30kloc and $0 revenue. Lessons from my failed startup (& code release)

#1

Post by timruffles » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 2:19 PM UTC

30kloc and $0 revenue. Lessons from my failed startup (& code release)
truffles.me.uk

Re: 30kloc and $0 revenue. Lessons from my failed startup (& code release)

#2

Post by drewcrawford » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 2:49 PM UTC

How do you create a poll ad on Facebook? I thought you had to get a sales rep and drop $25k to do that...

Re: 30kloc and $0 revenue. Lessons from my failed startup (& code release)

#3

Post by danberger » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 2:53 PM UTC

Thanks for sharing your story dude. I'm sure it wasn't easy.

Re: 30kloc and $0 revenue. Lessons from my failed startup (& code release)

#4

Post by wiredfool » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 2:54 PM UTC

Sales cycles can be a real problem, especially if the average sales cycle is greater than your runway.

Re: 30kloc and $0 revenue. Lessons from my failed startup (& code release)

#5

Post by mgl » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 2:56 PM UTC

Lessons learned, experience gained, time to move on and start another project - All the best!

Re: 30kloc and $0 revenue. Lessons from my failed startup (& code release)

#6

Post by timruffles » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 2:56 PM UTC

drewcrawford wrote: post #2

How do you create a poll ad on Facebook? I thought you had to get a sales rep and drop $25k to do that...

Not sure why, but they removed the feature a while back - http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/04/facebook-quietly-pulls-poll....

It was really slick when I used it, though it did get small samples (100 max I believe) and perhaps people just clicked randomly to get rid of it.

Re: 30kloc and $0 revenue. Lessons from my failed startup (& code release)

#7

Post by Major_Grooves » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 3:00 PM UTC

timruffles wrote: post #6

drewcrawford wrote: post #2

How do you create a poll ad on Facebook? I thought you had to get a sales rep and drop $25k to do that...

Not sure why, but they removed the feature a while back - http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/04/facebook-quietly-pulls-poll... . It was really slick when I used it, though it did get small samples (100 max I believe) and perhaps people just clicked randomly to get rid of it.

I think you can do polls again. Go to your wall and click to post an update. The last option after "video" is "question".

Re: 30kloc and $0 revenue. Lessons from my failed startup (& code release)

#8

Post by teadrinker » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 3:06 PM UTC

I'd argue the main reason it failed was it was a bad idea. Their was no market for your product no matter how well you made it.

Try not to take away execution lessons when the idea was poor. The execution was fine and if you'd have used a good idea you'd be doing reasonably well now.

As an aside, does anyone have links to other startup postmortems?

Re: 30kloc and $0 revenue. Lessons from my failed startup (& code release)

#9

Post by vaksel » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 3:07 PM UTC

that's why it's important to stick to the minimum viable product philosophy.

if you can do everything manually and just forward emails...do that until you it gets big enough to require automation

Re: 30kloc and $0 revenue. Lessons from my failed startup (& code release)

#10

Post by Vivtek » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 3:09 PM UTC

Nice writeup! I agree with you - I love reading post-mortems. Success stories are worthless (too much survivor bias) but post-mortems really tell me something.