Mathias Meyer
Mathias Meyer

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I used to have this beautiful dream that I’d some day open my own coffee shop.

It sounds simple enough. All you need is an espresso machine and you’re good to go.

Except you need to rent a shop, buy a giant grinder, or two, buy coffee beans, hire a barista or two, buy cups, take away paper cups, a water filter, and buy a freakishly expensive espresso machine.

Add some interior for the shop, and you’re easily in the several tens of thousands to start your business.

Compare that to what you need to start selling products on the internet. You need to spend some time to find an audience, to find your market, and then, all you need is a laptop and an internet connection.

I have to keep reminding myself how little you need to start a business and to actually run it.

Beyond your computer, you don’t even have to buy anything. You can rent (even pay by the hour) anything you need to serve your application, and you can utilize other services and products to help build yours. Heck, you can build on a ton of open source tools and libraries as well to help you get the job done.

You don’t even need an office. All it takes is a itch you want to scratch. Whether you want to build and sell a product, build a business around it, or you just want to open source something.

I love that about what I do, and it’s hard to understate how lucky and privileged we are being able to take something off the ground like that and to tell other people about it.

All it takes is a laptop.

What’s keeping you?