What a great story for those of us who can't jump out of life to be a freewheeling startup. It is ironic that I found this link on Ycombinator of all things - a site I find somewhat elitist to many of us who don't have the luxury to shift into 'hackers'. More stories like this need to be told - especially from those seasoned veterans who have massive amounts of experience. Kudos to you!
How My Lifestyle Business Became a Startup
21–30 of 31 posts
Re: How My Lifestyle Business Became a Startup
#22I can't help but feel that, while this is inspirational to all those slow starters, there are very obvious places where he could have catalyzed his business much much sooner and without the need to jump in full time or quit his job. Of course, one would say hind site is 20/20. But for a lot of serial entrepreneurs they'd rather fail fast than drag something out. This post could just have easily been about how someone…
Good point. If I had abandoned the art industry like PG maybe I would have sold my startup to Yahoo by now....
I think that you may have highlighted something I was trying to say. Sure, maybe I got lucky and "nailed" it, however, spending 12 years working in a given industry makes it more likely that you'll nail it. Not that you need 12 years experience, but, I guess that was one of my points. That if you actually experience "problems" of a given industry, you have a better shot of hitting upon a solution that people want.
Re: How My Lifestyle Business Became a Startup
#23Great post. I didn't realize it until half way through, but you're in the same space that I'm looking at getting into.
Maybe there's a way we can collaborate.
Re: How My Lifestyle Business Became a Startup
#24Thanks for the article, it was a good read and interesting. I have one thing to ask you about that really bothers me when companies do it. This gets old REALLY fast:
"Unlimited plan subject to terms and conditions."
Why don't you simply rename the plan if it's not really unlimited?
Re: How My Lifestyle Business Became a Startup
#25Thanks for the article, it was a good read and interesting. I have one thing to ask you about that really bothers me when companies do it. This gets old REALLY fast: "Unlimited plan subject to terms and conditions." Why don't you simply rename the plan if it's not really unlimited?
Been burned legally a time or two - it's CYA language in case of blatant abuse. Our plans are for individual artists, it would be against terms, for 100 artists to get together, pay for one plan and load 10,000 works and use our newsletter module to send millions of emails.
Re: How My Lifestyle Business Became a Startup
#26Thanks for the article, it was a good read and interesting. I have one thing to ask you about that really bothers me when companies do it. This gets old REALLY fast: "Unlimited plan subject to terms and conditions." Why don't you simply rename the plan if it's not really unlimited?
We tech people often have the tendency to take things a little too literally. No company can really make an offer that is truly unlimited for a fix price if they have any variable costs.
Re: How My Lifestyle Business Became a Startup
#27Great article, but it raises something I've been ruminating on for awhile. It's funny that in the IT industry we need to define ourselves or our businesses so that we stand apart from the rest. I rarely see other industries say that Company X is just a lifestyle business or Company B is a startup. No, they are both businesses. Plain and simple. A great many businesses would never be able to start operations if they h…
The IT industry is one of only a very few that can leverage technology so successfully. This allows for some unique opportunities (like "lifestyle businesses") that you don't see parallels to in other industries.
One guy with some skill, a computer and a marketable idea can build a business for himself and live very comfortably. If he wants to work at the beach for the day, he can. If he wants to work out of a coffeeshop, he can. That degree of freedom and ability to leverage technology isn't found in many other industries. That's why you don't find any parallels.
Re: How My Lifestyle Business Became a Startup
#28Very interesting story, it's nice to see someone targeting an interesting niche like this and talking about it. However, Clint, have you worked a lot on your signup page? For example the 'Get Started Today!' CTA button ( btn-activatenow_b.png ) has text that looks like it is not aliased. The list of features right above it is a bit hard to notice. The testimonials that are linked as 60x52 pictures aren't obvious that…
Thanks, I do need to learn more about button design. We A/B test that hero section and selling features didn't perform well so we downplayed them. We've had a lot more signups with other ideas more prominent (Like "Sharing Art Enriches Life"). Believe it or not, the current page is the improved one. I never posted on HN before because I knew I get grilled over how bad our old design was. Maybe I'll get it to "good" s…
In the "Why professionals should use..." section, the names (i.e — A.G. Blankenship, Artist) should link to the relevant galleries.
Also, you might want to work on better layout for http://faso.com/artist-websites/ and showcasing galleries to drive traffic to your clients (perhaps directly to their art).
It would be great if you could create a feed that presents a random set of images for those people who want beautiful backgrounds for their desktops. An app that presents random art and takes you to the page to buy it with one click would be nice.
Well done so far. Looks like you have a nice mature product. Keep taking it easy - much better to take your time and make the right feature than to hurry and make several poor ones.
Re: How My Lifestyle Business Became a Startup
#29Thanks for this article. I have been working with my team for the past year (part-time) putting together my idea and we are close to a pitch. At 38 I feel ancient compared to all of these "techstars" that are right out of Grad school. Inspired me that I am not "too old" :)
Re: How My Lifestyle Business Became a Startup
#30As a college student in the Valley, I really appreciate your perspective. Its quite easy to get caught up in the rush to do something now without realizing that I have a life full of opportunities ahead of me.