

GeekStack Postmortem - pavel_lishin
http://geekstack.com/blog/geekstack-postmortem/

======
ww520
This is a honest and fantastic postmortem. The lessons teach us more than the
success stories.

I had the same problem of envisioning bigger product goal than I can achieve;
I simply overestimated my energy, attention, or ability. Nowadays I try to
trim down feature ruthlessly and limit scope to the bare minimum. Work not
needed are work done great.

Hope it's not too intrusive. Is $10K/month necessary for living expenses?

Thank you for the great self revelation. I'm sure you'll gain more from it
even it doesn't pan out the way you want. Good luck.

~~~
pchristensen
$10K/mo is a little more than my current salary, but I would have to exclude
taxes, health care for four (COBRA is a US law that lets you buy your old
employer's health plan for 18 months after you leave, and at my last job it
was $1800/mo), etc. I live in Chicago which isn't NYC or SF but still isn't
cheap. Plus I would need more savings bc of unpredictable cash flow. Plus
stress kills productivity.

~~~
ahi
$1800/mo. Damn. That's the equivalent of working a 40 hour week $10.80/hour
job. I'd be pushing my kids down the stairs to make sure we got our money's
worth.

------
Harkins
I'm sorry to see this. Peter was a friend, and it was great to meet someone
else in Chicago working on similar stuff. (We joked that you can tell us apart
because _he's_ the Peter in Chicago bootstrapping a social game built in
Rails, and _I'm_ the Peter in Chicago bootstrapping a social game built in
Rails.) I'm hoping he finds a way to reactivate this project or starts
something else great. I had similar issues working steadily on my project and
eventually started a little contest at <http://www.soplayweall.com> to help
keep myself accountable.

~~~
pchristensen
I'm not dead, just resting :)

This was mostly about me not wanting to face reality, and then finding out
that reality didn't care whether I was paying attention or not. Lesson
learned.

~~~
epo
I am somewhat older than you. This is an insight I wish I'd when I was your
age. A useful lesson, one that will strengthen you for the future.

------
noelwelsh
Very honest analysis. It did make me wonder if the author really wants to be
an entrepreneur. For me, starting a business is something I feel compelled to
do -- I don't think I can be happy if I'm not in control. I'm certainly
happier in my current job than I have ever been in any job where I worked for
anyone else. Knowing that if I don't make the business work the kids don't eat
and the mortgage doesn't get paid is pretty motivating as well. The author
says he's happy in his current job -- so why not stick with it?

~~~
pavel_lishin
> For me, starting a business is something I feel compelled to do -- I don't
> think I can be happy if I'm not in control.

Weird - I think I would be very unhappy as an enterpreneur. You see it as
being in control - I see it as being controlled by outside forces (investors,
angels, customers, contractors, employees.)

~~~
PedroCandeias
Only if you really need outside capital. Then yes. But small businesses are
set up all the time with just the owner's resources. Bootstrapped
entrepreneurs who build lifestyle businesses rarely make the headlines but
they do enjoy an enviable amount of control over their own lives.

~~~
ootachi
That only eliminates the first two outside forces (investors, angels) in the
list. You still have to deal with customers and employees - in other words,
the market.

~~~
PedroCandeias
Well, that remains true regardless of whether you're an entrepreneur, a
freelancer or a salaryman. Anyone you do work for is a client of sorts and,
even as a salaryman, you can end up in charge of other people. Plus, as an
entrepreneur you do have a degree of control over the course to take when
engaging the market and hiring people.

As long as we're talking about control, I can't see how it's possible to trump
a bootstrapped entrepreneur who has a minimal team or none at all.

------
dennisgorelik
That's such a good article!

It puts "get-rich quick" hot heads under cold shower.

It shows why startup must be something to enjoy even if there is no money
there.

It shows that quick growth is highly unlikely.

It shows that ~5-10 years of consistent effort is the must for success.

~~~
teej
The article was fantastic, but I couldn't disagree more on your conclusions.

> It puts "get-rich quick" hot heads under cold shower.

Everyone I've known to become a millionaire in a short time (a year or less)
did it by shipping blazingly fast and getting lucky. You can't get lucky _if
you never ship_.

> It shows why startup must be something to enjoy even if there is no money
> there.

I agree here.

> It shows that quick growth is highly unlikely.

This article doesn't even tackle growth. You can't grow _if you never ship_.

> It shows that ~5-10 years of consistent effort is the must for success.

The article shows that you can't have success _if you never ship_.

\------------------------------

Overall, I think the article is fantastic. It really hits home for me, and
matches my experience attempting a side-project-into-business. But the biggest
takeaway isn't "it takes hard work.". This guy obviously worked hard for a
long time.

The moral of the story is:

* work hard -on the right things-

* use milestones that give you -visible progress-

* get product validation -early and often-

* actually ship

I've learned the same lessons from my past mistakes and I'm actively using
these lessons in my current startup.

~~~
fmavituna
> Everyone I've known to become a millionaire in a short time (a year or less)

I'm honestly curious about this, can you give us a couple of startups that got
rich in less than 12 months from the start of development?

------
metachris
Thanks for this honest post-mortem. It sure wasn't easy to describe your
shortcomings in our world filled with infinite news of shiny web successes. I
think one of the main takeaways can be that attacking a large project like
this should not be done alone. It's a huge amount of tasks and context
switches for one person to handle, and the risk of loosing motivation and even
running into a burn out is much higher.

I think the way to go for solo devs is mobile (Android + iOS), since the
project scope is often more limited / condensed and it's easier to get users
with little marketing efforts.

------
pavel_lishin
Goddamnit, now I want to try writing my own online trading card game.

~~~
pchristensen
Well don't forget to read the part where I split it into three tasks - the web
part, the game engine part, and the game design part. For game design, I
highly recommend A Theory of Fun for Game Design [1] and the column Making
Magic by the head designer for Magic: The Gathering[2].

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Fun-Game-Design-
ebook/dp/B004D4...](http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Fun-Game-Design-
ebook/dp/B004D4YI52/) only $4 on Kindle or $12 on paper

[2] Look for the ones he gives 4 and 5 stars. WARNING: Lots of reading

~~~
pavel_lishin
Where is the column?

~~~
damncabbage
[http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Archive.aspx?tag=makin...](http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Archive.aspx?tag=makingmagic&description=Making%20Magic)

~~~
pchristensen
Thanks, I totally meant to paste it. Look for a recent one called something
like 500 And Counting. Thats where he rates his own columns.

------
donniefitz2
Wow, your story is very familiar. I experienced similar challenges with my
first and second startup attempts. The nice part is, you can try again and
bring these lessons with you.

------
Lucadg
We need more posts like this. Success stories are great, they make us believe
it can be done. But failure stories are maybe even more valuable as they teach
us that so many things can go wrong..so many.

Success stories makes us dream (which is great) and failure stories wake us up
(which is necessary). Also, failure stories make us appreciate more the
success stories. It's never easy even if sometimes it seems so.

------
Adkron
I wish that my customers would read this. I just don't know how to suggest it
to them with out sounding like I hate them. The big problem is that most of
the pain outlined I will go through. The customers I have work for the guy
that will feel the pain Peter felt.

------
keeptrying
Honest analysis like this are worth their weight in gold. I just quit my job 4
months ago and I'm going through what your going through. I've realised I need
to ship and I've already been talking to customers. I showed them the initial
crappy product and understood their market a little from their product.

Stories like this really highlight the need to ship immediately, the need to
talk to customers and test the validity of the idea as soon as possible.

Thank you so much for this.

Also the guys with a family who start companies are the ones with the biggest
balls in SV. Kudos. You took your fear and charged right at it. I admire that!

------
winsbe01
i found your article to mean a lot to me, personally, as i saw a lot of the
reasons for my past projects abandoned in your analysis. best of luck for the
future!

------
gsivil
This is one of the best HN articles I've read for some time.

~~~
Estragon
Yes, I'm very grateful to Peter for writing about this so candidly. He really
made himself vulnerable, and is even publishing comments from jerks who are
taking advantage of that (<http://geekstack.com/blog/geekstack-
postmortem/#comment-197>)

------
ckuehne
What does MVP mean?

~~~
pchristensen
Minimum Viable Product -
[http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/08/minimum-
viable-...](http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/08/minimum-viable-
product-guide.html)

BTW, if you see any of yourself in this article, do yourself a favor and look
in to the Lean Startup methodology.

