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I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea

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Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea

#91

Post by matkoniecz »

stevewodil wrote: post #86
_ofdw wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you're on a sales call selling a product that increases user retention and someone says "no we don't need that", you would often reply with "So you have perfect user retention then?" to probe them and re-open the conversation. Assuming that I didn't initiate the call, if I tell some sales punk that I don't need their product and they come back at me with "So you have perfect user retention then?" my answer is goi…

I'm sure that happens occasionally as well. I get it, sales people can be annoying but it really only hurts your business (in this hypothetical case) if you have a user retention problems and are actively fighting against people trying to help you solve that problem with a mutually beneficial business agreement. They will call the next person on their list, I'm sure it won't matter much.

Incoming spam is unwelcome in general, and I would not assume that this people are trying to help me.

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea

#92

Post by robocat »

_ofdw wrote: post #80
stevewodil wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually a very good sales question, I don't find it demeaning at all. If you're on a sales call selling a product that increases user retention and someone says "no we don't need that", you would often reply with "So you have perfect user retention then?" to probe them and re-open the conversation. It could come off as standoffish but when used correctly it's very effective because it gets the person on the oth…

>If you're on a sales call selling a product that increases user retention and someone says "no we don't need that", you would often reply with "So you have perfect user retention then?" to probe them and re-open the conversation. Assuming that I didn't initiate the call, if I tell some sales punk that I don't need their product and they come back at me with "So you have perfect user retention then?" my answer is goi…

HN guidelines: “Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.”.

I would presume that sentence is a quickly typed paraphrase. If you presume they are a competent salesperson, you can also presume that they say it less antagonistically in real life. Edit: Or perhaps they have found that antagonism is the most profitable solution for the business to turn around a “no” answer.

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea

#93

Post by dvt »

> So I built something people wanted. Consumers wanted it, doctors wanted it, I wanted it. Where did I go wrong?

A lot of people in this thread are talking about the woes of ethical doctoring, the problems of healthcare, and so on. The reality here is that no one wanted it -- at least no one that he was selling to. I can relate. I've been there -- building something for months and then hearing crickets. The Y Combinator motto -- "Make something people want" -- is actually pretty tough to get right. In fact, it's the crux of any viable business. The reason why 9/10 businesses fail is largely in part due to the fact that they aren't making something people want.

Prospective customer interviews suck (especially for technical folks), but they are integral to building a product people want. Doing them before an MVP is crucial.

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea

#94

Post by heavenlyblue »

chadash wrote: post #56
madamelic wrote: post #37

The current ideology of needing to go big fast kills a lot of decent ideas. Everyone thinks there are two modes for a service: dead or worth $1B+. Not to like bash you while you are down but you may have been able to do this while working and not spending $40k on contractors. Not everyone needs to raise $10M, get a flashy office, employ 200 people and have all of the trappings of a "successful" startup founder; if an…

$40K is not much to put into a business. You'd likely be putting down more than that just to open a convenience store. Sure you need to spend a lot of money to grow a $1B+ business, but the same is true for a $100M business or a $10M business and even most $1M businesses.

You would not need to put up a lot of money if you just came to a market to sell some vegetables. For less central areas you could potentially sell stuff for free. Convenience store is a bad example as these are heavily standardised by now: we all expect a high diversity of products and thus the equipment needed to store it

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea

#96

Post by stevewodil »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #87
stevewodil wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually a very good sales question, I don't find it demeaning at all. If you're on a sales call selling a product that increases user retention and someone says "no we don't need that", you would often reply with "So you have perfect user retention then?" to probe them and re-open the conversation. It could come off as standoffish but when used correctly it's very effective because it gets the person on the oth…

I was ready to agree with you because question in the OP wasn't so bad, but "So you have perfect user retention then?" -- seriously? Yeah, that's being demeaning. Maybe being demeaning is a good sales technique, I dunno, but that's definitely being a jerk. But "Are you sure increasing your user retention isn't worth something to you?" or something like that maybe.

It really depends on your tonality when you say it. In either case, saying "Are you sure increasing your user retention isn't worth something to you?" is just going to be met with another "No, we don't need it" from the other end.

"So you have perfect user retention then?" is a better question because you know for a fact that they can't have 100% user retention and they know that as well so it forces further dialogue.

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea

#97

Post by ibudiallo »

I thought I read this here before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21947551

I still feel the same about it[1]:

> Don't shut down the website. Keep it running and make the data available in read only mode and add a donation button (alternative to ads). It should cost $5 a month to host on linode or digitalocean. Don't let the money you spent go down the drain.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21951604

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea

#98

Post by ummonk »

fourseventy wrote: post #46

This is the classic case of building a product that you hope will solve a problem instead of finding a problem first then building a product to solve it. The correct approach would have been to have those conversations with doctors before spending $40k to build the product. I've made this very mistake myself but I was lucky enough to have enough runway to start over and talk to customers first then pivot the product…

Uh no. He had a problem - how to choose a medicine - and built a product to solve that problem. The issue was that solving the problem isn't something people wish to pay for, not that the problem doesn't exist.

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea

#99

Post by chefandy »

yunohn wrote: post #45
nickjj wrote: post #9

That was a fun read. I wish the author mentioned how much he was trying to sell the service for. It could have been $59 a month or $599 a month and with doctors you could potentially expect the same answer. I'm not a psychologist but some of the author's quoted text came off extremely demeaning in written form. If the author happens to read this, did you really say those things directly to them? For example, Susan (p…

You’d be surprised how many doctors neglect the state of the art in medicine... That’s also why second opinions are a thing. Medicine is a science and hence, an ever changing field.

I probably would be surprised if that's true considering that in most states in the US, doctors are required to complete between 20 and 50 hours of structured CME (continued medical education) annually as a prerequisite to relicensure, and every one I've spoken to took it pretty seriously.

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea

#100

Post by skybrian »

fourseventy wrote: post #46

This is the classic case of building a product that you hope will solve a problem instead of finding a problem first then building a product to solve it. The correct approach would have been to have those conversations with doctors before spending $40k to build the product. I've made this very mistake myself but I was lucky enough to have enough runway to start over and talk to customers first then pivot the product…

To be fair, when he started he didn't know he wanted to talk to doctors. That was after a pivot.

Also, $40k is downright cheap compared to most failed projects to improve medicine. If it were someone else's money, that is.

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