Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lessons learned from my failed startup after 2 years, 300 users and 0 revenue

sergioschuler.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 161 posts

Re: Lessons learned from my failed startup after 2 years, 300 users and 0 revenue

#61

Post by mzarate06 »

antoinec wrote: post #49
sergioschuler wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact I am learning how to program, so I agree with your points - but I don't think it is for every one. There is plenty of space for non tech founders. BUT I do believe it is easier if you do know how to code.

"There is plenty of space for non tech founders." In the tech startup ecosystem, I don't think there is that much space for founders that don't want to code. Saying "I want to start a tech startup but I don't want to code" is as ridiculous as saying "I want to sell horses but I don't know anything about them and I certainly don't want to have to learn anything about them". It's possible, but you're gonna have a hard…

Saying "I want to start a tech startup but I don't want to code" is as ridiculous as saying "I want to sell horses but I don't know anything about them and I certainly don't want to have to learn anything about them"

I disagree. Not wanting to code is not the same as not knowing anything about the product, or wanting to. There's so much more that goes into a successful product or company than time spent coding (marketing, design, testing, sales, industry/market immersion, etc.). As a developer and co-founder, ideally I want complimentary skill sets. Being able to write code may be an overlapping skill, but it's not required.

Re: Lessons learned from my failed startup after 2 years, 300 users and 0 revenue

#62

Post by red_anorak »

enraged_camel wrote: post #22
sergioschuler wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely right on both comments! And additional comments: 1) I am not a developer, but I believe having an idea -> finding a developer is the wrong flow. It should be like this: 1. Have the idea. 2. Get customers who give you real money to build this idea. 3. Get a developer by telling "I already have paying customers". 2) Absolutely agree. When I say "I should build that", in fact what I wanted to say was…

>>I am not a developer, but I believe having an idea -> finding a developer is the wrong flow. It should be like this: 1. Have the idea. 2. Get customers who give you real money to build this idea. 3. Get a developer by telling "I already have paying customers". Actually, I disagree. Even if you're not a developer, you should still strive to learn enough development such that you can push out the first version of the…

In my experience of being a developer and building my own idea I actually found there were occasions when my inbuilt technical idealism caused me to make some wrong decisions on my product. I found it quite difficult to make product decisions independently of technical ones.

I've had some really good bosses who couldn't code, though there is certainly a skill in winning over devs when you're not a programmer yourself.

There are advantages to being a non-technical founder, if you're able to bring the right techies on board.

Re: Lessons learned from my failed startup after 2 years, 300 users and 0 revenue

#63

Post by danso »

sergioschuler wrote: post #38
drewmclellan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't blame your host, actually. It's WordPress. It's a shame it's so often given a free pass on these issues when it really isn't good at handling peaks in traffic.

Any alternatives?

Using the popular caching plugins...W3 Total Cache (http://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/) or Super Cache (http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/) seem to be well liked and I've used both of them without too many issues (I have some weirdness in my WP upgrade path). My blog has been on HN and reddit a few times and has never crashed, even though I'm on the cheapest Dreamhost hosting plan with what seems like 5 to 10 second response times for non-cached pages.

Re: Lessons learned from my failed startup after 2 years, 300 users and 0 revenue

#64

Post by sergioschuler »

antoinec wrote: post #49
sergioschuler wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact I am learning how to program, so I agree with your points - but I don't think it is for every one. There is plenty of space for non tech founders. BUT I do believe it is easier if you do know how to code.

"There is plenty of space for non tech founders." In the tech startup ecosystem, I don't think there is that much space for founders that don't want to code. Saying "I want to start a tech startup but I don't want to code" is as ridiculous as saying "I want to sell horses but I don't know anything about them and I certainly don't want to have to learn anything about them". It's possible, but you're gonna have a hard…

I disagree because most "tech business" are empowered by tech, they are not ABOUT tech. My business was about team management/leadership, we just used tech as a means to an end. We could have done the same thing with consulting, but decided to get scale using the web.

It is like saying a given business which sells through the phone is about phones. Phones are just a way of doing it.

Re: Lessons learned from my failed startup after 2 years, 300 users and 0 revenue

#65

Post by red_anorak »

>> "SEO and social media bullshit"

This stuff does seem like bullshit when you're working on it, but it's unfortunately crucial these days. It takes so long to build up the brand and visibility that I don't believe you have the option to just do it once you've got the product right. Unless you've got the investment, firepower or notoriety to get chins wagging then you've got a long road ahead of you. Good SEO actually sounds like one of the things you got right to me. But maybe you spent too long on it

Re: Lessons learned from my failed startup after 2 years, 300 users and 0 revenue

#66

Post by sergioschuler »

red_anorak wrote: post #65

>> "SEO and social media bullshit" This stuff does seem like bullshit when you're working on it, but it's unfortunately crucial these days. It takes so long to build up the brand and visibility that I don't believe you have the option to just do it once you've got the product right. Unless you've got the investment, firepower or notoriety to get chins wagging then you've got a long road ahead of you. Good SEO actuall…

I understand where you are coming from. I agree it is essential for any business that uses the web. But if you have the wrong product, no matter the amount of SEO, you will get nothing out of it.

What I want to say is that SEO is important, but not more important than finding the pain and the product.

Re: Lessons learned from my failed startup after 2 years, 300 users and 0 revenue

#67

Post by sergioschuler »

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #50

I want to shine some light on one side problem, scratched here: The problem today is (out of the perspective of a developer): To many companies rely on just "hire any (cheap) developer" to ramp up the product. I see it all the time: Quality is not asked for, many companies (specially in the web business) just want the cheapest developers. They search for a student (at best), because he is cheap and will just make a s…

I believe this is a marketing problem (from the developers). See, I am a non-tech founder, I don't understand why X is cheaper than Y. If I perceive the same benefit, I will get the cheapest one.

(This is hypothetical, but not so much: I understand a bit of tech and even so I don't have so much clue on how to judge a developer besides what he shows me he had done).

Re: Lessons learned from my failed startup after 2 years, 300 users and 0 revenue

#68

Post by snorkel »

... one of the prospects was an HR person from a huge Indian manufacturer. They wanted the system NOW and wanted to speak to me. [...] I just needed to build what they wanted.

I know startups that charged down the other path, being hyper responsive to their big customers, and they suffered for it because their biggest customer steered the product vision straight to crazy town. Such startups essentially become the contract development shop of a few big customers, living and dying by the whims of those big customers. Yes, you can pay the bills, but you're essentially working full-time for a few customers rather than building your own enterprise.

Re: Lessons learned from my failed startup after 2 years, 300 users and 0 revenue

#69

Post by Elizer0x0309 »

cblanc wrote: post #55
Elizer0x0309 wrote: post #46

A business person trying to start a tech startup.... It's like a business person looking for musicians to start a band. This is beyond ridiculous. Either bring some skill to the table or go create a "business startup" and stop polluting the industry with yet another failed idea and even worse a "post mortem" of why it failed. PS: This includes Marketing, Managers as well as the Business peanut gallery.

I'm not sure if that's a good analogy for your point. The success of a band often requires more than people that can play music well together The Beatles had Brian Epstein for example (aka The Fifth Beatle)

Yes, but the first members are driven with higher goals then just "Starting a business". A business person is driven with the intention of making money. If it were otherwise, they'd learn a trade/skill.

Re: Lessons learned from my failed startup after 2 years, 300 users and 0 revenue

#70

Post by sergioschuler »

6d0debc071 wrote: post #48
darkxanthos wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're saying its a lie because there is no product yet? I can see how you think that. If he did build the product first though and one person signed up and he had to pivot to something fairly different, that'd be a lie too then effectively. Except, now he wasted a lot of time building. My POV is if you're only taking email addresses for people to know when it's available anything on the site is just your pla…

I wonder how the returns work out for sticking 'Email me to when it's ready to be tried' or something. I can see you getting fewer numbers, potentially, but I wonder about the people who are actually interested in the product vs drive by triers. At least seems more respectful of people's time than 'try it free' just for them to have to click through and find out what it's about.

To be frank, I think that is exactly what I used. I just didn't judge was important enough to mention.
Post reply on HN