
Tell HN: Frustrated and feeling pretty useless at this point. - iamjonlee
When my startup last year did terribly, I felt like crap. While it wasn't really a surprise (I kinda knew it was going to happen), it was a pretty painful experience.<p>Having said that, it's nothing compared to what I feel now. I sincerely, truly believed that my current startup had potential to grow but I lost the one chance I had. After failing our startup last year, we picked up on advice from HN- we started over. We finally found something we truly believed in and created our first iPhone App after 6 months. Given that we didn't have any programming or design experience, we worked like hell to really make up for all the areas we were lacking in. Were barely surviving by (we had left our jobs since the last failed startup) and working nonstop because this was THE idea we believed in.<p>One of the startup advice that I hear most often is to create a product that solves a problem of your own (37signals) because there's bound to be people like you who have the same problem. During our last startup, we sacrificed all the time we had with friends, family, and ignored our relationships for the most part. It was miserable and lonely but we were naive and still dreaming of get rich quick schemes. We decided to finally create Grooovy after months of brainstorming ideas and really felt a connection with it. Grooovy (http://www.grooovy.me) was designed to be a social meetup app for iphone that allowed users to meet over drinks, food or a snack within 75 miles of their current location. That was the key- it would really tackle the problem of not being able to meet people and just socialize especially when you're working odd hours and unable to meet anyone new outside of school or work. We wouldn't have to feel lonely!<p>We asked everyone we knew, even tried to find complete strangers to get an honest opinion. People were excited, we criticized ourselves harshly and improved on all the feedback/suggestions we got. When we were finally close to launching, we ran a series of beta tests which passed with flying colors. Everyone who had a chance to use it (Thank you again) thought it was a very valid and new way of socializing. It would be something new, a networking tool used for platonic relationships and not just dating. We spent extra time revising, bug testing, fixing whatever we could to the best of our abilities.<p>But then geotargeting happened. When we launched, we had about 3,xxx downloads starting the first few days- everything looked good. What we didn't expect was how far each user be from one another. A limit of 75miles is nothing when you're selling an app to the entire United States. We immediately got 2 reviews and a ton of feedback telling us that our idea was worth 5 stars but the app didn't work! The reason why it didn't work was because nobody was close to one another to see each other's events! This was a terrible mistake that we should've caught on. By the time that we launched a new revised update and let users know how many people were in their current area and fix what we needed, our app rank had plummeted to the 799th place under social networking. I'm still getting emails occasionally asking me when the app would be fixed, and it's ridiculous that I have to tell them that the App is working but there's not not enough people in their area!<p>At this point, I don't see much hope for recovery- We're at the end of our string and don't know what else we can do. I really needed to rant because this was something I had truly believed it, I truly worked hard for and believed that it wasn't just something stupid I created again on a whim. We tried to follow every piece of advice we were given, learned to be humble, continued to believe in ourselves but feel like all is useless now because we can't geotarget specific cities with the iphone like SF Bay Area or San Diego!<p>Edit: Sorry for the long rant, just had to let out some anger. Thank you.
======
DanielBMarkham
Re-brand. Create a few bitmaps, logos and such, get yourself a new name, fix
your marketing and distribution problem (making the app only "work" for 5
major cities or something) and re-launch. If you think the idea has traction,
fix the problem and go forward. If not, don't. Sounds like you made one
mistake that's affecting the brand -- not that you made one of the thousands
of other mistakes. Count yourself lucky.

With startups, it's never over. That's a good thing and a bad thing! It's bad
because you never really know when to quit, and there's always something else
to do. It's good because there's always another chance.

Also, I've been thinking about this "solve your own problem" and "build the
dream" kind of thinking for a while. I used to be a BIG supporter of this, but
I'm not so sure any more. If you look at good investors, they have learned to
separate what makes them excited from what the right investing decision is. I
think startup founders should be a little more like this: sitting back
dispassionately determining where to invest their time and energy. This is
probably much more practical than trying to find the idea that makes them the
most excited. Build the right thing, the right way, get traction -- you'll get
excited. Trust me. Build something that turns you on, you could be in for a
LONG slog of self-abuse. Startups are hard enough as it is -- for me, at
least, tying my emotional self-worth closely into all that work is a really
bad thing to do.

Odds are you will fail. Any amount of fanciful thinking is not going to change
that. So, when it happens, it shouldn't be the end of the world. Instead, you
should be emotionally in a position where you go, "Interesting! These 7 things
worked. These 2 did not. What can I take from this and move forward? New idea?
Change brands? Pivot? Etc." Being wrapped up in chasing "the one" only makes
this kind of self-analysis _extraordinarily_ more difficult. At least it does
for me.

~~~
ranebo
I agree with the Major cities approach. You need to think about cities where a
lot of people visit/move to and want to meet new people. The market is
certainly there, as my girlfriend and I use meetup.com for exactly this reason
in Tokyo.

Sidenote: I wanted try the app out but couldn't find it in the Australian or
Japanese stores. Have you limited it to US only? If so that seems crazy to me.
So what if there are no other users in the area?, improve the feedback/take
that opportunity to get them to spread the word.

~~~
inkaudio
I think that's one of their biggest challenges, people are using meetup for
this sort of thing. Another thing to keep in mind is 37signals encourage
people not to quit there jobs until they have a hit. A lot of people forget
that. Their motto is risk adverse, slow and calculated way of doing business.
If you read their popular profitable and proud series, majority of the
entrepreneur all seem to have work on their startups as a side project until
they got traction.

------
csomar
Okay. Great idea. Very bad execution. I'm not an expert, but let me explain

1\. Your landing page is terrible. "Create. Connect. Enjoy". Thank you. I
closed the page. This makes no sense for me. Fix that. I'm interested in the
App, because I don't have friends and I'm working odd hours. But "Create.
Connect. Enjoy"?

2\. You should have expected this. You should have known that before. Your
users are dispersed across the earth and you are looking for 75Miles?

3\. So you gave up? Seriously, after all the development and a proof of a good
idea, just give up?

Let me tell you few things:

1\. People in this situation (forever-alone types) are desperate for a
solution.

2\. Adsense and Facebook can do Geotargetting for you. You can target your
audience with keywords (and may be some mix AI/ML to find the right people).
If Facebook can let you select singles, you are done (not sure, but it would
be amazing).

3\. Don't spend advertising money on 30 days. Spend it on few hours. Make the
app work for a single 75Miles on earth and try to get at least 10 or 15
(fairly enough). Start growing from there. Do research on the best location on
earth you can boom from, and may be move their and try to connect as many
people.

4\. I'm interested to discuss or work on this. Send me an email or add me on
Skype ;)

~~~
wyclif
Good advice. I had never been to the landing page till just now. I could not
tell, at a glance and a quick read, what Grooovy is.

That's death. The lowest common denominator user needs to be able to see what
this does right away.

~~~
ricardobeat
+1 on that. "Create" is the first thing you see, and what the hell does the
app have to do with _creation_? The copy seems too focused on the tech side of
things: "No admins. No forms. No approvals" - who cares? I'm not comparing
other apps to yours.

------
mmaunder
Creating a social app in the valley is a long shot, particularly one with no
business model. Don't take this personally, Twitter doesn't have a business
model.

You're also stuck with the chicken egg problem which is hard to solve: You
have no users so you're not useful. I'm familiar with how tough the geo
chicken-egg problem is since I built a foursquare app 4 years before
foursquare came along and it also didn't fly because of the wide distribution
of users. It's still online here: <http://geojoey.com/>

My advice to you is to walk away and chalk it up to a learning experience.
Then go and build a paid application that solves a problem people have and
that isn't being solved by anyone else. Make sure the problem you're solving
is worth money to users, that they have money to spend and that they're the
type of people who spend it. Usually this means the people who use your app
get some kind of direct or indirect ROI from using it. Also try to do it in a
space that is under exploited. The app store is massively crowded and very
noisy.

Don't write a social app. Don't make it free. Don't ever plan to get funding.
Don't give away shares in your business to anyone. Don't feel compelled to
take on a co-founder or partner. Don't use bleeding edge tech for your
business. Don't bother with incubators. Don't surround yourself with other
entrepreneurs all day long. Don't think you need constant input from advisors
or mentors. Do your own thing, be an individual, create real value. Find a
problem that you yourself have and that you would be prepared to pay for and
don't accidentally persuade yourself that you have a fictitious problem - find
a real one that no one else is solving that that is costing you money until it
is solved.

Money talks. Build an app that makes cash and it will change your life.
Sitting on a balcony drinking a mochito at 5pm as your settlement email
arrives telling you you've settled $2k today because people paid for software
you wrote is a feeling few developers experience in their lifetimes and
there's nothing like it.

~~~
mgkimsal
Great advice.

"Then go and build a paid application that solves a problem people have and
that isn't being solved by anyone else."

Sometimes that's not always the best approach. If no one else is solving it,
it may be that the people with the problem won't pay, hence no providers. If
there's solutions out there, it does validate a market/problem/idea.

The trap I see some people fall in to is what you just advised - trying to
come up with something "totally new/unique", when often there's no demand. And
when they see demand for X, they say "oh, XYZ is already solving that". The
trick is determining how well they're solving it, finding customers they
won't/can't serve, and going after that.

But yeah, don't make a social app, don't give away free stuff, etc - all your
"don't"s - great list. And yeah, making money is a good feeling. It also gives
you a much stronger position to explore new ideas from, rather than from a
position of "oh crap there's only 4 boxes of macaroni left and I'm late on my
rent".

EDIT: the 'great advice' really was meant to be 'great advice', not
sarcastically spoken. I think pretty much everything in that post was great,
except for the one line I called out. :)

------
oscilloscope
You have the classic chicken-egg social networking problem. To get users, you
need users. So how do you get users?

Actually you don't need users to start, you just need good source of events
that users might be interested in. You can make the app more functional by
including other sources, such as the Meetup API:

<http://www.meetup.com/meetup_api/>

Then, even if no one's posted through your app itself, they can find things to
do.

------
PaulHoule
This is the most interesting "Tell HN" I've seen in a while because it touches
on many issues.

(1) A lot of us are attracted to SEO, app stores, and free and freemium
business models because we don't want to do marketing. It's clear that you
need to work hard at marketing if you're trying to sell an enterprise product
that costs $10,000/seat/year, but people forget that a "free" website
supported by advertising or a $5.99 app needs just us much work (and sometimes
expense)

(2) For a long time I've been cynical about "hyperlocal" because it usually
seems to mean "San Francisco and Brooklyn". Put any thought of those two
markets out of your mind, because (a) you've got tough competition from VC-
backed companies and (b) people who really think will think you're just
another sheep. You should target some second-tier market, say Denver or Boston
or Chicago or Washington, DC. San Diego is probably OK.

(3) As for geotargeting, there is a wide range of "old school" marketing
channels that can be geotargeted. These include advertising on local cable TV,
weekly newspapers, radio as well as fliers, stickers, and the like. You can
also buy geotargeted ads on platforms like Facebook and Google.

(4) To saturate a target market takes more effort and/or money that most
people want to spend. If you can't afford to hit a second-tier market, go for
a third or fourth tier market. I know of people in Ithaca NY that have been
blanketing the downtown area with lawn signs and fliers to promote a new site
-- this is a small enough market that a person can put up 500 fliers on
bulletin boards on foot on a weekend.

(5) To drive your marketing campaign you may need to rustle up some cash. Find
a way to do it.

(6) Success in a target market can lead to you rustling up more cash for over
markets, getting publicity, etc.

(7) 75 miles seems like a really long distance to me to hang out with people I
don't know unless I share some kind of exceptionally strong interest with
them.

~~~
ffumarola
Philly would be good, we have a ton of universities here.

------
djb_hackernews
There is a lot of competition in this space[1], and as someone who has a side
project that is in this space I feel like I can give you some advice. (I
should really write a general blog post because I seem to be giving this
advice frequently)

I can't help much with the mental aspect. My service started out very
similarly, the premise was someone that had some free time and wanted to find
a tennis partner, a concert buddy, someone to practice their french etc.

I "launched", and the immediate feedback was basically 1) There isn't anything
there, so I'm not compelled to post anything. 2) I don't really want to meet
strangers on the internet.

You've run into 1) and you say your beta users didn't have the same feelings
as 2). I'm worried you selected the wrong beta users, and you didn't catch
this problem early enough.

I "pivoted" by scrapping the self post idea, and becoming an aggregator. I
aggregate events from several social/local event services[2], and now that
people are using it, I'm getting feedback that they'd like to be able to add
their own events!

To summarize a lot of great feedback already, I think you should launch in a
few metro areas and seed the events with events from other services. I'd also
study the competition (and there is plenty of it, which is a good thing) to
see what works, what doesn't, what sorts of features are expected for
applications like this, etc. I'd also consider kicking the native apps and
going html5. All the features you need for a social/local/mobile app are built
into browsers, so why not develop once and make everyone happy?

[1] Swerve on ios, upout.com, GatheringPoint, brom.ly, Everyblock, my own
service impromptudo.com

[2] meetup, eventbrite, active.com, yahoo! etc

------
physcab
Launching an app in the App Store is hard. And the App Store is an incredibly
stressful environment because essentially you only get 2 weeks to settle into
a rank that will be the basis of your success. If you fuck it up, you're
pretty much done because discovery on the app store is broken.

I work for a social game company that has invested orders of magnitude more
time and money into figuring out the best route to launch an app, and even
they recognize that even after all their analysis and beta-testing, they too
can fail. But they have the most disciplined process to give them the best
shot at winning. I'll offer a few pieces of advice from seeing their launch
process:

1) Beta test internally until the app is "good enough" for launch. Bugs are
ok. Put in monetization features immediately and test.

2a) Come up with a target rank you want to achieve (both safe and stretch) and
figure out how you need to get there. For example, if your goal is to get into
the top 10 free games, you need to have around 1.5 million downloads a month.
To get into the top 25, you need about 1 million. Understanding these targets
helps hone your strategy.

2b) You can't afford to not do some initial projections in your industry. For
a free-to-play game as an example, DAU and churn and Lifetime Value are
important metrics. You need to setup some initial benchmarks for these
metrics, so you can gauge if you're being "successful" in your launch.

3) Don't launch in the U.S initially. As you've found out, you only get one
chance, and the U.S is a huge market to fuck up. One great thing about the App
Store is that it has geo-targeting built into its distribution, so launch in a
much smaller market that might validate your idea. We chose New Zealand,
because its a large enough market to beta-test an idea, but "Whatever Happens
in New Zealand Stays In New Zealand" as our marketing director put it.

4) If you fuck up a beta-tested market, don't worry, theres about 25 others
that you can use before launching in the "mainstream" markets.

5) You will have to pour money into ads, but you only have to do it for 2
weeks because ranking in the App Store is determined by velocity of downloads.
So as soon as you launch, target with any ad-system you can get your hands on
from Admob, InMobi, Facebook, Google, TapJoy, whatever. This will cost you
lots of money, but this is what it takes to succeed. There is simply too much
competition in the App Store.

~~~
scott_w
Totally agree with the market comment.

You're selling a product that needs to leverage the network effect, otherwise
it's useless. Marketing this product in a geographically sparse environment
such as the USA means you need more users before you hit the "tipping point",
at which it becomes useful.

Consider Facebook: it started as a Harvard project. That meant that it could
become useful with a user-base measured in hundreds, as the population was
densely packed.

In contrast, your product had a user-base of 3000, in a population of
300,000,000. That works out as 0.001%. I'm not a statistician, but the maths
would show that the likelihood of a particular person knowing another user
nearby is very low.

I'm not saying your business is a failure, and it can still be salvaged if you
have the will, but you should definitely look at this as a learning exercise
just as you did with your first startup.

I wish you luck in whatever it is you choose to do.

------
Jach
Lots of good advice from others here. The point is reiterated that you need
users to be useful--but that's not exactly the case. What you need is data,
more specifically information on someone nearby your User who wants to meet
up.

So searching your local existing user-base for nearby other users is the
easiest way, and if you limit yourself to that, the only way. But since you
really just need other people's information, you can just steal that
information. Monitor places like meetup.com, public tweets, public facebook
posts, craigslist, etc. Direct your Users to the results. Possibly solicit
other people on behalf of the User. (There are a lot of "Anyone at Hotel X
want to grab a coffee?" posts at conventions, for instance, often with
hashtags you can set followup monitors on.) Sign up with the top competitor
and route some queries through their network.

> During our last startup, we sacrificed all the time we had with friends,
> family, and ignored our relationships for the most part.

So you're not doing this any more, right? Good. Especially for your case, you
should constantly be thinking about how you meet other people and how you
signal your desire to meet other people, strangers or not, and work on
figuring out how to assimilate the data and the action into your app.

~~~
kls
Yep that is what I was thinking, integrate with some data streams to get the
data. Use those providers to solicit new users by making your app work with
the workflow of those applications. The twitter idea is a perfect example.
Foursquare would be another one, pick up checkin data, use it to find people
that may be interested in meeting.

------
tzs
I had an app idea a few years ago, a few months before the 2008 election, that
I never got around to developing, that would fit right in with what you have
now, and the time is soon going to be right for it. I'm not going to ever get
around to this one, so feel free to take it if it would enhance your app.

The idea was to provide an app that would schedule people to meet up over
coffee or lunch, but with the purpose of having an interesting debate or
discussion, so the app would offer a list of debate topics and you could say
which side you were interested in taking, and it would match you up with
someone who wanted the other side.

Topics could include things like: Republican_X vs. Republican_Y, Republican_X
vs. Obama, vim vs. emacs, pro-life vs. pro-choice, Edward vs. Jacob, Newton
vs. Leibniz, Python vs. Ruby, Protestant vs. Catholic, Should Marijuana be
Legalized?, Legalize Gay Marriage or not?, controversial state or local ballot
issues and initiatives, and so on.

------
edw519
It sure looks like you've been through quite a bit and, at the very least,
deserve some brutally honest feedback from this community.

Many may not agree with me and this may not make you feel much better, but
after reading your experience, quite a few thoughts came to my mind. In no
particular order:

 _I kinda knew it was going to happen_

What? That's a horrible attitude and probably a self-fulfilling prophesy. I
know of many cases (mine included) where everything was "perfect", world-
changing idea, solid team, great skill, intense passion, practically a perfect
alignment of the stars, and it _still failed_. Software is hard! Startups are
harder! You will probably fail anyway, so if you attitude isn't 100%, then you
should save yourselves and everyone else a lot of trouble and not even bother.

 _truly believed that my current startup had potential to grow_

See my remarks above. You may have been right about your startup's potential
and still failed. This is normal!

 _I lost the one chance I had_

This is ridiculous so just get it out of your head. We all get _many_ chances.
Many successful entrepreneurs failed (several times) before they succeeded.

 _Given that we didn't have any programming or design experience_

Then I'm not surprised you failed. Those of us with lots of experience, myself
included, are constantly encouraging those with little or no experience to
pursue building virtual stuff. It's a wonderful avocation with great
opportunity for career satisfaction. But please don't mistake encouragement
for approval. You will have to pay your dues first. Sure, it's much easier to
come up to speed quickly now than it used to be, but you still have to get
_something_ under your belt before you can build good stuff. Like I said
earlier, it's tough enough for the best of us to succeed with a startup; by
definition, it's tougher for you.

 _One of the startup advice that I hear most often is to create a product that
solves a problem of your own (37signals) because there's bound to be people
like you who have the same problem._

There's no guarantee of that. Worse, lots of others may be thinking the same
thing, so we end up with lots of teams building the same useless thing that
they all want but no one else does. Or others may want, but not badly enough
to pay. It's interesting advice that has been effective for some people, but
frankly, I've never liked it. As a natural outlier, I would _never_ build
something that I want. For me, that's just a recipe for failure. I'd much
rather pound the pavement and find out what others want and are willing to pay
for.

Please take this advice, like all advice on Hacker News, 37 Signals, or
anywhere else with a grain of salt. Our industry is still in its infancy so
there are few rules yet, just lots of guidelines. One of the best skills you
can have now is to be able to distinguinguish between which advice is good or
bad _for you_.

 _we sacrificed all the time we had with friends, family, and ignored our
relationships for the most part_

First of all, that's a bad attitude. Life is a zero-sum game, so by
definition, you can't have it all. Using the word "sacrificed" to describe the
thing you choose not to have is problematic. You chose A and didn't choose B.
Fine. But you sacrificed nothing. In fact, you're probably way ahead. You
learned stuff that most others never do, and the people who really matter are
still there. By definition, you can't possibly lose real friends by living
your life the way you choose. Anyone you lost was never really a friend in the
first place.

 _It was miserable and lonely_

Then you're in the wrong business. I spend 90% of my time alone with my
computer and I love it! I have figured out how to balance work and life, but
make no mistake about it, if you choose to be a programmer, and especially if
you choose to start a startup, you will be alone with your ones a zeros a lot.
If that doesn't absolutely turn you on, then maybe you should consider doing
something else.

 _still dreaming of get rich quick schemes_

Fuck. That. Shit.

If you're doing this to get rich, then please just stop and go do something
else. Law school, medical school, Wall Street, selling ebooks, whatever.

I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but in order to succeed with software (and
software startups), you must focus on many more things before money. First,
you must absolutely love what you do. If you don't, then you will end up
writing posts like yours. Then you must have an undying determination to build
that which must be built (according to you). Anything less is a sure recipe
for failure.

Sure, lots of us get rich but many more don't. And those that do often observe
that even though they did the absolute best that they could, the real riches
came from sources beyond their control: they got lucky or were in the right
place at the right time.

There are lots of great reasons for building the stuff we build. IMHO,
"getting rich" is not one of them.

 _That was the key- it would really tackle the problem of not being able to
meet people and just socialize_

It sounds like you may have gotten feedback in an echo chamber; that is, you
talked to alot of similar people so you _thought_ you had a random sample but
really didn't. Frankly, the idea of using technology to accomplish that which
is better done without technology (meeting people and not being lonely) is not
appealing at all to me. (Previous disclaimer: I am an outlier, so I understand
that I may be in the minority.)

 _This was a terrible mistake that we should've caught on._

Never say "should've". It's not possible to "should've". Now you know. It may
not seem that way right now, but that's actually a _good_ thing.

 _...this was something I had truly believed it, I truly worked hard for and
believed that it wasn't just something stupid I created again on a whim._

It was not stupid and was not done on a whim. If it was you wouldn't have
gotten as far as you did.

 _We tried to follow every piece of advice we were given..._

Advice is input. Not all input should be processed.

 _...just had to let out some anger._

Good! Now relax and listen...

You probably won't believe me now, so come back and read this in 30 days...

You are actually in great shape! You have learned things that most people in
our industry _never_ learn. Like Edison, you know x ways to _not_ do a
startup. So relax, regroup, do something else to feel better for a while, then
when you think the time is right, do it again. Use all that you learned to go
again without making the same mistakes. There will never be any guarantees,
but you should feel confident you will be much better next time.

~~~
adriand
I wonder how much better the startup scene would be if 'get rich quick' was
supplanted by 'create something of value that generates a good standard of
living'.

~~~
polyfractal
Considerably, I imagine.

Also include changing " _solves a problem of your own_ " to " _solve a problem
that people will pay for_ "

------
kghose
Perhaps I don't understand the app, but I would have thought that the radius
depends on population density.

In a city or town 75mi would be be waay to much, and too little in rural
areas.

I assume most users would come from cities and I would think that the limit
would be a few city blocks - the distance I would be willing to walk to hang
out with strangers after work.

------
rickmb
One maybe slightly odd piece of advice: travel. Go out there and see
experience how other people live.

Because the whole 75 mile radius thing suggests to me that you a limited view
of the world. That distance has very different meaning in many places,
depending on population density, culture, transportation etc. "Near" and "far"
are not universal constants, and understanding that was pretty central to your
app.

There are many other variables like that, many of which are especially
relevant to both mobile apps and social networking, both of which are heavily
influenced by context.

------
jjm
Rebrand as the others have said. If you really want to segment users you can
rebrand by city, that is a new app per city. This would also afford you
another means to A/B beta test features.

Personally anytime I see "social" I stay away. Other than the one or two
surprise apps that come out a year the space is beyond crowded.

Good Luck!

------
Maro
You, as a person, have not failed! There is no shame in what has happened.

This kind of startup is very high risk, as it has numerous "problems", such as
chicken-and-egg, being dependent on the app store rankings, saturation in the
app store, saturation in the social space, etc. Also, as you said "we didn't
have any programming or design experience", no funding, no accelerator
program. In other words, your chances were very slim to begin with. If you
have good friends [+], they probably said something along those lines to keep
your expectations close to the ground.

So, your idea was most likely to fail and that's what happened. On the other
hand, you learned a lot! You learned about programming, design, releasing
apps, and all the countless real-life issues one encounters when trying to
launch a new product. That is invaluable.

You're still young, so no worries, you have lots of room left!

As others have pointed out, if you want to push on with this idea, just pull
the app from the store and relaunch a rebranded version in a smarter way.
(Can't you geo-target by calling the app "XYZ for San Francisco" and "XYZ for
San Diego"? Once you have enough traction, you can unite the apps, don't worry
about it now.)

Or you can do something else. If not having an income is an issue, perhaps you
can do some consulting work on the side, like 37signals, the company you
cited.

Or if you had enough for now, take a job and chill for a year, there's no
shame in it!

Best of luck!

[+] A true friend points out your mistakes, even at the risk of losing your
friendship.

------
basixx
I don't want to beat up on you. I admire your tenacity and entrepreneurism.
You also have a good idea with Grooovy.

But I gotta tell you man, the copywriting on the website is bloody awful. Some
of the worst I've ever read.

Nonsensical cliches like "breaking barriers" and "in the driver's seat" look
amateurish and discredit your app. You didn't think to get a Copywriter's
opinion?

Rewrite the page, or better yet, contact someone who can for a decent rate.

My email is in my profile if your interested (I'm a copywriter).

~~~
Sukotto
If you don't mind some feedback...

Instead of harshing on the OP, making him find your email, and beg for help,
don't you think a more proactive approach would be more valuable to the
conversation?

Like the following, for instance.

-

"As a copywriter, I see quite a few common mistakes on your landing page. I
took a few minutes and made a first pass at cleaning it up. (Find a
before/after article on my blog here: [link] )

I'm happy to help you improve your (or any HNer's) site copy. Drop me a line
to discuss. Email's in my profile"

-

This more proactive approach is far more likely to actually help someone.
Based on others who have offered non-programming services/advice on HN, it
seems likely to lead to some freelance/consulting work should you desire some.

Make it clear that you only spent 5/10/15 minutes on your draft. That sets
expectations about quality, while still showing people how much better things
could be with help from a real copywriter.

Food for thought.

~~~
basixx
I'm on my iPhone. In bed with a bad cold. I also don't do work for free
(unless it's a charity I have selected).

I appreciate your suggestions nonetheless.

------
MediaSquirrel
OP said: We tried to follow every piece of advice we were given, learned to be
humble, continued to believe in ourselves but feel like all is useless now
because we can't geotarget specific cities with the iphone like SF Bay Area or
San Diego!

Why not just call the app "Groovy SF" and brand it as a SF-local app, so that
people's expectations are set correctly? You can't technically geotarget, but
you can hack it.

------
adi92
Don't worry too much. Life is like that. Had you taken care of this problem
beforehand, I am pretty sure some other major problem would have turned up.
When you create something new, you have to deal with 100s of problems. No one
gets it right in version 1 itself. What you need to do is to be able to calmly
work through all the issues that come up and think about what you can do to
recover the traction your app initially seemed to be getting.

Your app is tricky because I can derive value from not when I install it, but
when all my friends install it as well. This implies you guys should make it
really really really easy for me to get my friends on it as well. Perhaps you
can take my phone contact list and show all those users as my friends within
your app the moment I install it, and send the other users an SMS (using
twilio) or email if I try to interact with them using your app. This way you
can disguise your cold start from the user and make it more useful to him from
day 1.

------
dragons
iamjonlee, You've got my sympathy; I can understand your anger, but it's not
productive.

I checked out your twitter feed, and you appear to have 3 whole posts all of
which sound like marketing blah. Your HN post is much more interesting, and
gives me a reason to "follow" you and your app (I don't have an iDevice so
ordinarily I'd completely disregard your app). I suggest you write a blog with
fairly frequent posts updating your progress. You can put more detail in a
blog. At least, update your twitter feed more often, and keep it real so
there's a personality behind it, not some marketing robot.

BTW to the people complaining about the fact that the app is only available at
itunes, keep in mind these guys are strapped for resources.

People have suggested rebranding... I guess another option is to port to
android and launch it there with all problems solved. Don't know how realistic
that would be given they're low on resources.

------
tekromancr
Relax! You have a killer product! So you made a bit of an oversight, big deal.
You made the right choice by limiting it to a limited area for now. Promote
the shit out of this, build in some easy ways for users to promote their
events to friends and it will have a chance of catching on.

------
revorad
Why can't you geotarget specific cities? That seems to be the strategy most
successful mobile location apps start with.

Edit: and 75 miles is HUGE. On average I probably travel only within a 15
miles radius (max) of my house. I expect I'm fairly typical in that regard.

~~~
rvkennedy
This reminds me of the problems Color had initially. They launched it
worldwide, when a targeted rollout in densely populated tech areas (e.g. SXSW)
would have given them a small number of happy users to build from, instead of
a larger number of pissed off ones ( [http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/29/how-
many-mulligans-does-col...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/29/how-many-
mulligans-does-color-get/)). But grooovy hasn't, I assume got $50 million of
funding, so you won't get hammered for wasting it. Target the tech-heavy
cities, like SF, Boston, London, where lots of people have iPhones and use a
lot of apps, and where tech journalists live.

~~~
3lit3H4ck3r
Great advice! I love HN!

~~~
happypeter
Yes, every time you post something here, there would always be many people who
care and know show up. HN is a great community.

------
pinaceae
your product name sucks.

let's see what the main idea (and issue) is. proximity. you need to educated
people, remind them constantly what the core of your product is.

75 miles is a bit much, meeting people is more realistic within a 5 mile
radius, isn't it?

call the product "5miles".

super simple, everyone will understand. if you ever branch into metric
countries, add "5kilometers".

------
AznHisoka
I got 2 pieces of advice:

1) When you're building any app that requires a network effect, the most
important thing is not fixing bugs, or usability, or creating an awesome
product. That's important, yes, but it all pales in comparison to: getting
users. So, from day 1 you need to build a list of people who are interested in
using it. Spend 20+ hours a week building that list through Adwords, forums,
talking with people, networking with bloggers, etc. That way when you launch,
you avoid the scenario you just had. "Build it and they will come" is the
absolutely worst thing you can do for a social app.

2) If I were you, I would pivot this idea. I would make this app immediately
useful to everyone in the US by aggregating social or free events in their
city, and having a weekly newsletter that they could subscribe to (ala
DailyCandy). I think someone recently got featured in TC for doing something
like. Plug in your zip code, we sent you a list of weekend events to meet
singles. Cool, simple value proposition. Doesn't require any network effects.
And a very apparent future business model: allow people to advertise their
events in the email.

------
keeptrying
Right now you feel like you've lost a huge opportunity - I had something like
this happen recently but actually you haven't. You've learned something here.
Truth is without learning this lesson, you can't really overcome it. True for
everything really.

Rebrand, regroup etc but jeep going if users find you valuable. If you need to
get a job to tide things over then do so.

If you need some inspiration, have a look at this:

Quora.com/startup-inspiration

------
tstegart
One thing people haven't discussed is how much your are personally involved in
your business. I'd like you and others like you to take a step back and
evaluate that aspect.

While being personally involved has advantages, namely
passion/commitment/overriding work ethic, it also has disadvantages. Namely,
that when your business starts failing, it feels as if you are failing, and
when your business ends it feels as if you have failed.

I think the business suggestions people have below are very good, especially
about concentrating on new cities. But you should also work on the
psychological aspect of your business. In this case, reducing the belief that
you and the business are the same. They are not. Business is business, and all
over the world they fail for reasons outside the entrepreneur's control every
day across the world. Lack of capital, timing, world events, technology,
competitors, you name it.

I think a little bit of reduction in how much of your well-being is invested
in this business will be good for you. When you start to think of your
business as just a business, and not an integral part of who you are, then you
realize it can fail and you will be ok. It allows you to bounce back quicker
and be a better analyst on what is going wrong, instead of thinking that the
solution to everything is working longer hours and coding harder (Not that
your post suggested you are doing this, but some people do).

Thanks for posting by the way. I agree with the other person that said this is
by far one of HN's most interesting posts in a while. I hope you manage to
implement some of the advice people have given you. But if it doesn't work
out, now worries. Another business opportunity will come. They have been
coming for the millennium of human existence, and they will keep coming. And
you will be stronger and better adapted to the next one, if that is what you
want to tackle in life.

------
6ren
Your mental health is #1. Hopefulness and camaraderie can enable you to solve
seemingly impossible and overwhelming problems - but seemingly impossible
problems won't give you hope or camaraderie. (by "mental health", I mean
analogous to physical health - being fit and in good shape). Posting this
shows you already know it.

Getting critical mass is a ordinary standard marketing problem. See "Crossing
the Chasm". It's about niche marketing: it suggests ways targeting a very
specific subset of users, and then adding another niche ("bowling alley") and
another. It's not about _geographical_ niches, but you could apply the
approaches to "geo-niches".

Though, it also might help your app if you target like-minded niches of
people, e.g. based on sports, or cinemas, or plays. Or follow facebook's
beginnings, and target local universities or schools...

Marketing is just as much work as creating the product (if not more), and it
sounds like you need some recuperation time if you want to tackle it. You can
always launch again.

------
dsleno
Hey, man. Welcome to the club! Failure sucks but its the stuff of wisdom. I
hope you haven't thrown in the towel completely. You need to give you your app
a toe hold. Start local. Go to the local college and give it away. Do some
interviews. Take out a few cheap local radio ads. Try to reach a tipping point
in your market. Find clusters of people who want to use it, like a fraternity
or sorority. Pay a local bar to promote it. Do a contest like "find me and get
a free beer." Yes, not quite the easy overnight success we all envision.
Sometimes its like that. Use this local feedback to improve, then rebrand it
as grooooovy and launch national again, this time with the ability to zoom
your range from 500 miles to 100 feet. Don't give up just because you hit a
little bump, like a failed launch. My friends and I have bounced back from
worse. <http://bit.ly/ysXZTz>

------
colinm
Sounds like meetup.com (but without the users). How is it different?

~~~
catfish
BINGO!!!

Good point colinm,

I briefly checked and didn't see a phone app there, so maybe they could use
your idea!

They even have a "we're hiring" link. That might be your vector to getting
their attention. Better to buy than build.

You might even get them to buy you out...

------
DyumanBhatt
Make the changes required to fix the single biggest gripe you have gotten, and
relaunch under a new name.

Some tough love for you: Quit being so negative and complaining about hard
work failing. It's a part of entrepreneurship - things will go wrong. How are
you (especially if you are a CEO or founder) going to pivot and survive
despite the hardship?

Dust yourself off, take a deep breathe, deal with the problem in front of you
and address the core issue.

Your product plan made the assumption that a million users would use it
locally. This part never happened, so how are you going to fix it?

This isn't only a tech problem, but also a marketing issue. You need to
address how you will get a lot of users in one geographic location using it in
order to make it really thrive.

You have to find the strength in yourself.

------
capsule_toy
I think the biggest mistake is you pursued a high risk startup relying on the
first iteration to go smoothly without having a plan in case things did not go
well.

It sounds like you're running out of money personally? You need to fix that
first. Realize that you've shown you can build an iPhone application and try
to leverage that into some work. Or try to get external funding for your idea.

I wouldn't give up on Grooovy but make sure you're not in a bad situation if
it doesn't take off or it just takes longer than you think to get traction. It
usually ends up taking longer than you think.

The only feedback I have for the idea itself is be very careful about what
people say they want. They may be imagining a different execution, or they may
like the idea but will never use it.

------
Raphael
Why do you only want to socialize with people who have iPhones? Make a web app
that anyone can use.

------
corkill
Using the 37 signals line you quoted. The key word you missed was solved. Like
you worked out this doesn't solve the problem because there aren't enough
users using it. That's another problem to solve.

The best advice from the thread already target a specific city. Lock down that
city then move on (I wouldn't choose SF as already so many geo mobile startups
targeting it, also SF users maybe don't represent the broader market).

Also leverage existing API's. Or hell become an API combining all other
sources and let other people build the apps (seems to me the real problem,
billion people connected to different networks). If I look on meetup maybe I'm
missing out on great events from other sites, but I don't have time to search
them all.

~~~
iamjonlee
That's a very valid point. Our problem was solved, this is just another
problem. I didn't just focus on a specific city, I chose SF Bay Area- this was
because most people who tested this product were interested in meeting
elsewhere (such as driving to a specific restaurant or location to meet
people) or attend events within a reasonable driving distance.

While I understand that choosing SF may have a lot of competition, most of the
advertisers I've talked to don't have good stats on any of the surrounding
cities. I'll look into this and see if there's a better alternative.

Your API idea is pretty interesting, I didn't think about using other APIs
because our focus was so different.

------
tatsuke95
I admire your enthusiasm and dedication. But are you sure this is for you?

With no programming or design experience, a less than stellar idea (sorry) and
apparently no business model, why are you trying to "get rich quick" in the
app scene? In my opinion, if you hang around the tech scene/sites for too
long, you begin to believe that succeeding in this space is easy. It's not.

It's sometimes treated as blasphemy 'round these parts, but have you thought
about getting some corporate experience? You will reveal to yourself a whole
other world of problems that need solving (B2B, a _huge_ space) as well as
learning how to really model a business. Worst case, you'll become
reinvigorated to work for yourself.

------
helen842000
It sounds to me like you've done everything that is in your control. Stop
beating yourself up about the aspect that you have very little influence over
(the app becoming popular)

You designed, built & shipped the shell of a social network. Now you have an
empty db that once filled will be useful, interesting and used by a lot of
people.

Now you've got to find the events and go some way towards populating your
database to show to your early adopters that your concept works.

You've got several options.

a) Seek out other event agregators where open invitations are ok. See if you
can get a stream of data into your app from events that are already taking
part in these places. Speak to a few University groups, get them to try it out
in a larger focus group. Get them to post their social gatherings up on the
app, to gauge their longer term feedback. If they keep using it, great!

b) Contact other founders that have had similar chicken & egg issues. Ask for
their advice. Implement & test any insights they give you.

c) Turn the tables round slightly. It seems your app users are looking for a
hangout they can join. Why not prompt your users to create their own first and
be the 'host' instead of expecting there to be ones they can join. Maybe you
make it so they HAVE to host one before they get to join others in the future?

d)Try to team up with some open invitation events, perhaps event ticketed
events may fit in. Fundraisers, sports events etc even if it doesn't fit your
'personal hangout' criteria. It shows you've done your best to populate the
database. Who knows, if you joined up with Startup Weekends or a wide spread
event, you may even get a sponsor!

e) Find ways to integrate posting to Grooovy as part of other social networks.
This could involve all tweets @grooovy with the #hangout and city being auto
added to the app. You could try this manually first. The hosts don't actually
need to have the app, they just need to share their event information with you
so your searchers can join in.

I think you've come 90% of the way and are reeling from the shock that you
'built it' but they didn't come (yet).

You haven't fallen at the last hurdle. You just need to find new & inventive
ways to jump it!

Be sure to update us on your progress!

------
tobtoh
One idea that popped into my head - perhaps look at targeting the business
traveller. I'm by no means a frequent business traveller, but on the occasion
that I have done some trips, it would be great if there was a local whom was
interested in sharing a meal with a stranger. Sure beats eating alone in a
restaurant or room service.

Perhaps you can get some tie-in with conventions - ie sign up with this app
and find people to share a meal with whilst on convention.

------
neilk
Sorry that you are so dispirited.

If you can bear a suggestion, perhaps release many different apps/sites
branded with the city name. Like, "Grooovy NYC". Or, perhaps even better, try
a lot of apps/sites each branded with the name of a university.

Social sites, as far as I can tell, need small "nucleation" points. In many
cases it is the developers' friends and family. But in your case that won't
work, you need a seed audience that also shares a schedule.

------
manmal
I love the idea! But, I have not heard of your app before. You should consider
raising its awareness - brainstorm some, there's lots of possibilities: funny
YT videos, a small adwords budget, sending a well-written digest to tons of
app-reviewing journals/blogs, drawing a public stunt the newspaper will write
about; Also mind that Facebook's USP was exclusivity at first - your audience
is definitely too broad now.

~~~
pavlov
_... funny YT videos, a small adwords budget, sending a well-written digest to
tons of app-reviewing journals/blogs ..._

Don't bother. Everybody tries these, and they won't get you any attention.

Unless you're Sony and you have a million dollars to blow on mindbending
visuals for a product commercial, uploading stuff on YouTube is pointless.

AdWords won't do anything unless your product targets a very specific niche.

There are 500,000 apps on the iOS and Android app stores, so app reviewers get
far too many review requests. If you get any feedback, it will be from a shady
review site who wants you to pay for the chance that your app may be looked
at.

~~~
manmal
An optimist here, eh? :) All of your arguments presume a lack of quality - I
would not do that. Also, YMMV - it seems your mileage has already varied, but
please don't extrapolate too much from your experiences
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction>).

------
suren
I could relate to how you feel.

I think your original idea to find new people is novel and not yet clearly
solved.

I think failures are part of a startup.

There should be no reason why you should feel "frustrated" and "pretty
useless". If not for anything else you would be in a very good position who
could solve the problem of meeting new people with all the learnings that you
have now from grooovy.

Its only your approach to the idea that failed. Not you.

~~~
iamjonlee
Thanks, we do realize now that no matter what, just like our first failed
startup- it was a learning experience and will allow us to not make the same
mistake in the future.

------
alvarosm
You might have had to start in a particular city and promote your app heavily
there. You might still be able to, I don't know. But this was a risk from the
beginning, you knew that, right? You might find this post-mortem interesting:
<http://meetro.lefora.com/2008/05/21/meetro-post-mortem/>

~~~
iamjonlee
Very good reading, thank you. We did launh an update to focus in only SF bay
areas for now but will still need work to securing users.

------
amorphid
You have just learned what marketing is all about! There needs to be a way to
get people to find out about your app. I suggest spending time figuring out
how to get people in your local area to start using it, quickly followed by
getting people in your local area to somehow pay for it.

~~~
iamjonlee
Yep! lesson learned. We're already looking into geotargeting advertising but
it still seems that it'll be beyond our budgets before we can reach that
tipping point where everyone can utilize it fully. We'll continue to think of
alternatives, thanks!

------
TheRealmccoy
Dont give up. At least you were able to build the product and test it. Thats a
super-duper achievement and you should be proud of that. This is my 19th
month, and second iteration of the product would be over this month. Exactly
your credentials, non-coder, non-designer. Keep the faith.

~~~
iamjonlee
Thank you! It really makes us feel better to know someone else is out there
with a similar background.

------
phzbOx
This example also stress the importance of checking assumptions as fast as
possible. With a really badly done prototype, you could have found this
problem 5 months 1/2 before. I think this is a huge lesson to learn from that.
And if you did, you're on your way to start a great startup.

------
notahacker
Not sure why you're being so hard on yourself when some of SV's top serial-
entrepreneurs and engineers with $41 million in venture capital and huge tech
blog coverage to aid with their launch had the same problem launching a
similar geolocated app.

------
BonoboBoner
At least you are out there hustling, which deserves a ton of respect. Dont
feel bad, because you have come further than most other people wishing they
had it in them to push so far.

Never a failure, always a lesson.

------
DanBC
What's your Facebook page for people to share this idea with their pals?

~~~
iamjonlee
We took our Facebook page down- it was mostly spammed by robotos and
advertisements. We saw much more success by having just the tweet button
alone.

------
mapster
Getting a foothold in the marketplace by launching a city specific version is
great. Or cater the service to a niche group, such as medical students or
other group looking for social options.

~~~
iamjonlee
Yeah we originally planned to allow it for all of US but because of the sparse
users all spread out, we quickly focused on San Franciso bay areas first. The
niche does sound Like an idea to consider though, thank you.

------
mike-cardwell
The idea sounds good, but I'll never use it because it seems to be iPhone only
and I have an Android phone. If it was a website, or a multi-platform app, I'd
give it a try.

~~~
iamjonlee
We didn't have prior experience with any programming or design experience
prior to this app. While we are considering eventually learning Android, it
won't be for a while because we'd have to start from scratch again and it
would be better to find a way to the app to work for iphone for now.

------
tehayj
Provide value first and then create a service for your users... has worked
over and over for me.

------
herval
it looks like it's the same problem color.com had - sparse users
(geographically), thus making the app "useless"?

I didn't check the app (and groovy.me is a parked domain), but couldn't you
bake in any feature that would ask for people to bring in friends/spreading
virally?

~~~
iamjonlee
I didn't realize that color.com had a similar problem. The only thing I
remember about them is that they spent 350k purchasing their domain name. We
did have features that allowed people to share events but didn't actually
offer any incentive to spread virally. It was something we should've done, but
we couldn't think of what we could do- there isn't really a incentive we can
offer to joining an event. We could give our free drinks- but there's a limit
of how much freebies we can provide. The idea was that once they actually try
out an event in real life, they would find value and find it worth it to share
to their friends then. I admit though, this should be a much bigger priority
on our list.

------
instakill
Another bit of advice: Launch in Europe, where population density is much
higher.

~~~
thhaar
Agreed. According to my secret source (wiki-p) UK has 8x more people per mile
than the US. Germany has 7x more. Total population of these two countries
combined: 143,799,308. Get translated into French and Spanish and watch users
roll in. Potentially.

EDIT: The copy on the site needs work.

. The expressions used (meet to your mood, break barriers, you in the driving
seat) are either non-standard and odd, slowing down the reader, or cliche,
losing meaning and impact.

. The punctuation is mixed - periods slow down readers, make them stop reading
at times.

. You obviously get that you need to keep it short, but IMO you've picked the
wrong words in a bunch of places.

And to couple these critical thoughts with the helpful - I'll offer to sit
down with another copywriting colleague and go over the main points we see at
no charge. This could increase conversion, but no guarantees.

~~~
iamjonlee
Fantastic advice from you and Instakill, thank you. I had never even
considered starting in another country besides the US. It definitely sounds
like a starting place to seriously consider. I agree that the copy on the site
needs to be redone- I actually had a copywriter do that, and even though it
didntl completely feel right with us, we went along with it- after all, the
copywriter (no names) was a highly sought after professional with a solid
track record. Thank you for the kind offer to mention to your colleague, it
would really be appreciated if you could do that. Even if it doesn't increase
conversions, it's still worth a definite try. Please feel free to reach me by
email if you need more information. Thanks

~~~
thhaar
Heads up: a few days back I sent you a before/after doc which may have been
filtered out by your inbox. I can resend elsewhere if you want - I used the
address at the bottom of the Terms page.

------
bira
Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming.

\- Yours truly, Richard Branson

;)

------
nate
99% of folks running their own businesses have and are going through this
exact same thing. You aren't alone, and like others are saying, you are
actually in great shape and growing a ton.

I know very well how depressing and devastating this stuff can be. Email me
(nate@inklingmarkets.com) immediately if you need to chat with someone about
this stuff and we can talk on the phone.

Also, I know how this stuff you are talking about can lead to depression and
then lead people to do some awful things to themselves. If you have any
thoughts going down that road about life not being worth living, please,
please talk to someone trained to talk about this stuff. Many of us have gone
through thoughts just like this, and it will get better. They are just
thoughts, and I guarantee you will feel better given some time for your
perspective to change.

From what it sounds like you've learned an enormous amount. You probably have
getting a great job as a fallback if you need a temporary back stop.

You are definitely on the right track with finding something people want. But
it's a very steep climb. Brilliant people fail at finding ideas that 1)
actually make money 2) make a dent in the universe or 3) they actually care
about in the future.

But the great entrepreneurs know how to move on and start the next thing. And
failing and learning is integral to the game. You have to learn to love the
game, instead of depending on success of a single idea to value your worth.

It might take a dozen ideas. I know that sounds daunting. A great book that
motivates around this point is Little Bets. I'd give that a read. There's some
great people mentioned in there who had to try and try and try before finding
the right thing.

I like the example of the guys that did Aardvark which they got a bunch of
traction with and eventually sold to Google. That was their 6th idea in 6
months.

Keep trying!

I won't get into too much specific advice on Groovy. But I will say you picked
a field that is a but more challenging than others to find financial success
in my opinion. I remember 10 years ago there was a "meet people close by over
instant messaging site", Meetro, that was awesome, had a bit of traction, and
led by some smart people. But they couldn't get magic or money it would take
to keep themselves going.

I personally prefer creating startups that fit into something someone is
already making purchase decisions for. They are already spending money on some
kind of pain directly or indirectly. And you drop in with a better product
they can spend that money on.

Creating another social network is going to be a very hard challenge. I'm not
saying stop. But I just feel if you want something easier, you might want to
step back and work with some different problems people have that have
different business models than having to rely on a network effect kind of
thing.

This got too long. :) Hang in there! You are playing a good game so far.
Getting stuff done is better than what 99% of the other folks who want to be
entrepreneurs are doing. You'll figure out the rest eventually and hopefully
find the perspective to just enjoy this learning process and the entire game
of starting and running businesses.

------
mgkimsal
A few points.

The idea to refocus on a few cities is probably the best shot you have at
salvaging it. I don't know if you've noticed, but almost any geo-social-
network app launched always starts in 1 or 2 cities. Frankly, it's annoying
for pretty much everyone who doesn't live in SF (cause that's inevitably where
the initial focus is) but there's a reason for it, and you've hit that reason.

Find a few cities where you've got friend/family/connections, rebrand the app
for that city, and focus on getting everyone you can to help promote in that
location.

Another idea - make brandable versions of this and sell them to convention
centers or visitor bureaus. Having an app that they promote to everyone
visiting a city will ensure that people in a geo area - who don't know the
area well and are looking to meet people for a bit - will be a win for you and
a win for the city and bureau. Branding it for each city separately or as part
of a chain ("grooovy detroit", "grooovy dallas", etc) - not sure which
direction to go in, but I'd hit up visitor bureaus to see what they'd want and
just go with that.

On a design standpoint - <http://gyazo.com/e5cba3c4db14db4f668a4a6c815b6c3a>
\- I'm running 1280x800 (not a totally uncommon resolution) and can't see half
your call to action button for the app store). Too much whitespace below the
groovy logo. Yeah, perhaps it seemed minor, but that's just one more nail
that's making it look amateurish. And there's nothing _wrong_ with amateur,
but you need to iterate and improve. The one downside is you only get one shot
to make a first impression with the people you've already first-impressioned.
Move on and find more people, but improve the site.

I agree with the other comments - "create/connect/enjoy" tells me nothing. All
your action explanations are _way_ down at the bottom, and even then they
don't match up - the screen with "snack/drinks/meal" doesn't go with the text
of "snack/drinks/meal".

This feels like a foursquare wannabe - badges and reviews? There was _nothing_
in any of your screenshots that actually showed me inviting friends or making
new ones. I thought that was the whole point - to meet people and make new
friends. Based on your HN post, that's it. Based on the website, this is a
coffeehouse review system.

My advice would be to not buy in to the tech porn that we all drink in way too
much. "Believing" in something doesn't really help all that much when basic
mistakes are made or overlooked (not saying you fall in this camp 100%, but no
one's perfect). "we tried to follow every piece of advice given" sounds a bit
more like desperation than conviction on the idea. While I feel like I'm
publicly beating you up here, I don't mean to be, and am actually very
grateful that you've posted this. We need more of these 'coming out' stories
to show the human side of non-success (I won't say failure cause I don't think
you're done with this yet!). I've known several people over the years who've
fallen in to similar situations as yours, and they feel very isolated and like
personal failures because they're not the next Facebook. Everyone else's
successes look so easy, and you did everything they did, etc. It's just not
like that. I sometimes feel I come across as a bit overly negative on the
whole 'startup' scene, but I don't think I'm negative as much as a realist.
That realism just balances out so much positive hype that it seems negative :/

You're not a failure - someone with as much drive as you've demonstrated
_will_ end up being more successful in life at some point, but right now may
not be the time. Perhaps it's time to put some of these startup ideas on hold,
rebuild some of your emotional and financial life, and come back to this world
when you're more stable. Right now I think almost any decisions you make will
be from a position of financial, emotional and mental weakness, and I'd be
pretty certain those decisions will not be beneficial to you. As much as
people want to celebrate the 'pulling all nighters' and 'last minute pitches
when we had $5 left in the bank that led to $100 million buyout!' stories, the
world _mostly_ doesn't work that way. It'd be a lot easier to make more
informed and well thought out decisions when you've got a year of savings in
the bank.

For all the feedback you claim to have gotten during your dev, I don't think
there's anything more revealing than getting a group of semi-anonymous tech
geeks to give honest feedback on web sites/services. Yes, get 'regular users'
too, but you'll get a lot of great useful info from HN-type geeks because we
can all relate our own successes and failures in to your project as well. Not
saying we can all predict successes, but being able to learn what works and
what doesn't (plenty-of-fish style outliers aside) may have saved you more
time and heartache months ago. Gosh... perhaps an HN-style "review my app
idea" - without dozens of flashy ads and hype - might be worth pursuing? You
still end up with chicken-egg situation - who will use it without intelligent
reviewers already there? I think there's some review services out there sort
of like that, but nothing I've seen that can bring out the level of detail,
experience and honesty like HN.

FWIW, thank you for posting so honestly here.

------
chris_gogreen
maybe you can seed the database with event that are already available.

~~~
iamjonlee
I did consider it but it would still be meaningless because there would only
be tht one person attending that event. The problem is that the downloads are
too sparse within the US, so users aren't able to join each others events as
they're too far.

------
rometest
just asking..cant you change the name and relaunch it?

~~~
iamjonlee
I could, but even with a new name and relaunch it wouldn't fix the problem of
the users being too far spread out sparsely in te US

------
zohebv
You have fouled up in the marketing department. You need to geo-target. You
need to focus on a geographically dense close cluster for you initial release.
Probably a business district with lots of small offices where there should be
plenty of people who have lunch alone. Market with flyers in and around this
office and probably go and volunteer for lunch yourself. Release and solicit
feedback from real users , iterate, market to other such dense locations and
improve based on feedback.

------
jronkone
I hope you learnt something about using magic numbers.

