The creators of no-longer-with-us products explain what went wrong
1–10 of 45 posts
Re: The creators of no-longer-with-us products explain what went wrong
#2I always find post-mortems like these a bit strange. These founders are all able to develop some pretty convincing reasons why they failed (albeit in hindsight), yet show no signs of acting on it. I understand the feeling of burnout, I have a handful of abandoned projects myself. I've never been able to look back and say that is precisely why I didn't succeed though. Lessons learned is one thing, identifying the one factor that held you back is a bit of a stretch IMO.
Interesting side note: The first failed company, Verifiable, links to the sixth failed company, swivel, as an alternative. Apparently charting is a tough space.
Re: The creators of no-longer-with-us products explain what went wrong
#3Did Storytlr even bother asking people to pay for the service? Seems kind of strange that with 10,000 users you can't at least cover $500 in hosting.
At $5 a month, that's only .1% signup required.
Re: The creators of no-longer-with-us products explain what went wrong
#4Did Storytlr even bother asking people to pay for the service? Seems kind of strange that with 10,000 users you can't at least cover $500 in hosting. At $5 a month, that's only .1% signup required.
You would be surprised at how few people would pay $5 a month...
Re: The creators of no-longer-with-us products explain what went wrong
#5"Vitamin not a pain-killer" is a great metaphor.
Re: The creators of no-longer-with-us products explain what went wrong
#6I always find post-mortems like these a bit strange. These founders are all able to develop some pretty convincing reasons why they failed (albeit in hindsight), yet show no signs of acting on it. I understand the feeling of burnout, I have a handful of abandoned projects myself. I've never been able to look back and say that is precisely why I didn't succeed though. Lessons learned is one thing, identifying the one…
While I agree with you I find the same to be true of successful companies. When you ask a successful founder why (s)he succeeded you'l most often get an answer aided by hindsight.
It appears to me that nobody truly knows what makes or breaks a company. There are some prerequistes (hard work, focus on customers, etc.) that you have to have, but these aren't enough.
My guess is that it's like the weather and financial markets: Chaos (as in chaos theory) reigns, and it's just not possible to know who the winnere or losers are.
Re: The creators of no-longer-with-us products explain what went wrong
#7I always find post-mortems like these a bit strange. These founders are all able to develop some pretty convincing reasons why they failed (albeit in hindsight), yet show no signs of acting on it. I understand the feeling of burnout, I have a handful of abandoned projects myself. I've never been able to look back and say that is precisely why I didn't succeed though. Lessons learned is one thing, identifying the one…
While I agree with you I find the same to be true of successful companies. When you ask a successful founder why (s)he succeeded you'l most often get an answer aided by hindsight. It appears to me that nobody truly knows what makes or breaks a company. There are some prerequistes (hard work, focus on customers, etc.) that you have to have, but these aren't enough. My guess is that it's like the weather and financial…
Once you understand hindsight bias, it seems so blindingly obvious. - @haruki_zaemon
Re: The creators of no-longer-with-us products explain what went wrong
#8The good thing about desktop software is if the vendor goes away, the software still works.
Not too keen (as a customer) on putting my time and effort into a SAAS hobby project that doesn't scale.
Re: The creators of no-longer-with-us products explain what went wrong
#9The good thing about desktop software is if the vendor goes away, the software still works. Not too keen (as a customer) on putting my time and effort into a SAAS hobby project that doesn't scale.
Given the rate of change in OS and GUI environments, support libraries, and other APIs, most desktop apps don't work very well for long these days either.
Of course unlike SaS you can always continue to use an old version indefinitely in a VM if it really matters.
But I find the longevity of the vendor is still critical for supporting new environments and API requirements, and in practice I don't end up discounting the going-out-of-business risk much for desktop apps vs. SaS apps.
Re: The creators of no-longer-with-us products explain what went wrong
#10The good thing about desktop software is if the vendor goes away, the software still works. Not too keen (as a customer) on putting my time and effort into a SAAS hobby project that doesn't scale.
Given the rate of change in OS and GUI environments, support libraries, and other APIs, most desktop apps don't work very well for long these days either. Of course unlike SaS you can always continue to use an old version indefinitely in a VM if it really matters. But I find the longevity of the vendor is still critical for supporting new environments and API requirements, and in practice I don't end up discounting t…
I should say here that I too have the 'old version' problem: The software to send samples to my Akai hardware sampler only runs on Windows 98. I have a Windows 98 PC just for this!