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My Startup Failed. Fuck.

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Re: My Startup Failed. Fuck.

#131

Post by chmike »

WillThisFly wrote: post #123

Man, I feel your pain. I have developed the most awesome products the world has never seen 4 times now. We had a "build it and they will come" attitude too :( We decided to ask ourselves one question: How to we validate an idea before wasting months on an idea that only we seem to think is cool? So we are creating WillThisFly? to ask that very question... it's a site that allows you to try out your ideas and projects…

Excellent initiative. I'll check it. I hope you will also provide some general talks on strategies we could use to test this as early as possible.

Sometime it just need a few more optimization iterations. Considering the Facebook example and prior art, this must be really frustrating for those who missed the gold pot.

Re: My Startup Failed. Fuck.

#132

Post by erikpukinskis »

Felix21 wrote: post #115
onan_barbarian wrote: post #95

If there's a common thread between endless startup failure stories, then it is "we talked to a bunch of people who said they'd spend money on this" and when push came to shove said people didn't actually spend money. We're not failing, but even from a (modestly) successful startup perspective, the vast gulf between "people who like to talk to you as if they will spend real money" and "people who will actually spend m…

The thing is, you cant really ask them for money too early or you'll be hearing NO too often for the wrong reasons... What you should be trying to find out is: 1. if they currently spend their money somewhere else to solve their problem 2. if your product is so much better at solving the problem, that they will want to switch.

Yes you can, you can put up a page that describes the thing, and pretend it exists, and try to get someone to click the "let me put my credit card # in already!" button.

One click, a single click will not destroy you brand. And OP would've realized that no matter even with their best shot they couldn't get 10 clicks.

10 disappointed non-customers won't destroy your brand.

Re: My Startup Failed. Fuck.

#133

Post by WillThisFly »

chmike wrote: post #131
WillThisFly wrote: post #123

Man, I feel your pain. I have developed the most awesome products the world has never seen 4 times now. We had a "build it and they will come" attitude too :( We decided to ask ourselves one question: How to we validate an idea before wasting months on an idea that only we seem to think is cool? So we are creating WillThisFly? to ask that very question... it's a site that allows you to try out your ideas and projects…

Excellent initiative. I'll check it. I hope you will also provide some general talks on strategies we could use to test this as early as possible. Sometime it just need a few more optimization iterations. Considering the Facebook example and prior art, this must be really frustrating for those who missed the gold pot.

The main point of WillThisFly? is to test out an idea or project at any stage of its development before committing too many resources and finding that your awesome idea isn't so awesome after all.

If we had something like this when we first started out it would have made life so much easier and we wouldn’t have wasted months on projects that weren’t going anywhere but may still have been salvageable with the right feedback.

The iterations and feedback are key: This involves a simple, instant method (voting) and the more involved approach (comments). With both of these, a project owner will be able to find out if his project is worth pursuing and if it is, be able to iterate, change or pivot accordingly until he is happy he has a product that will work.

We will be adding a blog shortly that will outline strategies and features and more information about WTF?

At the moment we are using WillThisFly? to develop WillThisFly? and it's early days but it's coming along nicely and we are always open to suggestions :)

Re: My Startup Failed. Fuck.

#134

Post by brendanborginc »

I wish you had read The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. It stresses the fact of build a Mean Viable Product very early on and testing hypothesis like "will artists pay for this service" in a real life scenario with an ok product. Aardvark did this in a really cool way (check Aardvark out).

Also, there is a notion amongst us entrepreneurs to persevere amongst all odds. This might be dangerous at times. There might be a massive market for your product yet you have approached it in the wrong way. The thing is, if you have no data, it is very difficult to know what REALLY went wrong. For example: Drew Houston from Dropbox early on stated that selling Dropbox through adwords was costing them something like 300 dollars per acquisition, once they introduced their double-sided referral scheme Dropbox started selling like mad. It was what Eric Ries calls a Pivot.

Re: My Startup Failed. Fuck.

#135

Post by iagomr »

therobotking wrote: post #65
greyfox wrote: post #29

seems like it shoulda really taken off for independent artists.

Mmm, if you look at the site it's really not that surprising it didn't take off. http://zillionears.com/ Landing on that site and seeing the big 'Create Sale' button is pretty confusing. I don't think 'oh this is a site for musicians to sell their music directly to fans'. It also claims I can use 'social sales' but is that a meaningful term? I've never heard it before and it sounds pretty buzzwordy. edit: Just watche…

Completely agree. This doesn't show much knowledge for the music industry. The huge call to action button and the blond girl are just a bit demeaning for someone who is trying to establish their name to their fans

Re: My Startup Failed. Fuck.

#136

Post by alexloiz »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #132
Felix21 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, you cant really ask them for money too early or you'll be hearing NO too often for the wrong reasons... What you should be trying to find out is: 1. if they currently spend their money somewhere else to solve their problem 2. if your product is so much better at solving the problem, that they will want to switch.

Yes you can, you can put up a page that describes the thing, and pretend it exists, and try to get someone to click the "let me put my credit card # in already!" button. One click, a single click will not destroy you brand. And OP would've realized that no matter even with their best shot they couldn't get 10 clicks. 10 disappointed non-customers won't destroy your brand.

Completely agree with your point.

The problem is that the majority of first time founders are: (1) overly protective about their non-existent brand (2) afraid that they will not get any clicks (3) so attached to the idea that even if no one clicks, the design is to blame not the idea

This leads into spending far too much time not iterating on a broken realization of an idea, insisting that "with time it'll work out" or "just a little further, we're gaining momentum", when evidence shows that the company is actually at its worst :P

Re: My Startup Failed. Fuck.

#137

Post by jdaley »

hayksaakian wrote: post #126
ronyeh wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then... is Kickstarter the only true way to validate a startup idea? You throw up a cool pitch with some videos and vague promises, and watch the cash roll in. If the cash does indeed roll in, then it's a good idea! Then you get to work, and hope no one remembers in 6 months that you promised to deliver them some amazing gifts. :-)

PPC + Landing page works wonders. Avoid the confirmation bias of your peers, and target people actively looking for your idea. Build a fake checkout that collects no data, and thank your 'paying' users for signing up to be notified when X goes on sale. (You should also probably tell them that no financial information was actually stored.)

If I put my credit card number into a site and the next page said "actually this isn't real, and we promise we didn't save your card number", my next step would be to call my bank and cancel the card.

Re: My Startup Failed. Fuck.

#138

Post by mrtksn »

kingkawn wrote: post #96

A lot of comments have thrown flak, justifiably, at your landing page video; it is terrible. But the reason is not simply aesthetic, it's because you chose to present an image of musicians that relies on tropes which could only possibly be relevant to non-musicians, and even they would probably think it was not funny. Nobody who is seriously pursuing art thinks of themselves or their work in the way you portrayed the…

I had a similar impression. the video looks like the founders really don't know anything about the business they are getting into. The video looks cheesy, like a corporation trying to speak teen's language to sell them ice cream, not like somebody who understands artists.

also it was hard to understand what the site does, there is something like a price slider on the demo page but does not slide. what the hell is going on? better read some explanation...

the founder probably did many mistakes, good luck next time.

Re: My Startup Failed. Fuck.

#139

Post by taude »

hayksaakian wrote: post #36
austenallred wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting to the point where an idea is truly validated by unbiased and honest customers is way, way more difficult than we all pretend like it is. I think the idea that you can figure out if your business is viable by talking to a few people can be just as dangerous as it can be helpful.

PPC + Landing page is typically promoted as a valuable tool for validation around here. With launchrock + adwords this has become stupid easy.

Maybe this explains so many me-too consumer based websites are de rigueur around here? I'd like to hear more feedback about MVP practices within the enterprise space.
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