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Ask HN: My startup has basically failed. What now?

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Re: Ask HN: My startup has basically failed. What now?

#71

Post by melvinram »

mlevental wrote: post #9
melvinram wrote: post #3

Have you made progress in trying to understand your customers and their problems? You mentioned that 1 or more customers in the pilot are paid-customers. If someone is paying you, either they are forking out the money in the hope that you're going to solve a problem for them or they are forking over the money for other reasons (ex. as a favor to you or due to past relationship.) Do you understand why the paid pilot c…

the pilots that signed with us signed because the pain point is real and we did a good job pitching them/they are extraordinarily impressionable. the problem is that a key assumption necessary in actually delivering value turned out to be pretty much false (basically we saw almost no adoption amongst users).

Sounds like you need to talk with these users.

Re: Ask HN: My startup has basically failed. What now?

#72

Post by fizx »

throwaway95118 wrote: post #53

I raised $10M and it wasn’t going to work. We had spent 20%. Board wanted to change course, I said let’s give the money back. I said you’ll have to fire me if you want to keep raising money and change course and they did. 4 years later after they raised another $60M they sold the company for $15M. Sometimes you don’t win. Sometimes it’s better to back out and start anew. Give it all you can but there’s no honor in dy…

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

― George Bernard Shaw

Re: Ask HN: My startup has basically failed. What now?

#73

Post by rajacombinator »

mlevental wrote: post #70
rajacombinator wrote: post #59

Read your OP and all follow up posts in the thread. My advice is take 2 weeks vacation (travel somewhere), and do not work during this time. You need to step back and digest what you’ve learned so far. Don’t feel guilty about taking this time, it’s necessary for making an important decision. If you come back after 2 weeks and feel the same way, shut it down and return funds to investors. Your investors and advisors a…

>And try to reduce your absurd burn rate. when we started we had 3 employees. we carried 3 employees for 3 months at which point we went down to 1 employee and myself. it is only as of last month that i'm the sole employee of the company (and obv the burn has gone down proportionately)

That makes a lot more sense. Sounds like you were more than half way to shutting down already if you dropped two thirds of the founding team. Still it’s advisable to take a step back and digest before pulling the plug, especially since you’ve worked every day for 9 months.

Re: Ask HN: My startup has basically failed. What now?

#74

Post by mlevental »

Clubber wrote: post #50

>to last minute catastrophic product failures You have to have a product that works. People are trusting part of their business to your software. Depending on your software, they also have to spend a lot of time and money with integrations, training and all that. It's a large commitment that isn't easy to reverse. If your software was working perfectly and provided obvious, quantifiable value, do you think you would…

>You have to have a product that works.

it was completely outside the scope of my product. we have a mobile webapp that doesn't work in a uiwebview (ios). simple solution: pop out safari from a button. catastrophic failure: conference apps insist on keeping users in app and so those buttons load up the site in a uiwebview. in fact at the last moment (one day before the conference) i figured out a pretty viable solution, slapped it together in 6 hours, made calls to make appropriate changes on site (at the conference), and it should've gone okay.

>quantifiable value

this is what i think we're missing

Re: Ask HN: My startup has basically failed. What now?

#75

Post by melvinram »

melvinram wrote: post #71
mlevental wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the pilots that signed with us signed because the pain point is real and we did a good job pitching them/they are extraordinarily impressionable. the problem is that a key assumption necessary in actually delivering value turned out to be pretty much false (basically we saw almost no adoption amongst users).

Sounds like you need to talk with these users.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15098643

Did you end up going to some conferences? There are serious problems with many conference apps. Even AWS Re:Invent's app had major problems this last year.

If you're wanting someone to do something (like download an app), you need to motivate them to do. This isn't about marketing. It's about delivering value.

Is your app currently only delivering value to the organizers and not really much for the users?

Re: Ask HN: My startup has basically failed. What now?

#76

Post by matte_black »

danieltillett wrote: post #45
matte_black wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did it take you 11 years? This doesn’t sound like a startup, more like a monetized hobby.

It is a long, long story [0]. 0. https://www.tillett.info/2015/06/24/why-i-kept-my-startup-in...

Wow, I would say though even if you had moved to the US you could have revised history a bit after you became successful and still been local heroes in Australia. Startups do this kind of creative story-retelling all the time.

Re: Ask HN: My startup has basically failed. What now?

#77

Post by usiegj00 »

fizx wrote: post #72
throwaway95118 wrote: post #53

I raised $10M and it wasn’t going to work. We had spent 20%. Board wanted to change course, I said let’s give the money back. I said you’ll have to fire me if you want to keep raising money and change course and they did. 4 years later after they raised another $60M they sold the company for $15M. Sometimes you don’t win. Sometimes it’s better to back out and start anew. Give it all you can but there’s no honor in dy…

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” ― George Bernard Shaw

"I don't start new businesses: I let other fellows start them. They put all their money and their friends' money into starting them. They wear out their souls and bodies trying to make a success of them. They're what you call enthusiasts. But the first dead lift of the thing is too much for them; and they haven't enough financial experience. In a year or so they have either to let the whole show go bust, or sell out to a new lot of fellows for a few deferred ordinary shares: that is, if they're lucky enough to get anything at all. As likely as not the very same thing happens to the new lot. They put in more money and a couple of years' more work; and then perhaps they have to sell out to a third lot. If it's really a big thing the third lot will have to sell out too, and leave their work and their money behind them. And that's where the real business man comes in: where I come in." -- George Bernard Shaw, Heartbreak House, 1916

Re: Ask HN: My startup has basically failed. What now?

#78

Post by mrschwabe »

Unless you perish in a disaster, there is no such thing as business failure. Only mistakes and fuckups (results of which can only 'change' your business into some other shape or form).

So do the obvious to sort things out as best you can; to fulfill your obligations and responsibilities without giving up; be honest with your personnel, customers, and investors/partners - make arrangements to repay who is owed all the while being open about your complete situation.

At least this way there is some hope of bringing a bad situation to neutral ground. You can try and if you give it your best, you can go to sleep at night feeling at ease cause that is the only thing anyone can ever expect of you - that you are honest and doing your best.

(of course, your reputation and ability to do business in this way again in the future may be impacted but such is reality; mistakes and fuckups have consequences of which you have to accept too)

Re: Ask HN: My startup has basically failed. What now?

#79

Post by mlevental »

Havoc wrote: post #48

Brutal truth: You have zero confidence in your own product. So yes, shut this down as gracefully as possible. Taking on the entire world is hard enough even if you do believe in your product.

no i don't believe in the product and i'm not wrong for not being slavishly committed to it

https://www.google.com/search?q=don%27t+fall+in+love+with+yo...

i do believe in the problem though

Re: Ask HN: My startup has basically failed. What now?

#80

Post by mlevental »

melvinram wrote: post #75
melvinram wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you need to talk with these users.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15098643 Did you end up going to some conferences? There are serious problems with many conference apps. Even AWS Re:Invent's app had major problems this last year. If you're wanting someone to do something (like download an app), you need to motivate them to do. This isn't about marketing. It's about delivering value. Is your app currently only delivering value to the organizers…

>Did you end up going to some conferences?

yes i've been to ~1 conference per month since that post. would've gone to more but someone's gotta build the product right?

>Is your app currently only delivering value to the organizers and not really much for the users?

this is my stumbling point and it's a serious one because building a useful app for attendees is almost like building a fun app for consumers - you have to delight not just deliver value.

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