The Story of My Startup.

#1

Post by j0ncc » Fri, Feb 13, 2009, 2:56 AM UTC

After an incredible amount of complications and pushing the launch date back over a year, we've finally just made the site live.

This is blog post documenting the entire story. I'd love to get some feedback from the HN community.

The Story of My Startup.
dailybooth.com

Re: The Story of My Startup.

#2

Post by staunch » Fri, Feb 13, 2009, 4:19 AM UTC

Where's the business model?

Re: The Story of My Startup.

#3

Post by snitko » Fri, Feb 13, 2009, 4:22 AM UTC

staunch wrote: post #2

Where's the business model?

Couldn't see it either. Why those late nights and stress have been worth it?

Re: The Story of My Startup.

#4

Post by tdavis » Fri, Feb 13, 2009, 4:25 AM UTC

staunch wrote: post #2

Where's the business model?

It's sort of depressing. A year of struggle and ultimate perseverance against the odds... to release something that doesn't make any money. I mean, kudos for sticking with it and refusing to give up, but... now what?

Re: The Story of My Startup.

#5

Post by meridian » Fri, Feb 13, 2009, 4:30 AM UTC

Look at twitter... how long was that around before any attempt at monetisation emerged?

Re: The Story of My Startup.

#6

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Feb 13, 2009, 4:45 AM UTC

meridian wrote: post #5

Look at twitter... how long was that around before any attempt at monetisation emerged?

[deleted]

Re: The Story of My Startup.

#7

Post by j0ncc » Fri, Feb 13, 2009, 4:48 AM UTC

staunch wrote: post #2

Where's the business model?

Good question. I have a few ideas that I'm going to be pursuing.

- Setup a deal with flipclips.com (or someone similar) and let people purchase a branded flickbook of a period of their lives.

- Maybe potential for some kind of picwing.com affiliate deal / application.

- Some kind of "pro" account with more features (more picture widget output options etc).

- Display advertising (yeah, know).

They're a few ideas I'm toying with.

Re: The Story of My Startup.

#8

Post by fraXis » Fri, Feb 13, 2009, 5:02 AM UTC

Great read. Congrats on the launch.

Re: The Story of My Startup.

#9

Post by zenlinux » Fri, Feb 13, 2009, 5:27 AM UTC

Thanks for sharing and being open about all the problems you encountered. Launching an application is definitely not easy, nothing takes as long as you hope it will (even if you pad for unexpected problems) and it's really hard to declare something "done." Congrats on your launch.

Re: The Story of My Startup.

#10

Post by sho » Fri, Feb 13, 2009, 5:35 AM UTC

j0ncc wrote: post #7

staunch wrote: post #2

Where's the business model?

Good question. I have a few ideas that I'm going to be pursuing. - Setup a deal with flipclips.com (or someone similar) and let people purchase a branded flickbook of a period of their lives. - Maybe potential for some kind of picwing.com affiliate deal / application. - Some kind of "pro" account with more features (more picture widget output options etc). - Display advertising (yeah, know). They're a few ideas I'm t…

The pro account is the best idea. Stay away from advertising, IMO, it looks cheap and turns people off. Personally I absolutely hate advertising and won't use any site with it. And I doubt much would come from the book idea/affiliations.

I would take it nice and slow. Wait until you have some serious users who have put a lot of time into the app. Obviously you and your friends have to catalyse that, looks like you already are which is good. Once you've got some nice multi-month videos to show, and perfecting all the little niggly bits about working with it (which YOU will be doing), try to get some publicity. It would be really helpful if you know some girls who will do it, your digg/reddit/etc-fu will be greatly increased if it's a girl.

Anyway, then start introducing new options. Pro members can get better quality video out - free is just the flash video, pro gets a full on quicktime version. Free has one "stream", pro can have several - they might want to do their cat or family members or something. Free can embed the flash output on their blog, Pro can embed the picture taking app on their website and make a "my blog visitors" stream .. or something.

Pro is $20 once off fee. Get a bit of press exposure and who knows, it could really take off. The Pro account taking pics of their families sounds like it could have real potential. Maybe a family package deal - $50 for a year of photos including a printed book?

Anyway congratulations on the launch, many people don't know how hard it is to take a decently sized project from idea to fully realised implementation and release. It's fucking hard and even more so if you're running on nothing but your own internal motivation. Good shit and well done.