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We Rewrote Everything in $hotlang, and Our Startup Still Failed

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Re: We Rewrote Everything in $hotlang, and Our Startup Still Failed

#12

Post by the_duke »

danfrost wrote: post #7

I've found: - amazing business running on ball of mud code maintained in an insane way - the perfect architecture, CI/CD, TDD where the business/product has little/no value for the customer Also, I've seen the same stacks succeed and fail. The only common thing I can see is: - when the tech team fully understand the stack they're using - when the tech team fully understand the product and business they're building (a…

I have seen the same, but came away with a different conclusion.

Shoddy architecture and even a bad product can be compensated by marketing, hype or a good sales team, while the most pristine architecture and codebase will not help you at all without any customers.

We technologists often focus on the technical aspects, but in many domains they are the least important part for a startup.

Re: We Rewrote Everything in $hotlang, and Our Startup Still Failed

#13

Post by austincheney »

danfrost wrote: post #7

I've found: - amazing business running on ball of mud code maintained in an insane way - the perfect architecture, CI/CD, TDD where the business/product has little/no value for the customer Also, I've seen the same stacks succeed and fail. The only common thing I can see is: - when the tech team fully understand the stack they're using - when the tech team fully understand the product and business they're building (a…

Facebook was originally a garbage PHP app.

Re: We Rewrote Everything in $hotlang, and Our Startup Still Failed

#14

Post by justiceforsaas »

> We opened the floodgates. We shared the project on Twitter and Instagram, posted to HN and wrote a medium post. But, try as we might, no one was signing up.

Later in the post:

> Had we had more funding, we would have taken the time to rewrite our app in $ELITELANG instead. Our startup could have been a unicorn.

Although this is satire, it's something a lot of funded startups do. They think they've solved user acquisition by getting investors money (hey, let's throw a couple thousands at Google/FB Ads, although there are 15+ viable acquisition channels we could try [1]), and spend time on building things in their own bubble.

Also, the launch mention is pretty accurate:

> We launched v2 of our product with a splash.

Wonder if many startups would have better results if flipped the switch and treated product creation as a "launch" (a bunch of big sprints with a deadline) and user acquisition as something they do steadily, over a period of time.

[1] https://zerotousers.substack.com/p/15-acquisition-channels-i...

Re: We Rewrote Everything in $hotlang, and Our Startup Still Failed

#15

Post by colechristensen »

the_duke wrote: post #12
danfrost wrote: post #7

I've found: - amazing business running on ball of mud code maintained in an insane way - the perfect architecture, CI/CD, TDD where the business/product has little/no value for the customer Also, I've seen the same stacks succeed and fail. The only common thing I can see is: - when the tech team fully understand the stack they're using - when the tech team fully understand the product and business they're building (a…

I have seen the same, but came away with a different conclusion. Shoddy architecture and even a bad product can be compensated by marketing, hype or a good sales team, while the most pristine architecture and codebase will not help you at all without any customers. We technologists often focus on the technical aspects, but in many domains they are the least important part for a startup.

You are in the business of doing a thing, not having an aesthetically pleasing tech architecture.

It is true that having a nice tech stack can make doing your thing easier, but it can also distract you from doing your thing well.

Re: We Rewrote Everything in $hotlang, and Our Startup Still Failed

#16

Post by accurrent »

jujodi wrote: post #11

Does this really happen?

Yes. Happened to a friend of mine who was doing an IoT startup. The github star metric is actually something the guy used. Unfortunately I don;t think it was his language choice that was the issue rather the github star thingy. Much of the problem is throwing a bunch of excellent engineers together without proper leadership will lead to severe under performance.
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