Why I turned down $500K and shut down my startup
1–10 of 180 posts
Re: Why I turned down $500K and shut down my startup
#2Quite interesting. Why couldn't you build in a reward system to using the product? Similar to how games like WOW do?
Re: Why I turned down $500K and shut down my startup
#3Quite interesting. Why couldn't you build in a reward system to using the product? Similar to how games like WOW do?
Gamification: it only works to a point. As he pointed out this isn't something people are SO keen on that they want or need to incentivize their employees to do it.
Re: Why I turned down $500K and shut down my startup
#4The nigger thinks that a talking space alien is nothing special.
I have something far better than investors. I could not buy rights to create the IBM PC future specs.
With God, I get full control of the IBM PC hardware.
Re: Why I turned down $500K and shut down my startup
#5Quite interesting. Why couldn't you build in a reward system to using the product? Similar to how games like WOW do?
zer00eyz comment is pretty accurate. Gamification is something that came up during brainstorming, but most business users tend to view all but the most subtle approaches as distracting. We concluded we needed something that actually made their task more efficient or effective.
Re: Why I turned down $500K and shut down my startup
#6The underlying idea behind what he did here is sometimes called Ethnography. There was another great article a while back on this going on at adobe/photo shop: https://medium.com/startup-study-group/my-two-years-as-an-an...
As far as tools go, ethnography can be very powerful in the right hands.
Re: Why I turned down $500K and shut down my startup
#7"It would have been different if we had been debating which plan among several to implement or how to shore up specific weaknesses, but we had nothing."
I don't really understand "having nothing" -- you're either creating value or you're not. You guys spotted a real problem, but your v1 solution was meh. There were certainly multiple ways out (and not just tack on gamification), and even if some were long-shots, the uniqueness of a startup is to place those bets.
Re: Why I turned down $500K and shut down my startup
#8Why not make an open offer to anyone who thinks they can solve this problem and turn this around?
Re: Why I turned down $500K and shut down my startup
#9It's pretty surprising to me that there was no way to shift enough of the value gain from "huge gains in efficiency" forward to keep people motivated about the product.
For example: use a chunk of the $500k as rewards to push people through the initial adoption. Then presumably the real gains would take over and they'd be happy customers.
Re: Why I turned down $500K and shut down my startup
#10It sucks when you realize you have built something that users like, but they don't really NEED. I like the good habits analogy - I built several great workflow apps for a Fortune 500 company in the past few years, but discovered most users don't really want the yoke of workflow and there wasn't enough immediate lift to tempt them.
Sorry man. Good call not to waste a year of your life.