. I'm exploring what's next and sharing what I learn along the way. Follow me on Twitter, listen to my podcast, watch my YouTube, or subscribe to my newsletter. ” This is my blog,
Most-linked posts?
- How to Launch Your Startup Idea for Less than $5K3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2011-08-01
- Creating a Product Focused Startup Culture2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2011-02-22
- New York Startup Movement2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2009-12-21
- The Power of Time Off2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-10-19
- College is Overrated2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-11-10
- Reaching the Startup Holy Grail: Product-Market Fit2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-11-05
What Hacker News says?
> You are putting too much effort in your product, your focus should be on finding the right market fit for your idea How is this not excellent advice? There are lots of stories of founders building first (sometimes for years, even), then finding out that there is no market for it (as it seems you have done). The people evaluating your product might have even just read your post and concluded that there's no market,…
Comment linking /posts/tarpit-ideas
on “I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again”Submitted How to Launch Your Startup Idea for Less than $5K as a story · 159 points
HN discussionAnother option is the concierge delivery method. This works for some ideas better than others. Eric Ries (and many others) go into greater details. Basically, you manually deliver the service. So, if you were a grocery delivery service, maybe you would find some potential customers and have them submit a Wufoo form with their grocery order and then you would fulfill it. Skillshare did this ( http://www.mikekarnj.com…
Comment linking /blog/2011/08/01/how-to-launch-your-startup-idea-for-less-than-5k/
on “A Lesson Learned as a Technical Founder: Sell First, Build Later”Submitted The student loan crisis will dwarf the housing market crash. as a story · 65 points
HN discussionThe culture one is really interesting. Other ones which helped me a lot: http://www.mikekarnj.com/blog/2011/02/21/creating-a-product-... http://www.mikekarnj.com/blog/2011/02/21/creating-a-product-...
Comment linking /blog/2011/02/21/creating-a-product-focused-startup-culture/
on “Free 60-minute 'How to Build a Startup' video series”Submitted Creating a Product Focused Startup Culture as a story · 58 points
HN discussionI'd add Dropbox alongside VMWare as a company that unlocked a huge "sleeper" market. Fundamentally I don't think those are counterexamples to the product-market fit thesis. These are cases where the huge market does exist, but it's a hard and finicky market. Nobody's quite managed to hit it yet. In many cases this is because nobody quite understands it, or everyone underestimates how hard it is. Another good article…
Comment linking /blog/2012/11/05/reaching-the-startup-holy-grail-product-market-fit/
on “Product/Market Fit (2007)”Submitted Creating an Entrepreneurial Startup Culture as a story · 50 points
HN discussionI'd also add: harvest, carbonmade, blip.tv, boxee, college humor, clickable, 20x200, hello health, OMGPOP, seamless web, squarespace, stocktwits, vimeo, etc., etc., etc. There's a good list here: http://www.mikekarnj.com/blog/2009/12/21/new-york-startup-mo...
Comment linking /blog/2009/12/21/new-york-startup-movement/
on “Why You Need to be in Silicon Valley ”Submitted Stop Building Apps and Start Disrupting Industries as a story · 50 points
HN discussion'startup tree' -- Neat idea for a weekend project. It's hard for early employees not to be inspired by high-energy, inspirational organizations. I feel startups should work into their biz-plans, the fact that greater than 50% of their early frontline force would want out, within 12 months even. Some of them competing too. 'Scratch an itch' often stems from environmental input. I like the idea of hiring and nurturing…
Comment linking /blog/2011/10/03/creating-an-entrepreneurial-startup-culture/
on “A story of how one startup gave birth to numerous others”Submitted College is Overrated as a story · 35 points
HN discussion- Mz · 2011-11-06
FWIW, I tried to search HN for resources because it seems to me this type question (or something similar) has come up before (but with no real support from what I found: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2849930 ). I did find this article in the process and thought I would pass it along: http://www.mikekarnj.com/blog/2009/12/21/new-york-startup-mo... And the discussion that went with it, for whatever it's worth: h…
Comment linking /blog/2009/12/21/new-york-startup-movement/
on “Ask HN: Startup Living NYC” Submitted New York Startup Movement as a story · 34 points
HN discussionSubmitted Original Ideas Don't Exist as a story · 22 points
HN discussionSubmitted New Startup Investment Model as a story · 16 points
HN discussionSubmitted If I Started an Investment Fund as a story · 16 points
HN discussionSubmitted Five Entrepreneurial Lessons from 2009 as a story · 14 points
HN discussionSubmitted Building All-Star Teams as a story · 10 points
HN discussionSubmitted Head of Product is More Valuable than 5 Engineers as a story · 9 points
HN discussionSubmitted Fund That Doesn’t Invest Funds as a story · 8 points
HN discussionSubmitted Reaching the Startup Holy Grail: Product-Market Fit as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted Praise Innovation, Not Unoriginality as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Power of Time Off as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted Making Good Decisions and Taking the Entrepreneurial Leap as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted Retirement Number as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Creating a Product Focused Startup Culture as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Three Big Decisions Your Startup will Make as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Individuals Don't Build Great Companies, Teams Do as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Join Forces like Voltron as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
