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My Startup Failed. Fuck.

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Re: My Startup Failed. Fuck.

#21

Post by kaoD »

mikecane wrote: post #13

"Dynamic pricing" -- does anyone really like that? I've seen reports of online booksellers (no, not Amazon) giving people different prices based on the account they use. No one really likes to feel like a sucker. EDIT to add: Some people might bring up airline tickets or hotel rooms. Limited analog inventory, not infinite digital inventory.

Analog? You mean planes and hotel rooms are non-quantized?

Sorry, had to say that :) It's fun for me how analog/digital have become synonyms for material/virtual.

Re: My Startup Failed. Fuck.

#22

Post by dasil003 »

tptacek wrote: post #16

Even the people at the very top of the value chain in the music industry --- the vanishingly small set of people who produce commercially viable music --- can't make the business work. So I'm curious as to why you'd have tried to start a company in music. Did you start before Dalton Caldwell's talk? I'm just interested in how people pick the ideas they pursue.

I got the feeling there were in college or fresh out of college when they started this. Probably they were just doing what they had an interest in and thought they knew something about.

Re: My Startup Failed. Fuck.

#23

Post by pg »

DanBC wrote: post #20
cup wrote: post #3

Reading about failures can be more illuminating and educational than reading about success. It's interesting to see how you reached a number of gateways where you could have terminated but instead continued to pursue your goals/dreams (despite going against what many would consider the logical conclusion to close). I wonder how many other business have adopted that strategy (of ignoring initial reduced interest in yo…

I strongly agree. I'm grateful for people who post articles like this. I do wonder (gently) if there's something like cargo-cult avoidance though? "These people didn't do this thing, and they failed, so we have to do it."

If this thing = making sure users want what you're making, that particular cargo cult would find to their delight that planes were starting to land.

Re: My Startup Failed. Fuck.

#25

Post by r00fus »

mikecane wrote: post #13

"Dynamic pricing" -- does anyone really like that? I've seen reports of online booksellers (no, not Amazon) giving people different prices based on the account they use. No one really likes to feel like a sucker. EDIT to add: Some people might bring up airline tickets or hotel rooms. Limited analog inventory, not infinite digital inventory.

It's also called value-based pricing [1]. You're correct in your edit, hotels/airline tickets where you're auctioning off a limited value is one thing, selling a inexhaustible commodity at different rates without any reasonable factor like location (water in a desert = more valuable) just feels dishonest.

Amazon and Travelocity rightfully caught a lot of flack when they were caught trying this (perhaps pricing A/B test?) years ago.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-based_pricing

Re: My Startup Failed. Fuck.

#26

Post by unalone »

DanBC wrote: post #20
cup wrote: post #3

Reading about failures can be more illuminating and educational than reading about success. It's interesting to see how you reached a number of gateways where you could have terminated but instead continued to pursue your goals/dreams (despite going against what many would consider the logical conclusion to close). I wonder how many other business have adopted that strategy (of ignoring initial reduced interest in yo…

I strongly agree. I'm grateful for people who post articles like this. I do wonder (gently) if there's something like cargo-cult avoidance though? "These people didn't do this thing, and they failed, so we have to do it."

Yes, well, people are terrible, terrible, at thinking for themselves. And when they do think for themselves, they are even more terrible at acknowledging that their thoughts don't shape reality.

That's glib. There is a very, very difficult balancing act between trusting your innermost convictions and learning to doubt said convictions frequently, as an exercise which reinforces the good bits and dispels the nonsense within them. Failure is the most valuable when you fail at something you personally believe in, because you're forced to confront yourself in the failing. Failure because you followed some BS system for doing or creating a thing without using your own thought processes along the way might teach you to stop being such an idiot, but usually it takes many failures of that sort before the message seeps in.

Re: My Startup Failed. Fuck.

#27

Post by donnfelker »

Best advise I can give here is to do what Steve Blank, Martel, and many other advisers/founders/etc say - If you can get a check for the product. Then you've sold it. Then there is demand. Until that money is in your hand, you just have an idea.

Re: My Startup Failed. Fuck.

#28

Post by donnfelker »

donnfelker wrote: post #27

Best advise I can give here is to do what Steve Blank, Martel, and many other advisers/founders/etc say - If you can get a check for the product. Then you've sold it. Then there is demand. Until that money is in your hand, you just have an idea.

NOTE: This doesn't mean you'll be a success. You may have found a market, but you need to do more customer development in order to really figure out if the market is large enough to sustain.

Re: My Startup Failed. Fuck.

#30

Post by popopje »

salemh wrote: post #12

I would be interested in: Once he found out about the dynamic pricing he tells us “I think I am just going to release with another platform.” FUCK! Are you serious???? What other platform(s)? What were differentiating factors between those, and your service? Do artists suffer any particular trending pain-points in alternate services? 1,700 or so artists could probably provide great feedback into what they actually wa…

i realise you want the actual answer here, but if i was going to sell my own stuff, i would be using bandcamp http://bandcamp.com/ and have as a buyer many times. it's simple to set up and purchase from, is the main selling point.
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