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

truffles.me.uk

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

#71

Post by timruffles »

pigbucket wrote: post #66

Completely missing from your postmortem (from which I learned a lot and for which I am very grateful) is the fact that the service you offer, to judge from the demo alone, is frankly not very good. Perhaps your analytics show that few visitors bothered to look at the demo, so maybe the point is moot, but I think the demo is awful, and if I wanted to take over this business, I would completely redo it, or remove it al…

Interesting. Looking at the demo now you're right: the first bit of feedback on screen is trite, and the rest is a bit wishy-washy.

I had a look at the analytics, and most people went for more info rather than the demo. However, those pages are really, really bad and sparse. Should have worked on those a lot - I remember I was planning to add tutor profiles.

Software myopia again. BTW if anyone wants to look at the analytics let me know and I'll give them access.

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

#72

Post by timruffles »

hristov wrote: post #68

I think he just misjudged how most students study. In law school almost all of my exams were essays. The fact is that most people did not study by writing practice essays. To answer an essay question well you need to be able to do two main things: know the information the question asks for, and present that information in writing. For me and everyone I studied with the first part was crucial and the second not that i…

It's a good point. What's interesting is that the academics I surveyed think students do need help with writing and expression. However, if students don't think so, as you point out, no perceived need to meet and therefore no sales...

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

#73

Post by suking »

jdietrich wrote: post #55

Essentially none of those 30kloc were part of the actual product, just set dressing. You could easily launch the same basic product without writing a single line of code, just handling everything through e-mail attachments and a paypal button. I don't believe that the user experience would be significantly worse for it. In the middle of the article, the OP lists various mistakes he made, but I think he's basically wr…

Not understanding your (potential) customers is often mistake #1. We spent 2 months talking to potential customers before writing a line of code and now have 1,000+ in a fairly small niche.

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

#74

Post by starpilot »

jdietrich wrote: post #55

Essentially none of those 30kloc were part of the actual product, just set dressing. You could easily launch the same basic product without writing a single line of code, just handling everything through e-mail attachments and a paypal button. I don't believe that the user experience would be significantly worse for it. In the middle of the article, the OP lists various mistakes he made, but I think he's basically wr…

The op did do some marketing research. He made the mistake of asking if people would buy, instead of asking them to buy. Huge difference.

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

#75

Post by rglover »

The only thing about this that irks me is not writing code until you have interested users. Wouldn't it be odd to say "oh, my product? It's coming, and it's awesome, but I haven't coded it yet." I'm all for the fake it till you make it but perhaps a bit too much here.

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

#76

Post by timruffles »

bricestacey wrote: post #58

Another idea is to market to teachers. Scan in homework, grade/annotate on the computer, and send results to student and parents. Then, teachers wouldn't have to lug all that paper around, parents are involved in the feedback loop, 9 month sales window, doesn't require institutional commitments (any teacher could use it).

It's certainly something I wish the Open University (http://open.ac.uk) would use - I'm studying maths there at the mo and have to post my coursework in.

I'd guess parents would be keen on seeing how their children are doing too.

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

#77

Post by timruffles »

suking wrote: post #73
jdietrich wrote: post #55

Essentially none of those 30kloc were part of the actual product, just set dressing. You could easily launch the same basic product without writing a single line of code, just handling everything through e-mail attachments and a paypal button. I don't believe that the user experience would be significantly worse for it. In the middle of the article, the OP lists various mistakes he made, but I think he's basically wr…

Not understanding your (potential) customers is often mistake #1. We spent 2 months talking to potential customers before writing a line of code and now have 1,000+ in a fairly small niche.

Have you got a blog? Always interested to read about the process.

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

#78

Post by timruffles »

robjohnson wrote: post #67

Thanks for providing so much detail into the inner-workings of your venture. Most people wouldn't have the guts to put themselves out there like that. If you think about wealth in terms of 'prevention of loss,' you've just made everyone on this forum quite a bit wealthier.

NP! It was a little scary, but it's been a very positive experience. I've got a lot from reading people's comments here, and it's crystallised a lot of the thinking in the article.

I hope you're right re prevention of loss, that'd be fantastic!

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

#79

Post by suking »

timruffles wrote: post #77
suking wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not understanding your (potential) customers is often mistake #1. We spent 2 months talking to potential customers before writing a line of code and now have 1,000+ in a fairly small niche.

Have you got a blog? Always interested to read about the process.

Maybe one day, too busy now and I don't really enjoy writing. Have some good stories though. I'd probably start with "How I turned a $60 bottle of scotch into $2mm".

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

#80

Post by kenjackson »

jdietrich wrote: post #55

Essentially none of those 30kloc were part of the actual product, just set dressing. You could easily launch the same basic product without writing a single line of code, just handling everything through e-mail attachments and a paypal button. I don't believe that the user experience would be significantly worse for it. In the middle of the article, the OP lists various mistakes he made, but I think he's basically wr…

In fairness to the OP, he does talk about this very issue (including just doing this via email). We're all a little blinded by what we're good at.
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