

Color, Now Down Two of Three Leaders, Lesson in Lean Startup Philosophy - duzins
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/color_now_down_two_of_three_leaders_looks_like_a_l.php#.Ths_w1L9sOY.hackernews

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mark242
So I just fired up Color again, because every time I hear a gloom-and-doom
story about Color, I feel the need to look at the car crash again.

And once again, sitting in my office, Los Angeles, a place where you would
expect there to be some serious use of Color, I'm presented with, again, the
exact same screen I saw when I first started it up a few months ago.

That is to say-- nothing.

Everyone talks about how the Color _technology_ is so revolutionary, but I
have yet to see the thing actually work. I've gone to big concerts and fired
it up. I've been to Disneyland and fired it up (don't laugh, other social-
place apps are _huge_ at Disneyland. Foursquare gets massive traffic from The
Mouse). All of these places, you would think there would be _something_ on
Color. Nothing. Just that silly black screen with the guy taking the picture
of the other guy's crotch. (Cannot unsee that image from the startup, now,
thanks)

It's like the guys at Color built the product on the assumption that hundreds
of millions of people would use it on day one. I'm sure the app works great in
the densest portions of the Bay Area on Friday night after a Foocamp, but it
is just absolutely useless on any kind of day-to-day, social sort of usage.

Path isn't much better, but at the very least I can see that there were photos
last shared 21 days ago from friends, so there's at least a _little_
temptation to, you know, _actually use the app_. For all the love about
Color's technology, I don't believe that they have gotten anything right at
all. It would be so, so easy to just dynamically expand the breadth of the
"anonymous social network" created around your phone, but the FAQ page is like
a winning card for Web 2.0 Social Media Bullshit Bingo.

Seriously, here's the tagline for Color:

"It also means that any photo taken within about 150ft. of other users of the
Color app are automatically shared to their devices."

There you go. One Geospatial query, form upload, and fancy Objective-C
frontend, and you have Color.

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raganwald
No VCs have called to ask me my opinion, but I'm very ok with color.com
imploding. IIRC, Paul Graham suggested that startups be described as
questions. Color's question was, "Can we make ____, give it away for free,
have it become really popular, and gather profile information we can
monetize?"

So they now know that _____ is not really popular, and although they raised a
tonne of money to do it, closing its doors quickly and moving on to other
things is not a disaster.

Pivoting would be neat, but maybe they ought to just give the remaining money
back to their investors and move along to the next idea.

~~~
bartonfink
Just out of curiosity, do VC's call you to ask your opinion on things like
this?

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raganwald
Given my career, I would short the stock of any VC that asked me for
investment advice.

~~~
palish
On the other hand, that just means you're statistically more likely to succeed
on your next attempt.

~~~
petervandijck
I don't think that's what it means, statistically :)

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Bayesian or frequentist? ;)

~~~
petervandijck
Doesn't matter, a bad history in investing doesn't statistically mean that
you're more likely to get it right the next time, that would mean that
everyone gets it right eventually if they just keep trying, which isn't really
how investing seems to work.

Even if investing was a lottery, it past failures don't indicate future
success.

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joejohnson
> The reasons why Color appears to be imploding can't be known for sure.

I'd guess that it might have something to do with the lack of product...

~~~
statictype
I wonder how they would have fared if it wasn't publicly known that they
received zillions in funding or that they spent 350k on a domain name.

Had they been in stealth mode and didn't feel compelled to release as half-
baked product too early, maybe it may have turned out differently.

~~~
earbitscom
Had the product been at all good, a million jaded TC/HN readers yelling bubble
wouldn't have stopped them from succeeding. It was the half ass product too
early that killed them.

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zipdog
Color 'launched' a few days after SXSW, and the founder wasn't particularly
aware of the event or able to recognize the lost opportunity. SXSW would have
given it the dense mass of people required to give a great first impression

~~~
elxrr
I found Bill Nguyen's response quite strange when asked about this.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WGdwY6h5JI&t=25m30s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WGdwY6h5JI&t=25m30s)

"Robert(Scoble) is right, everyone's right, we should have done it, we could
have done it, we didn't because I don't like conferences. Again, my bad, it's
my responsiblity, I just didn't want to do it."

~~~
daimyoyo
Wow. I don't know if Bill Nguyen realizes this, but when you have a consumer
based product, you NEED to launch it when there are a lot of potential
customers to use it! That is without a doubt the worst thing that I've ever
heard an entrepreneur say as long as I've been following tech. When this
company crashes and burns, perhaps Mr. Nguyen will realize that being an
entrepreneur sometimes means having to do things you don't want to do. Did you
really think Steve Jobs was excited to go to Redmond, proverbial hat in hand
to ask Bill Gates for a bailout? Of course not! But he did it because it was
necessary for the long term health of the company. I truly think Bill Nguyen
doesn't get it.

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earbitscom
While Color has made a lot of mistakes, Bill Nguyen has accomplished more than
99.x% of entrepreneurs. He wanted something different from his product launch
for whatever reason, maybe simply because he didn't feel like dealing with the
madness of SXSW. It wasn't the best choice, but it's a far cry from him being
clueless. I'm certainly in no position to question his abilities as an
entrepreneur, and definitely not for one or two questionable decisions.

~~~
dvdhsu
From his comments though, the only reason that they didn't launch at SXSW was
bacause he didn't "like" conferences.

Honestly, it seems to me that he was either too hubristical or naïve.

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joshu
I'm always fascinated by journalists ability to take two distant factual
details and design an entire plotline and article between them.

~~~
SkyMarshal
Same. Even better: <http://xkcd.com/904/>

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mdda
One of the arguments for the high initial valuation was the 'rock-star' team :
Which would lead to a decent purchase price for the company even if the
product didn't take off.

However, the rock-star team is only valuable if it can stay together.
Gathering up a bunch of rock-star soloists is much cheaper...

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kloncks
I rarely say this. But seriously, this:

 _Lean Startup philosophy says the last thing you want to do is raise a whole
lot of money, build a product in secret, then spring it on a world that may
not want what you've built at all._

~~~
pclark
not all startups are lean. seriously, there is more than one way to skin a
cat.

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mikeryan
Alright from Color's perspective losing a couple of big names is bad. But from
everyone's view their technology is cool (or interesting at least) and they've
got a truckload full of money.

This could be a good thing, the three headed startup hydra could have been a
bad thing - too many chiefs not enough indians and likely a lot of different
product directions. This is a chance to hunker down figure out what people
want and the right way to deliver it. They've got enough cash to keep user
groups in testing for years. This can be fixed. Lean is good. Lean with 3-5
years of runway is even better.

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joeguilmette
i always hate to see products fail, but it is kinda nice to see reality set in
for Color, rather than a 2001-esque media frenzy and IPO. it gives me hope
that maybe, just maybe, the bubble isn't as bad this time around.

~~~
jerf
Interesting, I came just to say that as someone who was defending the
possibility that there may be a real company in there a few months ago, I'm
now willing to admit this is definitely a credit on the "bubble" side of the
argument.

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gkoberger
I don't think there is anything wrong with over-funding a promising startup.
With Color, the problem was in the vision and execution, which can happen no
matter how much money is in the bank.

While I appreciate the mentality behind a lean startup, I can also understand
the benefits of a "fat startup."

Color was entering a crowded space-- there were a ton of photo sharing apps,
but nothing close to a clear winner. In theory, putting $41 million into one
"killer" photo sharing app makes a lot more sense than putting $3 million into
a dozen average photo sharing apps. Unfortunately, things didn't work out for
Color.

A large number of start ups fail, merely because they don't have enough
engineers. Companies like Google (Google+, Google Docs, etc) or even network
TV (Hulu) have been able to buy their way into markets, merely because they
can turn out a full featured product relatively quickly, and back it with
proper bizdev and marketing.

~~~
rockarage
Agreed, but Lean startup is not just about overfunding, it also means not
building your product in secret, which is what they did, which is why they are
in mess.

"Eric Ries, the Lean Startup philosophy says the last thing you want to do is
raise a whole lot of money, build a product in secret, then spring it on a
world that may not want what you've built at all"

They should not have built this product in stealth mode then release it at the
wrong time(missing SWSX). Investors should be worried, what they thought is a
great team is no longer there. One was fired, the other resigned now there is
only Bill Nguyen. I think it will be hard to attract talented leaders after
seeing cofounders leaving and being fired. Forget pivoting, Bill can't even
keep his star team together.

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orionlogic
It's really hard to estimate how a product to be successful in Silicon Valley.
Take Google+ example, what's so novel about it? Nothing, i must say. Twitter
integrated with Disqus by your address book. But first they get good reviews,
and use old tactic of invitation only system like gmail.

As a weak social creature myself, i find the Color app idea very interesting.
I eager to find someone take photo in the place i am in. I constantly open and
refresh if someone took but none i find. Why nobody is using it? I remember
once showing the app and its idea behind to my friend and he also find it very
curios and love it. But where are the users?

Press takes what it wants, don't rely on them. They may interest in your
investment or office furniture or whatever they want. Press might dumb your
app almost instantly, but you have to respond to criticism very early.
However, i see no app updated since months i guess.

Here is the road map for a loving user: bucket all criticisms that made to
Color. prioritize according to who made them, their power in press/social
media. change UI, revamp and go to real events. go to all Geek conferences
after parties, music festivals and shout your app. This app needs on the
ground fight not online tech bloggers.

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bane
Would it have been so hard to just put text labels on the buttons and release
a new version of the mobile app?

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billmcneale
I don't understand: DJ Patil joined Color five months ago (according to his
LinkedIn profile), yet Color is more than one year old.

Why is he called a co-founder? He doesn't even say so on his LinkedIn profile
(a lot of people claim to be a Color co-founder, though).

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swombat
Funny to contrast this with their coverage 3 months ago...! (as I've done
here: <http://swombat.com/2011/7/11/color-com> )

~~~
marshallk
Note those two posts were authored by two different people at RWW. I wrote
this one but not the one you reference 3 months ago.

~~~
swombat
Sure, but you're both prominent writers at RWW - I'm not criticising you guys
personally, or even RWW.. it's perfectly fine for authors, or even a
publication, to change its stance - just the apparent randomness and
diametrical opposition of points coming from the same publication a mere three
months apart...

As a person in the firing line, it feels pretty crazy to have the same site
praise you as "the next twitter" one day and shoot you down with all they've
got three months later.

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revorad
I hope Color bounces back. I don't like all this hating on them based on pure
speculation and no insider knowledge.

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desaiguddu
Color Funding literally took down the mood of Valley entrepreneurs who really
work worth while :(

