Not suprising the story sounds similar to the pets.com failure.
Groceries distribution requires good experience and knowledge of logistics.
Lessons I learned from the failure of my first startup, Dinnr
171–175 of 175 posts
Re: Lessons I learned from the failure of my first startup, Dinnr
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
VC investment does not a successful business make...
That's precious. Dude, its about the journey, man. Take the 40 Mil spend it on booze. Live fast, pivot and ride the wave to the soft landing. Then do it again. Beats a real coding job any day.
Well, that may be true, but I doubt that process is gonna make successful businesses, unless you lace that booze with copious amounts of adderall.
I am not responsible for the state of your liver if you follow the implied advice.
Re: Lessons I learned from the failure of my first startup, Dinnr
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is market research, just not named as such. I think OP was simply complaining that the article author approached market research academically, throwing common sense out of the window in the process. Classic outsmarting yourself. You don't need to call it market research for it to be effective (the chef probably doesn't).
Suppose I got into doing those things, yet I am aware of the "startup" terms for them. Should I consciously avoid using the jargon (which is really a shortcut way of expressing a longer idea to a familiar audience)? No, rather than giving you a long winded discussion of the steps to getting dressed (or whatever the jargon may be), I'll just say, "I got dressed". It conveys more information in a shorter frame. Why wou…
I don't understand your getting dressed example. That seems to be cutting to the heart of what actually was done. That's the opposite of jargon.
The problem with jargon is that while it can express abstract purpose or intent (that can otherwise difficult to describe), it's basically meaningless in describing actual actions.
For example, you could say "I was doing market research today." But wtf does that really mean? It sounds smart and like you know what you're doing, but ultimately it's more meaningful to say "I was reading our competitor's website" or "I was asking people on the street if they would buy our product."
Jargon has it's place, but just because you call talking to your friends about your idea "market research" doesn't make it any more useful. I think it's easy to fall into that trap.
Re: Lessons I learned from the failure of my first startup, Dinnr
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Suppose I got into doing those things, yet I am aware of the "startup" terms for them. Should I consciously avoid using the jargon (which is really a shortcut way of expressing a longer idea to a familiar audience)? No, rather than giving you a long winded discussion of the steps to getting dressed (or whatever the jargon may be), I'll just say, "I got dressed". It conveys more information in a shorter frame. Why wou…
I don't understand your getting dressed example. That seems to be cutting to the heart of what actually was done. That's the opposite of jargon. The problem with jargon is that while it can express abstract purpose or intent (that can otherwise difficult to describe), it's basically meaningless in describing actual actions. For example, you could say "I was doing market research today." But wtf does that really mean?…
Clothing was def a bad analogy, given my fashion sense (or at least that's what my ex-partner says!)
My point was that jargon has it's place as a shortcut to language. Sure, people use it to sound smart. But it's also a short cut.
Back to the original point, doing "market research" could be very meaningful to people I report to in the context of my job. They don't care what the steps were, exactly, just that I was doing my duty diligence and figuring out what the hell we should sell to whom.
Based on your last graph, I think I agree more than disagree. But I've had very dense, yet brief, conversations with other technical people that could only be brief due to jargon. And non-technical people thought we were b.s.ing each other because they didn't understand the terminology.
But you are definitely correct -- if you want the greatest reward-to-time ratio when learning a field, just learn the jargon first. In fact, even if you want depth of understanding, learn the jargon first. 1) you'll then know what other people are talking about, and 2) you'll be "part of the tribe", and more trusted.
YMMV. For me, learning the language of a culture is just step 1 to communicating with them.
Re: Lessons I learned from the failure of my first startup, Dinnr
#175Post mordems like this make me sad. Not for the founder's bank account per se, but for the fact that he has all the wrong takeaways from his startup experience. You started off well. You did the market research. Great. You've clearly gotten people interested in the service. Even better. You demonstrated in your post that a clear-headed approach was taken and you objectively determined people would want your product.…
"People forget that marketing, done well, is the creation of pain points." --l33tbro
I like that.