Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah yes, money is the only measure of value in the world... It's a good thing my kids pay me to love them.
Note that I said, "They don't value it." That doesn't mean it doesn't have any value.
Open Sourcing a Failed Startup
141–150 of 171 posts
Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup
#142To be honest, I was sorry to see mogotest go, because it shows that there might not be any business in cross browser testing. But there is! In my eyes it was a valid effort on all fronts - trying to build a community and handling lots of browser vendor irregularities. He was one of the first ones. But the market wasn't there, yet.
Good luck! The cross browser testing space will miss him!
Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup
#143I'm always brought back to the time I decided to literally sell everything I had and leave the country. A few weeks before leaving I listed each item I had for extremely reasonable prices. A $400 couch for $200, table for $20, beautiful custom framed long print of an old possibly rare poster for $50. Laser printer for $20. Ridiculously reasonable prices on everything on and on. Nobody bought anything and every thing…
I just had to do the same thing, and had a completely different experience. I sold our stuff on an auction site (TradeMe, the NZ EBay equivalent), with $1 reserve, and applied some of the lessons I've learned from lurking here. My wife thought I was crazy. She was completely ready with the "I told you so". I argued that we didn't have time to relist it if it didn't sell at the reserve, so $1 it had to be! Everything…
That is - they are getting the market value rather than the arbitrary value the seller assigns. Even if that value ends up being the same.
Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup
#144I'm always brought back to the time I decided to literally sell everything I had and leave the country. A few weeks before leaving I listed each item I had for extremely reasonable prices. A $400 couch for $200, table for $20, beautiful custom framed long print of an old possibly rare poster for $50. Laser printer for $20. Ridiculously reasonable prices on everything on and on. Nobody bought anything and every thing…
I just had to do the same thing, and had a completely different experience. I sold our stuff on an auction site (TradeMe, the NZ EBay equivalent), with $1 reserve, and applied some of the lessons I've learned from lurking here. My wife thought I was crazy. She was completely ready with the "I told you so". I argued that we didn't have time to relist it if it didn't sell at the reserve, so $1 it had to be! Everything…
Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup
#145" I decided to try a crowd-sourced campaign to help with the open sourcing effort. Precisely zero of the companies that have been begging me to open-source the code have contributed in any capacity." Wow, that speaks volumes. Good call on not open sourcing your code.
Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup
#146Is it possible that you failed at commercialization, and now you can't bear the thought that open sourcing your creation might lead to zero stars and forks on Github? Is it possible that the "bombardment of questions" you claim was nothing more than a handful, maybe in the half-dozen or so range, of people who wanted to offer you emotional support because that is free for them to do while paying you for a product the…
To be clear, since you made another snarky comment that you deleted, I did have paying customers and it was cash-flow positive. But, I couldn't hire a team on current revenues. And given I had bootstrapped a slow-and-steady business, I didn't have that awesome hockey-stick most people lie about, making raising substantially harder. It wasn't some 6 month operation that failed so I pivoted and I didn't piss through in…
the experience of having founded and run a company for 5 years is a skill that will be valuable. put it on your resume and sell it as experience few others have, because that's true.
Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup
#147Honestly, I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. I have people that ask me to open-source my current side-project all the time (one that is paid), and I find it insanely disrespectful. "Yes, let me just hand over the source code for my commercial product. How about not." I'm not trying to sound greedy, but money speaks. If these companies want the software open sourced, they should be pitching in for the cost. If…
Perhaps a better solution here would be to hand the code off to a trusted group of volunteers for clean up purposes.
Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be clear, since you made another snarky comment that you deleted, I did have paying customers and it was cash-flow positive. But, I couldn't hire a team on current revenues. And given I had bootstrapped a slow-and-steady business, I didn't have that awesome hockey-stick most people lie about, making raising substantially harder. It wasn't some 6 month operation that failed so I pivoted and I didn't piss through in…
don't let armchair quarterback assholes get to you. the beauty of entrepreneurship is it was your decision to start, and your decision to stop. you don't need to justify it to anyone but yourself. the experience of having founded and run a company for 5 years is a skill that will be valuable. put it on your resume and sell it as experience few others have, because that's true.