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The depressing reality of your startup failing

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Re: The depressing reality of your startup failing

#11

Post by ComNik »

jasonshen wrote: post #5

Look - your startup hasn't failed. First of all, it's not a startup, it's just a project you've been working on. You haven't spent savings or taken debt or investment to do this. It sounds like you are maybe still in school. Second, you put it on HN and on person signed up. This doesn't mean you failed. It is merely the first in a very long line of setbacks that every startup, both great ones and not so great ones fa…

This did not came across harsh, this came across as a reminder to not give up so quickly. I still think that what I said about sharing more stories of failure is true, but maybe the reason for my post was more of an impulsive reaction :/

Re: The depressing reality of your startup failing

#13

Post by F_J_H »

colinplamondon wrote: post #7

This is a horrifically dumb article. If you care about the first day, you didn't launch a startup, you launched a project . Submitting an article to Hacker News isn't a launch strategy, it's showing off a cute project you did. A startup is something you fully commit to until you're convinced you tried every reasonable permutation in a scalable market opportunity. The average startup takes 7 years to get to liquidity.…

Stephen R. Covey once said something along the lines of "In any given situation, you can be right or you can be kind. It's better to be kind."

What you said is correct. Said differently (i.e. in a more kind manner), it also would have been a good example of really helpful mentorship.

Re: The depressing reality of your startup failing

#14

Post by tolmasky »

cynusx wrote: post #9

The value proposition of the site when you visit rankique.com is not clear enough. Changing the headline to "Track products and get notified when the price drops" and making the headline bigger will help a bit. Driving traffic to the site may be harder. There is no built-in customer acquisition channel as having one user does not lead to more exposure. It might be something that gets some word of mouth once it has ma…

I have to agree that if the headline was "get notified when a price drops" I might consider signing up, or at least be intrigued to learn more. However, "save money and time, while shopping online"... sure it rhymes but its a vague value-proposition that's being offered by a thousand other sites right now. It could be anything from a store aggregator to another etsy.

Re: The depressing reality of your startup failing

#15

Post by k4roshi »

The name isn't related at all to your product, it's rather confusing. "Ranking" is in no way relevant to your service. Either choose a random name with no familiar meaning associated or choose one that is more appropriate for what your app does. I also agree that the tagline should be more clear. Also, you got some things wrong: - A HN post (or 2) isn't a launch, how could you expect people to flock to your app if they don't know it exists. Promote it properly; - Launch =/= your first day, first days usually suck.

Keep going anyway, the idea is not so bad, although i think there are some other services out there that do pretty much what your app does (but again, that can be said for pretty much every startup :P)

Re: The depressing reality of your startup failing

#16

Post by ComNik »

colinplamondon wrote: post #7

This is a horrifically dumb article. If you care about the first day, you didn't launch a startup, you launched a project . Submitting an article to Hacker News isn't a launch strategy, it's showing off a cute project you did. A startup is something you fully commit to until you're convinced you tried every reasonable permutation in a scalable market opportunity. The average startup takes 7 years to get to liquidity.…

Maybe that was a bit harsh, but I definitely got your point.

I overreacted and maybe this bit of public embarrassment was necessary.

Thank you.

Re: The depressing reality of your startup failing

#17

Post by joewadcan »

You article, while it have been hard to write, probably helped many others who are facing the exact same scenario (or at least will be upon launch). Take a second to think about why you started the site in the first place? Was it to revolutionize shopping? Or more to bring something to life? colinplamondon makes a good point about this being 1 day into your startup, but i'd also add that you're not even 1 day into being an entrepreneur. Failure is good! FAIL MORE ! Every great entrepreneur does, at some point

Re: The depressing reality of your startup failing

#18

Post by ComNik »

k4roshi wrote: post #15

The name isn't related at all to your product, it's rather confusing. "Ranking" is in no way relevant to your service. Either choose a random name with no familiar meaning associated or choose one that is more appropriate for what your app does. I also agree that the tagline should be more clear. Also, you got some things wrong: - A HN post (or 2) isn't a launch, how could you expect people to flock to your app if th…

Thank you, very valid points.

Re: The depressing reality of your startup failing

#19

Post by nbashaw »

ComNik wrote: post #11
jasonshen wrote: post #5

Look - your startup hasn't failed. First of all, it's not a startup, it's just a project you've been working on. You haven't spent savings or taken debt or investment to do this. It sounds like you are maybe still in school. Second, you put it on HN and on person signed up. This doesn't mean you failed. It is merely the first in a very long line of setbacks that every startup, both great ones and not so great ones fa…

This did not came across harsh, this came across as a reminder to not give up so quickly. I still think that what I said about sharing more stories of failure is true, but maybe the reason for my post was more of an impulsive reaction :/

It ok - user acquisition is tough! It takes a lot of work, and submitting your link to Hacker News is not really work.

I'd start out by doing some user testing. Have people look at your site and tell you what they think. Then maybe a bit of usability testing - tell people to perform actions (like signing up or adding a product to their list) and see where they get stuck. This is called funnel optimization.

Then you can focus on finding channels - ways people discover you. You'll probably want to spend some money on google adwords, but definitely also try to get some press through traditional media and blogs.

You haven't failed - you just started!

Re: The depressing reality of your startup failing

#20

Post by joshmlewis »

Hey, this isn't a horrible failure. You might actually have something here. It's kind of like Pricenomics actually, they just went through YC. They're hiring, you should send Omar an email with this link, I'm sure he'd be impressed.

They take the approach of price researching plus subscribing to low prices like you. If I were you I'd look into this.

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