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The Decline And Fall Of Flowtab, A Startup Story

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Re: The Decline And Fall Of Flowtab, A Startup Story

#11

Post by mintplant »

mtt05001 wrote: post #10

I am the founder of Flowtab, and my goal in writing this story was to share what we learned and accomplished instead of letting it rot for eternity in Dropbox. Thus, we opensourced everything from our pitchdeck to source code on Flowtab.com. Kyle Hill and I are already back at it. Together, we launched www.homehero.org a marketplace for senior caregivers, let me know your feedback! - Mike Townsend

Thank you for going the open source route! There are so many cases where a company goes under and something of value is lost because the original developers couldn't maintain it.

For example, I would have loved to have seen a community-maintained version of Glitch [1] take over after the game died out, but Tiny Speck refused to open up the source code because they believed it would be too complicated for anyone but themselves to run—a justification which has never made sense to me.

And if nothing else, it gives a deep peek into how a production system is run, something I'm always grateful for.

[1] http://www.glitch.com/

Re: The Decline And Fall Of Flowtab, A Startup Story

#12

Post by mtt05001 »

devindotcom wrote: post #8

"Flowtab wasn’t saving you enough time or energy to make it a compelling experience." Serious question - was it ever going to? It always seemed like a backend-heavy way to optimize for a trivial inconvenience. I have to say, It seems to me this was a failure because it was just plain a bad idea. That makes for a pretty short story, though, I guess.

With 50,000 bars/nightclubs in the US, and witnessing the success of other mobile payments companies (Levelup, Kuapay, and Starbucks app) it seemed inevitable especially considering the poor ordering experience in many establishments.

Mike T

Re: The Decline And Fall Of Flowtab, A Startup Story

#13

Post by mtt05001 »

zach wrote: post #2

Great postmortem. These kinds of high-altitude narratives, which describe the overall lifecycle and tell the key stories, are utterly fascinating, success or failure. When you're so focused on something, then discover parallel narratives to your experience, you gain perspective that's useful and even emotionally valuable. They're very common within the game development world, after becoming a regular, beloved feature…

Thanks, it would have been a complete waste if we didn't publish this...

Re: The Decline And Fall Of Flowtab, A Startup Story

#14

Post by mtt05001 »

mintplant wrote: post #11
mtt05001 wrote: post #10

I am the founder of Flowtab, and my goal in writing this story was to share what we learned and accomplished instead of letting it rot for eternity in Dropbox. Thus, we opensourced everything from our pitchdeck to source code on Flowtab.com. Kyle Hill and I are already back at it. Together, we launched www.homehero.org a marketplace for senior caregivers, let me know your feedback! - Mike Townsend

Thank you for going the open source route! There are so many cases where a company goes under and something of value is lost because the original developers couldn't maintain it. For example, I would have loved to have seen a community-maintained version of Glitch [1] take over after the game died out, but Tiny Speck refused to open up the source code because they believed it would be too complicated for anyone but t…

I agree, and thank you.

Re: The Decline And Fall Of Flowtab, A Startup Story

#15

Post by mtt05001 »

ilamont wrote: post #5

Great story. TC, VB and others should do pieces like this more often. One comment: Flowtab could not be distributed through partnership with companies that sell Point of Sale (POS) systems. Anyone have insights into why this is?

I do! So before Flowtab I built ZingCheckout, a web Point of Sale (now used by Tesla Motors). I learned a ton about POS distribution, it was a big part of our growth strategy. However, a POS reseller really can't justify the cost in selling only Flowtab (like you could with a POS) because it was an ancillary product and couldn't yield the high upfront sales $ from bar owners.

Mike Townsend

Re: The Decline And Fall Of Flowtab, A Startup Story

#16

Post by mtt05001 »

jamessun wrote: post #6

While the story of the rise and fall of Flowtab was compelling, I thought Flowtab did a great job with http://alpha.flowtab.com . This site is a really effective way of telling their story and I commend them for including several "artifacts" (resources) for public consumption. It's never easy to admit failure...

I really really appreciate that, did you see all the resources on bottom of Flowtab.com?

Mike

Re: The Decline And Fall Of Flowtab, A Startup Story

#18

Post by larrys »

mtt05001 wrote: post #10

I am the founder of Flowtab, and my goal in writing this story was to share what we learned and accomplished instead of letting it rot for eternity in Dropbox. Thus, we opensourced everything from our pitchdeck to source code on Flowtab.com. Kyle Hill and I are already back at it. Together, we launched www.homehero.org a marketplace for senior caregivers, let me know your feedback! - Mike Townsend

Would like to know what your marketing plan is to get the product in the hands of the target market. Which is people that are old enough to have parents that need caregivers.

How are you going about (or are you going to go about) doing that?

Also noting on the page that there is a lack of information that can be had (it's one page) w/o supplying information and signing up.

Re: The Decline And Fall Of Flowtab, A Startup Story

#19

Post by devindotcom »

mtt05001 wrote: post #12
devindotcom wrote: post #8

"Flowtab wasn’t saving you enough time or energy to make it a compelling experience." Serious question - was it ever going to? It always seemed like a backend-heavy way to optimize for a trivial inconvenience. I have to say, It seems to me this was a failure because it was just plain a bad idea. That makes for a pretty short story, though, I guess.

With 50,000 bars/nightclubs in the US, and witnessing the success of other mobile payments companies (Levelup, Kuapay, and Starbucks app) it seemed inevitable especially considering the poor ordering experience in many establishments. Mike T

Is Levelup actually considered successful? I have seen it in several establishments around here (Seattle) but I have never seen it used, and the employees tell me it is not popular or easy (unlike, say, Square). I don't know Kuapay. Starbucks had something of a firm place from which to launch, so it's not really comparable.

What's the poor ordering experience? Trying to get the bartender's attention? I would submit that a poor order experience is a consequence of the establishment, not the fundamentals of the ordering process. Personally, I like the bar experience, it's personal, it's immediate, you can get recommendations, and it's fairly equitable for everyone around (shovers will be ignored by a good bartender, though a good bartender is by no means guaranteed). On the other hand, a remote ordering situation turns every bar into a drink machine activated by an impersonal, drive-thru-like interface. If you prefer that to the existing system, perhaps you should patronize a better bar!

I agree that there is probably some interesting way to leverage personal technology in this space, but it's not this. This app does not improve the "ordering experience," it eliminates it. That's a bad idea.

Re: The Decline And Fall Of Flowtab, A Startup Story

#20

Post by tzm »

jamessun wrote: post #6

While the story of the rise and fall of Flowtab was compelling, I thought Flowtab did a great job with http://alpha.flowtab.com . This site is a really effective way of telling their story and I commend them for including several "artifacts" (resources) for public consumption. It's never easy to admit failure...

I completely agree. I really appreciate the story and timeline feature of the alpha site.
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