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Success Story: Launching my simple twitter idea early actually paid off

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Success Story: Launching my simple twitter idea early actually paid off

#1

Post by jhubert »

Perhaps you recognize this pattern. You come up with an idea, do a whole bunch of work getting it up and running and then get distracted by another idea and never actually release the first one. That is something I do all the time. I'm always waiting for the last 20% to be finished or polished up.

However, I was out drinking with some old geek friends in Vancouver the other night and they inspired me to just launch one of my website ideas, regardless of how finished it was.

So I did: http://www.tweetfolk.com

24 hours later, I've hit nearly $1000 in my paypal account balance thanks to just a few tweets being sent out by friends. I now have a bit of cash and can use it towards improving the site and doing that last 20% (ok, 40-50% in this case).

I'd love to hear thoughts from the HN community about this and other simple but crazy ideas or experiences with launching early.

Edit:

Remove a line about how much I love the internet as per some HN advice.

Re: Success Story: Launching my simple twitter idea early actually paid off

#3

Post by jolan »

JohnnyBrown wrote: post #2

Way to go man, I'm happy for you. but... Sorry if I don't understand, and I don't mean to sound condescending - but apparently I pay you $15 for: "> "> or am I missing something?

You're not missing anything, this is "The Million Dollar Homepage" all over again.

http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/

Re: Success Story: Launching my simple twitter idea early actually paid off

#6

Post by jhubert »

JohnnyBrown:

You're not missing anything. As jolan said, it's basically the twitter version of "The Million Dollar Homepage"... minus the million dollars. :p

I'm also not saying this is a good idea or that I would like everyone to start putting things like this live.

The whole point of this post (which I suppose I understated) is that I generally have ideas that are much more interesting and complex, but their complexity causes even more doubt and I never launch.

In this case, I stopped over-thinking it and launched a very simple idea with a layout and model that I wasn't very happy with. For this, I was rewarded by getting money in my account right away and now I am watching the trends of actual paying customer and can tweak the site to meet their needs.

I know that we've all heard "Launch Early, Launch Often" and "If you're not embarrassed by your first version you're waiting too long" but it took me pushing out a really simple idea to actually get a feel for it.

The hope is that I learn my lesson and launch my real ideas faster.

Rest of Hacker News:

Do any of you have similar stories or some insight that you'd like to share?

Re: Success Story: Launching my simple twitter idea early actually paid off

#9

Post by X-Istence »

What value are you giving me? Sure I get to post my picture on a web page, but I already have plenty of web pages where I have my picture posted, why yours?

Overall I find it interesting that people are willing to throw their money away at something so completely useless.

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