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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?

#211

Post by pbreit »

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)

With $220k you basically cannot have any full time employees and would need to pay yourself little or nothing (in USA or equivalent).

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

#214

Post by dominicr »

mgkimsal wrote: post #201
ghaff wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: networking I don’t know how many networking apps (including hardware devices) I’ve seen over the years. They’re at best a novelty and more commonly unwelcome. I suspect the friction with just scribbling down an email, exchanging a business card, or later connecting on LinkedIn is superior to people using the tech to mass spam people.

what would be the most useful is something which everyone would need to use. phone app that tracked your location and time, and would show you the info on people you stood near for... maybe a min of 30 seconds? location tracking may not be good enough for this indoors all the time, but for me, that's the one thing that I've wanted at conferences - a way to remember who i was talking with without interrupting the conv…

Thinking that the answer is making something that everyone "needs" to use is a problem. For example "to enter the conference they need to install this app that also tracks them" is a common thought but it's a bad idea as forcing your end users into a fixed action is bad UX. Mostly it just annoys attendees who will then try and find a workaround.

The result of networking apps is some sales people generate a lot of very low quality leads at the expense of the event's reputation as most delegates don't want spam.

For messaging apps 99% of messages will be sent by 1% of delegates: the pushy sales people. "Hey, want to meet to discuss my amazing product!"

As you say, another option is is "tell me who I was talking to" but again the sales people pollute that experience. B2B events are about selling but there are sales teams who'll scan your badges as they're saying hello (electronically or visually) and then email you forever afterwards. I imagine that "tell me who I stood near" would result in sales teams walking around the entire venue, on the lookup for anyone that looks important to loiter near. Or they could just hide a device in the toilet and get everyone ;)

We tried allowing delegates to build a contact list to message and then also notify when those people were at the same networking event just once. It really wasn't much value to anyone other than, you guessed it, pushy sales people that our VIPs would rather have avoided.

I don't know if it's still the same but Grip's "tinder for events" used to rely on both parties showing mutual interest before allowing communication. That's the best mechanism that I know of but I wouldn't be surprised if the messaging connection rate was incredibly low.

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

#215

Post by mgkimsal »

dominicr wrote: post #214
mgkimsal wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what would be the most useful is something which everyone would need to use. phone app that tracked your location and time, and would show you the info on people you stood near for... maybe a min of 30 seconds? location tracking may not be good enough for this indoors all the time, but for me, that's the one thing that I've wanted at conferences - a way to remember who i was talking with without interrupting the conv…

Thinking that the answer is making something that everyone "needs" to use is a problem. For example "to enter the conference they need to install this app that also tracks them" is a common thought but it's a bad idea as forcing your end users into a fixed action is bad UX. Mostly it just annoys attendees who will then try and find a workaround. The result of networking apps is some sales people generate a lot of ver…

"need" wasn't meant in that way (as in, requiring use for access). I was more meaning "the only way what I'm thinking about would work well is that it would require everyone to be using it".

re: emailing - the 'tell me who i was standing near' - yeah, some might abuse it for email. if there was some in-app functionality to allow for 'connecting', both parties might have to agree to 'connect' there to exchange contact info (and yeah, there would still be some social pressure to do so that some people couldn't resist).

Ahh... you just mentioned mutual interest - that's what I was getting at. Yeah, a 'tinder for events', based on geo location/time.

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

#216

Post by FearNotDaniel »

hoodoof wrote: post #38

>> the main investors/advisors (from the 220k friends/family/fools round) pretty much feel like it's time to pull the plug Given your statement above, there's really no question beyond this point. You promised riches and success to family and friends and it is not currently looking like you will do that, and their message is "stop please before its all gone". Do so. If you still have money and it is from family and f…

Did he promise "riches and success" to family and friends? When I read that part I immediately put myself mentally into those shoes and thought the only honest way to raise money from loved ones is to say "I believe in this project, I want it to succeed, I calculate a reasonable probability of success in which case your investment has the potential to be worth $XYZ. HOWEVER, you should be aware that ALL startups are a total crapshoot, and it's also a very reasonable possibility that you will lose all your money so please do not invest anything that you cannot afford to lose."

We don't know whether OP pitched it this way to friends and family, but I sincerely hope he did.

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

#217

Post by chewz »

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…

Take 2 years vacation. Go travel somewhere, see the world.

And remember that start-ups are just Unemployment 2.0. Nothing had really happend...

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

#218

Post by lioeters »

usiegj00 wrote: post #77
fizx wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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…

This quote is so uncanny in its relevance to investors/entrepreneurs and the topic at hand. At first I couldn't believe it was not satire. The character continues:

"But I'm cleverer than some; I don't mind dropping a little money to start the process. I took your father's measure. I saw that he had a sound idea, and that he would work himself silly for it if he got the chance. I saw that he was a child in business, and was dead certain to outrun his expenses and be in too great a hurry to wait for his market. I knew that the surest way to ruin a man who doesn't know how to handle money is to give him some. I explained my idea to some friends in the city, and they found the money; for I take no risks in ideas, even when they're my own. Your father, and the friends that ventured their money with him were no more to me than a heap of squeezed lemons."

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

#219

Post by toblender »

It sounds like you are in the dip. See Seth Godin's book on this subject.

https://www.amazon.ca/dip-Seth-Godin/dp/1591841666

I was in a very similar situation for one of my startups, a Shopify clone. We grew it to 50+ paying customers but stalled.

I ended up giving up all my shares to the other founders and taking a 2 year trip to Asia. The company managed to survive and was sold.

I don't regret it. Move on, if the team is good, you will reconnect and build something even better eventually.

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

#220

Post by gnode »

anovikov wrote: post #115

This is why i am wondering: why are the very early stage investors giving money in bulk vs feeding the startup some amount every week as long as they all agree it makes sense to keep going?

Investment in a company is traded for power over that company (ownership of shares). It's not so much giving money in bulk, as it is paying for your share of control and reward in the company. If a majority of the controlling ownership of a company decide to liquidate the company, then they can do that, and get back what remains of their investment.

There is not usually any right to get your money back as a minority shareholder, as this retraction of your commitment would be damaging to the interests of the other shareholders.

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