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Fouling Out and Moving On (re: Notifo Shutdown)

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Re: Fouling Out and Moving On (re: Notifo Shutdown)

#51

Post by hessenwolf »

fbnt wrote: post #47
bootload wrote: post #32

"... My startup is dead. ..." When I read posts like this, the full acceptance of failure by US entrepreneurs, startups & business, I lament this positive trait isn't acknowledged in my country.

Same here. He's rightfully going to be treated as an experienced individual, whereas in my country you'd have an "I'm a failure" sign tattooed on your forehead by now, with nobody willing to do business with you again. This is what makes SV great.

Had a really interesting discussion group yesterday with the CEO (several billion a year revenue company) about the difference in attitude to planning and fear of failure in the English-speaking world versus Germany.

In English, if I want to get two things done, I aim for 5, hit three, and happily fail humiliatingly on my other two goals. In Germany, 'a plan is a promise', and anything you publically disclose absolutely must be completed.

Re: Fouling Out and Moving On (re: Notifo Shutdown)

#52

Post by shoham »

Sounds like you came a long, long way. As a former little league baseball and musician myself, who has started my fair share of bands, and other ventures, I can totally relate to the feeling of putting so much in, and having to hang 'em up when things just aren't working out for one reason or another. For whatever it's worth, consider this: even the most talented, hardworking ballplayers never even make it to the show. Unlike those guys, there's not really an age limit in your field, and instead of needing a few hundred pros (or thousand, if you count the minors too) as a software engineer you'll have lots of time and opportunity to get back up to the plate (too many sports metaphors -- is there such a thing?)

All the best at Twilio :-)

Re: Fouling Out and Moving On (re: Notifo Shutdown)

#54

Post by hechtic »

Sorry to hear it Chad. I haven't used Notifo but followed your work, and saw you present a few months back at the real-time API meetup at Mulesoft's offices.

You seem like a sharp guy with tons of enthusiasm for what you have built (and will build in the future), so I am sure you will be successful here in SV.

On the single co-founder aspect - wow, I can't imagine. Aside from the moral support though, one thing you might want to consider is how a second cofounder could provide complementary/different skills from your own.

For example, partner with a business type person. Business models are hard, but lots of people have been through the experience of testing various pricing models, and could probably help you get closer to $$ faster.

Re: Fouling Out and Moving On (re: Notifo Shutdown)

#57

Post by tekacs »

jackowayed wrote: post #28
tekacs wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true - for that matter, Dropbox, anyone?

If it weren't for the generous free tier, you'd never say that. File storage is something people pay good money for, even when it doesn't have magic sync and sharing

Yes that's very true - I have a Dropbox Pro account (and CloudApp Pro and Google Paid Storage and Evernote Premium - yes, I do see the overlap in all this cloud storage) myself, but then it does feel like Dropbox have vastly more free users than paid - while this is of course brilliant for momentum, it feels as though Dropbox isn't taken as seriously as it could be as a paid storage service, given their generous free quota leaving most users without a real need to upgrade and those with greater storage needs eschewing Dropbox for other, older, more established alternatives (who also often provide more storage space). It seems that those of us who really cherish Dropbox's unique features are the ones left going after Dropbox Pro accounts...

Also, for that matter, Dropbox did initially put out their current set of paid storage plans as an 'interim' measure, until they could settle on a wider range of rates more suited to the general public (there is a fair amount of opinion suggesting that their prices are rather steep, even given the awesome extra features they provide...)

Re: Fouling Out and Moving On (re: Notifo Shutdown)

#58

Post by mathattack »

There are two way to interpret, "Never Give Up"

1 - Never Give Up on the current project.

2 - Never Give Up on big ideas.

Hang in there and heed PG's advice on #2. It's very small consolation, but you're 20 months smarter and wiser than when you started, and the market is still receptive. Be resilient, and you will land well.

Re: Fouling Out and Moving On (re: Notifo Shutdown)

#59

Post by dmak »

I'm sorry to hear that. For me, I have heard of it and I looked on the website, but I didn't dig deeper. I wanted a simple video to tell me what it is and what can it do for me, but there wasn't. "Real-time notifications from tons of services pushed to your mobile phone. Free. " I didn't understand why would this be useful to me, when the services I currently use had push notifications. It seemed like a redundant app. I feel like the marketing of this product was not powerful enough. You just needed to show me how I can use this and how I can fit this into my lifestyle. My 2 cents.
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