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I spent a year building an app and failed – The story of Taskwer

buildingwithchris.com

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Re: I spent a year building an app and failed – The story of Taskwer

#11

Post by baobun »

If this story constitutes failure, I think the issue was expectations. Sounds like a decent execution of something that can have real value. It can take years to build sustainable brand and get traction even after you've passed MVP, though.

Rather than shutting it down, why not let it live on? In maintenance mode or otherwise. HMU if hosting costs are an issue.

Re: I spent a year building an app and failed – The story of Taskwer

#12

Post by markdjacobsen »

I spent a year and a half building a "startup" of my own (actually, a humanitarian nonprofit) that failed. I can relate to the author's painful emotions as he processes his experience. This emotional journey is common in entrepreneurship, but very few people talk about it, so I wrote the book I wish I'd had.

The book is titled "Eating Glass: The Inner Journey Through Failure and Renewal", and I mention it whenever these threads come up. It doesn't sell well, so I'm just giving it away for free.[0] I'm passionate about the topic.

Also, FWIW, although you acknowledge the mistakes in execution, this sounds like a brilliant idea.

[0] https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/arauyfnkwwezbbk0cbvdp/eating-...

Re: I spent a year building an app and failed – The story of Taskwer

#14

Post by teitoklien »

markdjacobsen wrote: post #12

I spent a year and a half building a "startup" of my own (actually, a humanitarian nonprofit) that failed. I can relate to the author's painful emotions as he processes his experience. This emotional journey is common in entrepreneurship, but very few people talk about it, so I wrote the book I wish I'd had. The book is titled "Eating Glass: The Inner Journey Through Failure and Renewal", and I mention it whenever th…

Thank you for sharing this

Re: I spent a year building an app and failed – The story of Taskwer

#16

Post by chadash »

This is a classic two sided market. People who need money and are willing to sell services don’t know who you are. And people who are willing to buy services don’t know who you are. And the platform is useless unless you have both of those.

The trick here is to find a very specific niche to start with. Instead of the goal being “let me get this popular everywhere” your short term goal should be to find how to make it popular among a single existing community. Churches, mosques and synagogues are a good place to start. People in those groups already like to support each other and virtually all of them have one or more internal WhatsApp or Facebook groups where people who start a campaign can advertise to others in their community.

Re: I spent a year building an app and failed – The story of Taskwer

#17

Post by 616c »

markdjacobsen wrote: post #12

I spent a year and a half building a "startup" of my own (actually, a humanitarian nonprofit) that failed. I can relate to the author's painful emotions as he processes his experience. This emotional journey is common in entrepreneurship, but very few people talk about it, so I wrote the book I wish I'd had. The book is titled "Eating Glass: The Inner Journey Through Failure and Renewal", and I mention it whenever th…

As I learned from the a blackboard when doing my study abroad year for Arabic that engrained my respect for teachers, formal or informal: من يعلمني حرفا فصرت له عبدا. Read your bio and thanks for the book, looks interesting Will download and read when I can.

Re: I spent a year building an app and failed – The story of Taskwer

#18

Post by gregorvand »

Always ask yourself as an engineer if "building the thing" is more alluring than "the thing". After you build, you have a thing that needs to be sold. As engineers, it is all too easy to be swept up building the thing without taking a step back to see will anyone actually use this? As painful as it is, my advice to the author or any others out there is if "the thing" is truly what you believe in, then you can test it out without building, anything. In this case, could the author have made fantastic Craigslist ads for a few people offering services first and checked in on the progress first? (I am slightly re-telling the story here of FanDuel than used Craigslist ads to test market sentiment before building anything). Good luck out there, all.

Re: I spent a year building an app and failed – The story of Taskwer

#19

Post by thruway516 »

djha-skin wrote: post #4

I don't think you failed yet. I just think it's really hard to start a marketplace application like this where you need to bootstrap an ecosystem. Read The Lean Marketplace. There's some really good pointers in there on how to over on how on how to go about the difficult task of building an ecosystem around your website. Just have patience I think stuff like this just takes a little time. Finally, find a friend who t…

I second this. Op might be just 1 or 2 redesigns away from virality. It's a genuinely interesting and novel idea and I can see this becoming a thing, maybe with a sprinkling of a little magic fairy dust or luck. Also op is not exactly alone and screaming in the void - I remember this was posted on showHN not too long ago with lots of favorable comments so there is some awareness that op can build on (the domain name rang a bell in my head) - Im surprised op throwing in the towel so soon given this was only a few weeks ago if I remember correctly. PS: I'd suggest op should hire or partner with a designer or dev with ui/ux chops and have them revamp the site as a concrete first step

Re: I spent a year building an app and failed – The story of Taskwer

#20

Post by pfannkuchen »

chadash wrote: post #16

This is a classic two sided market. People who need money and are willing to sell services don’t know who you are. And people who are willing to buy services don’t know who you are. And the platform is useless unless you have both of those. The trick here is to find a very specific niche to start with. Instead of the goal being “let me get this popular everywhere” your short term goal should be to find how to make it…

Feels like Mormons might be a good group to go after. They seem like they have more of an in group vibe than other contemporary sects, and in-groupier groups probably help one another more freely and more often. Their stories are kooky but I think they aren’t anti tech at all. Localized to specific areas as well.
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