Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 285 posts

Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#151

Post by jbmsf »

nscalf wrote: post #5

I don’t have a site to point to anymore, but me and some cofounders built out a physical therapy vertical saas (patient management + mobile patient portal). The issue: many PTs are VERY analog—sheets of papers with exercise, very few touch points, no data collection, etc. The solution: modern patient management system for doctors, a mobile app that will remind you to do your prescribed exercises, track your response,…

My spouse is a PT and hates her software. I get the sense that she also has an above average appreciation for the needs of the admin staff. They quote literally make the difference between a good day and a bad one by the choices they make around scheduling.

The problem is that she works for a large chain and the people with purchasing power are not clinicians.

Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#152

Post by davidmurdoch »

AQuantized wrote: post #135
davidmurdoch wrote: post #6

Spent about $200000 on developing a real-time massive multiplayer online strategy game just to run out of money then fail our Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/breadboard/terra-mango-... We already had 4000+ people sign up to play once it hit beta, and even had local news cover us: https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/terra-mango-could-be-the-n... We vastly underestimated our ability to market the game a…

Can I ask where the capital came from? Did you all pool together to fund it? It's a lot of dedication for something that sadly didn't ship.

Most was provided by a single investor, about $40k each was provided by myself and one other. Software developers are expensive

Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#153

Post by brightball »

In 2003-2004 I was trying to start a software company to serve public schools.

If I were making the pitch today it, you’d call it a tightly integrated Schoology + Teachers Pay Teachers.

At the time, I was thinking in terms of a complete product to make the entire public school system better from the lives of teachers at the core. I should have separated the concept into smaller MVPs and we would have beaten TPT to market by a couple of years while having income to fund our other projects.

I’m happy to see that TPT has been able to find success though. I think they fill a huge need and it’s cool that they’re using Elixir now.

Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#154

Post by 7steps2much »

stirfish wrote: post #69
sdflhasjd wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A game where bots turned out to be real players would have been fascinating though.

I played a game like this before. The whole journey took about 6 hours to complete. Realizing who I was interacting with was one of the best moments I've had playing a video game. Edited to add: I think I've played two games where the bots turned out to be people. The second game was much longer, and I never finished it - I only learned that the bots were people from a YouTube video later on. This is a good idea, and…

Base 64 encoding spoilers is next level smart!

Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#155

Post by marcos100 »

mysterydip wrote: post #9
davidmurdoch wrote: post #6

Spent about $200000 on developing a real-time massive multiplayer online strategy game just to run out of money then fail our Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/breadboard/terra-mango-... We already had 4000+ people sign up to play once it hit beta, and even had local news cover us: https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/terra-mango-could-be-the-n... We vastly underestimated our ability to market the game a…

"perfect is the enemy of good enough" I learned a few years ago. Thanks for sharing, this is really interesting as I'm working a multiplayer project right now. What was your marketing budget like? How did you get those 4000 people? Do you have a postmortem or dev log from the time?

The problem is knowing what is "good enough". It comes with experience and, if you're doing something new to you, I think it's hard to assess.

You may probably tell what went in hindsight, but even then, it's just one if in the lifetime of the project.

"Oh, we could've released when x was done". Maybe, but maybe not too.

Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#156

Post by hutzlibu »

harel wrote: post #107
typon wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about underpromise and overdeliver?

What about it? Nobody ever complained if they were over delivered did they?

But in a world where hype is the standard, you will likely just get ignored, if you do not hype, but undersell your product.

Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#157

Post by permalac »

rozenmd wrote: post #48

I do a yearly post of my failures, this is the first year I had a success: - https://maxrozen.com/2018-review-starting-an-internet-busine... - https://maxrozen.com/2019-further-reflections-trying-to-star... - https://maxrozen.com/indiehacking-3-year-review - https://maxrozen.com/2021-strangers-paid-my-macbook

Congrats. Worth the effort?

Any lesson to share?

Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#158

Post by skrtskrt »

nscalf wrote: post #5

I don’t have a site to point to anymore, but me and some cofounders built out a physical therapy vertical saas (patient management + mobile patient portal). The issue: many PTs are VERY analog—sheets of papers with exercise, very few touch points, no data collection, etc. The solution: modern patient management system for doctors, a mobile app that will remind you to do your prescribed exercises, track your response,…

Did you know much about the PT field beforehand?

It seems to me that really successful entrepreneurship requires enough time in that field to really understand the rough edges of the domain, but not so much time in the field that you actually start to accept the existing solutions as “good enough” in a sort of stockholm syndrome.

You need to be an expert with a beginner’s mind, which is extremely difficult.

Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#159

Post by hutzlibu »

davidmurdoch wrote: post #68
jwfriese wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that your team should have had the willingness to ship a flawed product sooner, and that maybe that would have changed your fortunes. If you're ok with sharing, I'd be interested in learning more about why you believe that. Did you hear that from former beta customers later on down the line? Is it an intuition you have from your reflections on the period? Also, what brand of "perfectionism" are were talking a…

The way I worded it was weird... we never shipped to beta, despite having 4000+ people sign up to be beta testers. We only shipped a "closed beta" (you had to ask one of the devs personally to let you in) to people in our own city. It was a location-based game (like Pokemon go), so there has to be a bunch of people in the area if your actually wanted to do anything fun. Regarding perfectionism: the game was very roug…

"I was okay with shipping with these issues, but the other partners weren't."

Maybe on a different timeline, you would have regretted shipping too early - because first impression matters, too and many people who walk away, after the first try will not come back for second try.

The trick is, to find the right time.

Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#160

Post by rozenmd »

permalac wrote: post #157
rozenmd wrote: post #48

I do a yearly post of my failures, this is the first year I had a success: - https://maxrozen.com/2018-review-starting-an-internet-busine... - https://maxrozen.com/2019-further-reflections-trying-to-star... - https://maxrozen.com/indiehacking-3-year-review - https://maxrozen.com/2021-strangers-paid-my-macbook

Congrats. Worth the effort? Any lesson to share?

Shared a few lessons along the way in the articles.

Definitely worth it from my perspective - not in a revenue per hour sense, but I learnt things that I wouldn't have otherwise without going full time on a startup (imo).

Post reply on HN