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How we fed ourselves for a year & sold a startup...with only 300 lines of code

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Re: How we fed ourselves for a year & sold a startup...with only 300 lines of code

#71

Post by sedachv »

ck2 wrote: post #62

Wait, those were simple black-and-white "HELLO MY NAME IS" badges printed on a mailing label? Event organizers paid how much for this? At first I though maybe this was the 1990's but then I read netbooks. Very confused. How dumb/lazy/cheap are conference organizers?

Right now event organizers hire someone to print out badges ahead of time and hand them out at the door. Having your badge printed right there saves time, table space, waste from no-shows, makes it harder to gate crash (there's a scene in Up in the Air where Clooney's character just picks up someone else's name badge from the table).

Don't underestimate the psychological factor of having something printed right there with the personalized (you typed it) name.

Re: How we fed ourselves for a year & sold a startup...with only 300 lines of code

#73

Post by mmcdan »

mkramlich wrote: post #67
alttab wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a distinction between your argument and the OP's motivation is that it isn't money he wants - its to work on something he loves doing. It may have started with a mobile app, and he found some tangential success with printing name badges at conferences. But nowhere in your response addresses that maybe the OP didn't want to print name badges for a living. He sold his company which he wasn't truly passionate ab…

You're both right. But SwellJoe's argument was basically, "A hundred thousand dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? Ten million dollars!" The OP was lucky enough to find a vein of gold underground, mined like 5% of it, then stopped so they could go open a restaurant. They could've mined out the rest of that vein and with the extra cash started ten restuarants and bought a yacht, etc. That said it's always hard to…

I honestly don't think that was his argument. His argument was more like: "You started off with a cool idea that no one wanted, accidentally found something people were willing to beg for, then got rid of what people wanted to work more on the cool idea."

It would have been just as valid to stick with the idea people begged for/made money and add features that made you happy. Wouldn't it have been valuable to test/market View to thousands of customers with the need they were trying to solve?

Re: How we fed ourselves for a year & sold a startup...with only 300 lines of code

#74

Post by neurotech1 »

gcheong wrote: post #31

I thought most badges are simply printed from the event registration data and I would have certainly expected the events you listed to have had badges already upon arrival, so I'm curious as to why they didn't have the badges printed already. But it's certainly a great story of how something they developed in order to promote what they thought was their main product ended up becoming the main product.

At TC Disrupt 2010, a very organized and well resourced event, I personally printed dozens of badges that didn't get printed from event pre-registration.

Re: How we fed ourselves for a year & sold a startup...with only 300 lines of code

#75

Post by rdouble »

SwellJoe wrote: post #24

I reached the end of this story and thought, "These guys have not fully learned the lesson of product failure. Nor have they learned to recognize product success." You made a product no one wanted, and in order to market it, you stumbled onto a product that lots of people wanted in a market where billions of dollars are spent each year (we spend about 10 grand a year on conferences, and we're a tiny company with a ti…

In the post it said they were only making $50-300 a conference. That sort of business is tough to scale. It's like those guys who take your photo at Disneyland. It doesn't sound like they were leaving that much money on the table.

Re: How we fed ourselves for a year & sold a startup...with only 300 lines of code

#76

Post by ultrasaurus »

dmor wrote: post #21

As one of the early event organizers to use imhello just want to say we love you guys, and still want to have you back -- until I read this I thought you'd fallen off the face of the Earth. You guys helped us with badges at out City Hall event (where Tim O'Reilly spoke) and also with an event at Twilio HQ. I'm really happy to hear you're back, and my one piece of advice is that once you have that initial traction and…

So was their success mostly based on the non-scalable aspect? (namely that organizers were happy to get an excited person to work the door for free)

Or is there a hidden scalable app in there for sending out people to do conference name tags in exchange for advertising in front of certain audiences?

Re: How we fed ourselves for a year & sold a startup...with only 300 lines of code

#77

Post by zacharycohn »

rexf wrote: post #60

From the landing page, view.io sounds like an useful product. As someone new to NYC, I'm always looking for relevant upcoming events. In a city like NYC, there has to be events of interest, but they are hard to find. This sounds like what view.io addresses. That said, this trend with spamming friends to receive an invite (thanks to UseHipster, LaunchRock, etc) is frustrating. Yes, it may increase your launch e-mail l…

It may deter you, but for every person it doesn't deter they get 5 more people to sign up.

Re: How we fed ourselves for a year & sold a startup...with only 300 lines of code

#80

Post by felixchan »

6ren wrote: post #40

This is the best longform copywriting I have ever seen! I'm happy to be advertised to in this way. I especially like the "priority access" part. The View app does look amazing - seems to basically be local advertising/information signage on your phone, as Philip K Dick predicted/feared, but (hopefully) more useful than typical ads (can you find ways to keep it that way?) Suggestions: the example messages are great ,…

thanks for the suggestions :)
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