

A startup postmortem with a happy ending - watson
http://fridriksson.tumblr.com/post/86584610871/a-startup-postmortem-with-a-happy-ending-in-thailand

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CookWithMe
Great pivot! Wish you the best luck for the World Cup.

I'm currently freelancing to get some $$$ in the bank again after using all my
savings for our startup. We were planning to escape the German winter and work
from SE-Asia and/or India as well.

I was seriously considering Thailand and liked the idea of spending time in
Chiang Mai a lot... but the recent political turmoil has me worried. From
press reports, it's really hard to make out what the impact on daily life is
like and whether it's a good idea to go to Thailand at the moment or not.
Where are you situated? What's the situation like at the moment?

Best of luck anyways!

~~~
keerthiko
I could give you some advice there. Of the last 5 months, I spent 2 in India
(I'm Indian), 1 in Singapore, and 2 in Thailand. I am going to visit my
parents in Oman for 2 months next. What citizenship(s) do you hold? Most
western nations require a paid-for visa to India that is not cheap to get. I
am not sure how difficult it is to secure/renew either.

Singapore has wonderful internet, amazing public transit, and just the right
amount of crowd and bustle - you're not choking, but it's always lively. And
people love their technology. Wonderfully conducive immigration atmosphere.
However, although everyone speaks english, the people are not very personable,
so it's hard to grow a social circle through random acquaintances if you don't
already have friends there (I did). It is also a fairly expensive place
(comparable to Berkeley or Seattle), one of the top 5 in Asia.

Thailand has great internet, extremely nice people, and is ridiculously cheap
to live in. Bangkok is lively and bustling with lots to do, but a bit too
crowded. Public transit is not nearly as well-connected except in BKK city,
but taxis/bikes are affordable. Unfortunately, very few locals speak English,
so again growing a random acquaintance social circle is difficult. You can
however meet lots of like-minded foreigners at the co-working spaces.

I personally strongly discourage bootstrapping from India. The internet
situation alone was probably enough to call it quits. Terrible ISPs, high
cost, slow speeds, data caps on wired connections, bad customer service (they
left me without internet for 3 days before I had to have my complaint
elevated), etc makes it nearly impossible for bootstrapping a software
product. Public transit is mediocre in most cities and requires knowledge of
the local language (and there is a different one in every state). Electronics
are expensive (heavily taxed). Majority of local vendors will try to pillage
any foreigner. They even try to rip me off because they can tell I haven't
spent much time locally.

If you have a close friend who is more familiar and comfortable with a part of
India that you will live/work with, it can be a lot better (you mostly just
need someone who can yell at them right when necessary).

Don't get me wrong though, it's a beautiful country and wonderful to spend
time in, just terrible to try to get any work done.

I hope that was helpful!

~~~
watson
Yes, you always have to be aware of the current visa situation. For back-
packers, it's been very popular to get a tourist visa and just cross the
border back and forth once every month to get it extended. But lately the
government started parsing new laws to try and close this loophole.

I'm not exactly sure what the new rules are, but it's something you have to be
aware of before moving here. We are on a visa where we "only" have to cross
the border every 3 months, and the new rules doesn't yet apply to people
arriving via plane, so so far this haven't been an issue for us (it's easy and
recommendable to get cheap plane tickets to the neighbouring countries and
combine it with an extended weekend and some sightseeing while you're at it).

Do a Google search or check out this popular forum for the latest on Thai
visas: [http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/forum/1-thai-visas-
residency-a...](http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/forum/1-thai-visas-residency-
and-work-permits/)

~~~
keerthiko
Rumors have it they are going to make it a requirement for all nationalities
to procure your visa from your country of citizenship or permanent residence
if you want one longer than 30 days.

Indians have 15-day visa-on-arrival in Thailand, but to get the 60 day visa I
had to go to a consulate in India specifically, I was not allowed to apply for
it from Singapore or elsewhere. Apparently this currently isn't true for all
nationalities, but the list has been growing.

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smoyer
Post mortem means "after death" ... I see "after money" and "after pivot" but
the company and application ultimately survive (with a happy ending). It's a
great story and I think there's a lot of value in sharing stories like this,
but what should we call them?

~~~
Aqueous
Well the first application didn't survive (if I read correctly) - so I guess
you could call it a postmortem for the first application.

~~~
smoyer
True ... but to me it seems like positive stories should have a more positive
name.

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twidlit
If anyone is looking to do the same. Our office in Davao City, Philippines is
open and free. We have Internet, coffee and meetups monthly at least.

Meals can cost as low as $2 and lodging as low as $4 / day. Everyone knows
English and very westernized compared to other SEA nation.

Email eric (at) lifebit.com if you are interested.

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hga
Some serious wisdom here, some learned the hard way, e.g.:

" _But our biggest self realization was that we were not users of our own
product. We didn’t obsess over it and we didn’t love it. We loved the idea of
it. That hurt._ "

Worth skimming/reading it all.

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robbfitzsimmons
This is a really honest, refreshing post to read. So nice to read a
"postmortem" that isn't just posturing.

I bet a lot of us hit this moment, over and over again: _" We didn’t obsess
over it and we didn’t love it. We loved the idea of it. That hurt."_

When you're on the brink, remember why you're doing this at all; to build
something that you think is really cool.

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ggreenbe
Not sure if this is a common occurrence but I've noticed that when I search
for a common one-word app name, it's really hard to find. I searched for the
app, "Champion" and had to follow their iTunes link in order to view the page.

Anyway, best of luck with the pivot and I'll probably check your app out in
more detail during the World Cup.

~~~
watson
Thanks for your support. I thought I would just share some of our thoughts and
experience with the app naming and discoverability problem.

An app will rank differently on different keywords in different App Stores.
For every keyword you compete with other apps that uses the same keywords. So
popular keywords are harder to rank high with than others and "Champion" isn't
easy of cause. But we've done a lot of testing on this subject and there are
several things you can do.

We use a site called Sensor Tower [1] to track keyword rankings between the
different App Stores.

First thing is of cause to add extra names to your App Store title and hope
that people search for "champion live score" or "champion football", which
will greatly increase your chances (our full App Store title is "Champion -
Football Livescore").

But actually we found that it doesn't take as much as we thought to become #1
on a keyword like Champion. We launched first in the Thai App Store to be able
to test a lot of this before the global launch. We've been in the Thai App
Store for almost 2 months now and it took us less than 1 month to become the
#1 app for the keyword "champion". So it's an achievable goal.

[1] [https://sensortower.com/](https://sensortower.com/)

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thomasmeagher
Definitely not a post mortem as smoyer mentioned. Huge opportunity with the
World Cup, I hope you take advantage of it. Looking forward to seeing some
_fast_ , unique insight from Champion that I could not get from my favorite
sports outlets.

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probablyfiction
This is more of an analysis than a postmortem. Great writeup, though.

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jpeg_hero
Suddenly I want to win an app contest.

~~~
fridriksson
It definitely has its perks..

