
Ask HN: I built it, "they" didn't come... - hinoglu
I've been in the "build-&#62;launch-&#62;move to next project" loop for some time.<p>My projects are mostly based on features that are missing or misimplemented in
the existing products. Some of the finished projects gone live, tried to sell some, 
some are rotting in the attic.<p>I lack visual design skills, but yet trying to do my best to provide a usable UI for 
the products. One of my motives in building a product against my lack of visual skills 
is knowing that "they started as crap too". For example reddit was just a very simple 
listing full with porn links, stumbleupon was just a "what is this" page for a few years, 
twitter was and still is damn slow, broken and overbloated and there are many more..
Other than reddit, others was most probably the first at doing what they do. There 
were no similar products, but they got it up and running and people easily adopted.<p>When i ask about feedbacks about my products, mostly i get "i didn't understand which 
problem you are solving". I even deployed a localized copy of cnprog as a forum on 
women's issues, to see if it was me doing it wrong in designing. I got the following 
feedback several times: "it's too complicated,  there's no order, no title in threads, 
other forums(phpbb style) are better ". WTF? 
These people are on facebook 24/7, uploading gazillions of photos, messaging their friends
each second. They know what tagging is, and still a stackoverflow clone is too complicated?<p>Anyway, what i wonder is, what happened to people that got it  the first time 
when they saw reddit, stumbleupon and said "yeah i'll use it". Were internet users back 
in late 90's , ealy 2000's much more sophisticated people? What has changed since then,
and people became website gourmets to say that "you should tell what this site is about 
on the first page. i don't understand that your site is a listing site by just looking at the listing
on the goddamn first page. that's why i decided that i won't use it at the very first second 
i stumbled onto your site"? Sigh..<p>Have "they" gone forever, and will never come back again?<p><i></i>Edit: Thanks for all the fantastic comments, i didn't expect to get many insightful ideas and suggestions. There are some points i guess i need to make myself clear:<p>- WTF -&#62; these people can use the applications i can not even cope with, how can they find a 2-3 step forum complex ? details: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1838852<p>- I've tried opening jobs on amazon, asking communities for feedbacks, paying google ads, using stumbleupon ads, posting to startup listings. lastly using feedbackroulette :) by the way fr is just great.<p>- details about a few of the stuff i've done http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1838805
======
patio11
_My projects are mostly based on features that are missing or misimplemented
in the existing products._

This is your first problem. First, _features do not sell software_. If there
were a Ten Commandments of customer acquisition in the Internet age that would
be #2 right after "Google is your god, you shall have no others." People use
software and use websites because of the benefit that you credibly propose to
bring to their lives through use of the software. Ironically, your users are
even telling you this, which is fantastic because most of the time they
_don't_ have accurate insight into why your site doesn't do it for them.
(Incidentally, "I don't know what problem you're solving" really means "I
don't know what problem THAT I ACTUALLY HAVE will get better instantly if I
sign up for this.")

StackOverflow is _incredibly_ more complicated than Facebook is. You need an
accurate mental model of how the game works in order to play it. (Seeing
answers is easier, of course.) There is a reason Joel and company try to seed
new Stack Overflow sites with people who have used one of the pre-existing
ones. (That also helps solve the chicken and egg problem, which I suspect your
sites are likely suffering from in a severe fashion.)

Early adopters are a quirky bunch. One of their problems is that other people
are cooler than they are because those people have technology that they
haven't used yet. Another of their problems is that the software they
previously liked is now lame because even their mother uses it. Most people do
not have these problems.

Talk to people. Find out what their pains, fears, frustrations are. This is
_not hard_ \-- most people _love_ to talk about what they hate about their
life, jobs, etc. Identify problems which are tractable with software. Develop
the smallest possible thing that shows the vision of a solution. See if it
'clicks' with people. If it clicks, you know you have a viable idea for a
product. If not, development is generally expensive guessing.

P.S. Translation from user into English: "It's too complicated" => "I am
insufficiently invested in this to do the work that it looks like it is going
to take to extract the unknown amount of value I may get out." There are a
number of solutions: simplification, hiding the complexity, easing the users
into the complexity, and _demonstrating higher value_. Your user can play
effing _bridge_ , she is clearly capable of understanding complex systems when
the spirit moves her.

~~~
scrrr
Good comment, but what makes you believe StackOverflow is "incredibly more
complicated" than Facebook?

~~~
mcantor
StackOverflow:

* Posting a question: I go to the site, click on "Ask," and post my question.

* Searching for answers: I go to the site, type in my search, and search.

Facebook:

* Posting a photo: I go to the site and look for a camera icon. I can't find one, so I start clicking on stuff like "Account", "Home" and "Profile". Still nothing. I start clicking on everything that isn't a friend's wall post. Eventually I hit "More" on my list of apps (the fully-expanded list still doesn't take up the entire height of my screen), and see "Photos". I look for an upload button and see nothing. In the upper right corner, in 10pt font, I eventually find "My Albums." I click there and search for an upload button. Nothing. I click "Create album," and finally get to an upload prompt.

* Changing a privacy setting: I see a post on Hacker News about some new Facebook feature, and of course, the default is "Everyone in the world can see everything that this feature involves, even if it's something you locked down for every other feature." No one has posted a reply explaining how to lock it down yet, but it's Facebook, right? How hard could it be? I go to Facebook and click "Privacy Settings." Honestly, they change the layout every few months, so I have no idea what it looks like now, and I don't remember what it looked like last time, but every single time, I have to re-learn the entire model and it takes forever and half the time I don't even find what I'm looking for.

* Take a quiz: See a quiz on a friend's wall. Click on the app name. Click on "Take Quiz." Get a popup saying "Let this app access your profile: [Click Here]." Close tab.

~~~
tgrass
From now on, I'm using your method to post photos. Usually takes me twice as
many steps as that.

~~~
mikeklaas
It's actually much easier than you guys think. To post a photo on facebook:

\- click once in the "what's on your mind box"

\- click on the "attach photo" icon

------
nadam
I have learnt a lot on HN over the last years. But after a point I have
realized that following the actual good advices and trends will not help me,
because everybody will follow those advices/trends so that I will always be
competing in an oversaturated market: most likely I will fail.

I've realized that I can bravely bet against at least some of the trends.
Based on my built things and their failures I started to find out the things
which are overrated. In my opinion webapps are overrated, internet consumer
market is overrated (or at least too risky for small startups), mobile apps
are overrated (kind of a 'trash market' a bit), Javascript is overrated,
importance of graphical design is overrated, simplicity and usability is
overrated (I mean if you are talented, you can get it right quite easily, but
you will never be able to create a business just because of simplicity,
usability, etc...)

What things are not overrated?

\- 'Build what people pay a lot for'

\- At least partially solve really-really painful, fustrating, important
problems of not only natural persons but also (mostly) companies.

\- The enterprise market is very very important. Big companies are not sexy,
but they pay a lot for software if they need software.

\- Jack of all trade-ness is overrated. I try to gain experience in at least
one or two really hard topics, which few people know.

I will see how it turns out. I never say never though. I try to be flexible;
and act upon opportunities. Felxibility is not overrated.

~~~
rushabh
Nice points!

I think enterprise is not an easy market to enter. Enterprises are very shy of
giving projects to startups and also you need to spend a few years fixing
enterprise problems to build good solutions.

Another problem is that companies tend to take a long time and to make a
decision hence lot of time and money gets blocked in the sales process...

I am writing this based on experience. I am trying to push the model but not
too successful yet!

\- Rushabh

ERPNext.com

~~~
nadam
Yes I understand that it is not easy. But I think that the consumer market is
also very hard. The problem is that consumers don't really have too much
important problems which can be solved by software. I mean they have some, but
those fields are very saturated and/or hardly monetizable. Most of them are
solved by really big companies like Google and Facebook. I think the b2b
market is more diverse, there are more monetizable problems to be solved. On
the other hand it is harder to know what companies want. Mostly you cannot
just ask your friends.

------
jnovek
"I've been in the "build->launch->move to next project" loop for some time."

You seemed to have missed the "guilt everyone you know into using your
product" phase. I've met very few startup founders that didn't fight tooth-
and-nail for every single early user. You have to do whatever it takes to get
those users on board. It won't be scalable, but you can worry about scaling
user acquisition later, after you've gotten some feedback.

------
RBr
You need to accurately identify a "problem that needs to be solved" in a niche
that is not crowded.

Nowadays, things need to look great. Some people partner or pay for
programmers, you need to partner with or pay for good design. Don't skimp.

Every single chance you have in your product, convey the problem that you are
solving, how you are solving it and importantly who you are solving it for.
Look at 37Signals as an example. I think they spend 25% - 50% of their time
thinking about the message they are conveying throughout their product - not
just through their marketing sites.

Never (never, never, never) expect people to use your product or service. Get
the word out fast, hard and often. Unless you get lucky (never count on luck),
this will cost you money in one form or another. The amount of money you'll
need to spend directly relates to the competition in the niche you are
operating in.

Listen and pivot. When your customers / users tell you something, listen to
them. Don't assume that you're the smartest guy in the world and "know what
they want before they want it". Listen and even if you don't believe in it,
try moving in the direction that your customers / users want. If income
increases, pivot your business or entire model in that direction.

Never (ever) get married to an idea and remember that business is about making
money.

Don't judge yourself against others. Every business, every person, every
circumstance is unique. Constantly review your product or service but evaluate
it against your own metrics. Don't ignore what others are doing, but if your
product is successful earning $25k per year, it is successful.

Keep your chin up and do not give up. It sounds cliche, but the worst mistake
someone can make is to give in to the part of themselves that drags them down.
If something isn't working, change it and be happy, excited and motivated to
make yet another change in a long line of changes.

------
Toucan
Look at Apple. So many competitors have sprung up based on features that are
missing in the existing products. Apple still win the consumers.

It's more than adding features to a product.

I suspect Facebook is easy to use because people can see the benefit in
learning how to use it. They can see how tagging an image is a cool thing, so
they'll make the effort. If they can't immediately see how upvoting a question
is a cool thing, they won't bother to understand how to use it.

------
kilian
First off, your user is not you. ;) Something that's instantaneously
understandable, and clearly better to you (tagging) isn't necessarily so for
others (apart from "multiple categories per item", I still don't get why
everyone loves tags).

Obviously you can get quality feedback. Iterate on that. If it's not clear
what problem you are solving, you just _tell them_. There's no shame in
writing "This is a listings page, add a listing HERE" in 80px black bold Arial
on top of the page, if it makes people use it ;)

As long as people can find you on search engines, they will come. But from
there on, you have to guide them to use your service instead of expecting them
to do all the work.

~~~
terryjsmith
This. The most important part of any project I've been involved with has been
showing it to other people. You can see how they are going to try to use the
product and what you might be missing. Even more so, I've had people I show it
to come up with better tag lines and branding than I ever could have myself.

------
dpapathanasiou
_My projects are mostly based on features that are missing or misimplemented
in the existing products._

Actually, that's not too far off from a suggestion Paul Graham made at the
first Startup School a few years ago, in his "Ideas for Startups" speech
(<http://paulgraham.com/ideas.html>):

 _One way to make something people want is to look at stuff people use now
that's broken._

There's a big difference, though, between _missing_ or _misimplemented_ and
_broken_.

If it's misimplemented, but basically does what I need it to do, then I'm not
as open to an alternative.

If it's broken, then I'll seek out another product or a third-party plugin.

------
colinplamondon
It sounds like you think your users are stupid. They gave you specific
feedback and WTF comes across as you being annoyed, instead of glad to get the
feedback.

Stackoverflow is targeted at geeks- if you're cloning their design, you need
to clone the target audience as well. .net development != women's issues.

~~~
hinoglu
absolutely not! i can not use office programs, and i can not even manage to
get a photo gallery going in facebook. 3 profiles i've created are still
laying empty.

what i mean by wtf is, these people can do and interact with applications that
i can not keep up with, and still find my applications, or the applications
that i find interesting "to be complicated".

------
wisty
Focus on the SMALLEST problem you are solving. People don't join facebook to
upload gazillions of photos, or message their friends each second. They join
because they need a way to contact people without tracking down email
addresses. Then they upload a photo because it's kinda cool, then they get
hooked on the ecosystem. But that comes later. DON'T SELL THE ECOSYSTEM TO NEW
USERS. Sell a small solution (which doesn't have to be anything too special),
then let them scale their behavior up. The ecosystem is what makes you rich,
but it's not what get's the first few logins. The whole ecosystem just
confuses new users.

Oh, and remember, there are lots of people who don't even know what a URL is.
SO worked because lots of JoS / Coding horror readers trusted it enough. They
also know what tagging is - most of your readers are more familiar with phpbb
style indexes. Nobody looks at the tag cloud unless they have already know
what they are looking for.

------
bwooceli
Well, short of the rapture, stray quantum string (TNG reference +1), or the
great luddite awakening, chances are "they" are still out "there" in the
physical/individual sense. Sounds like you're not going "there".

Think about the products that "go viral". I think there is an increasing trend
for these to have roots in the real world. Twitter didn't succeed until real
people in the real world met in a real bar at a real conference and really
talked about it. I didn't start using it until a real person I knew was
talking to me at a real place after going to SXSW. Same story on Facebook.
Real people in my real world had a real conversation with me about it.

My advice - make your product opaque. I know it's 2010, but your product needs
to be "real" for "them". Find some target end users, get them using it, and
enable them to broadcast their use/enjoyment/etc.

------
michael_dorfman
What problems _are_ your products trying to solve?

Why don't you list a few here, and maybe we can help you refine your pitch.

~~~
hinoglu
Well i didn't intend to gain attention to advertise my projects, but uhm.. :)

one i'm lately struggling with is visitrs.com, i've posted it a few times
before, did not get much response, ones i get was helpful though.It has
started as a pluggible chat system which allowed visitors of any website to
chat with eachother. It would provide interaction between visitors, would
create a community around the website, would help people discuss or suggest
products, articles on the website boosting content awareness of the website.
for example on ebay, one could have easily ask opinions of other visitors
about a product to be bought.. anyway did not gain attention, so i changed it
into a stumbleupon+delicious+live chat system. still truggling with it.

one was a real time sql multiplier proxy. problems with production servers
back then 2006-2008 was - and most probably still is- backups, cloning on the
fly, active-active clustering etc. one would have to stop the working system
to backup or clone the datas in sql servers, and active-active clustering were
painful or too expensive. I made a working demo based on postgresql + spread
real time mesaging toolkit, which was acting like a proxy between sql servers
and web applications. when a web application made a query, it was multiplied
and sent to all servers in exact same order, which would allow real time
cloning + backing up + active-active clustering in once. Though demo was
sufficient for simple ops, it needed transaction system implemented, which was
really not a big deal. Couldn't sell it. the companies that were paying
zillons to big players, or spending thousands of man/day operations did not
get what i was solving.

another one that is still on production line is a job listing system, which
will get rid of "send cv - wait for response" and "read zillions of cvs, call
hundreds of persons just to hire 1" problems. it's a social marketplace for
job seekers and hirers simply. i'm not over it yet, but the feedbacks about it
is not giving happines yet. addres is test.cbslab.com if anyone interested.

there are many more in the attic, maybe they'll help me when there'll be
enough amount of abondoned ones to give up my carreer and become a farmer :)

~~~
jdee
A few experiences with visitrs.

The first 5 seconds of looking at your page filled my head with 'This is just
a page of shit that I'm not interested in'. It was not clear that I can
participate in creating the list. your join now button is virtually invisible
to passing users.

I have to click an 'about' page to find out what the site does. this is way
too much effort. this needs to be splashed all over the front page.

Once I understand what it is, it's not as good as my existing bookmarking
sites. Struggling to see where the USP is.

My gut feeling is that you might be able to get it to work if you work in the
niches - people into baking would rather join a dedicated cake site than
something that is as general as this. Buy 10 niche domain names and work in
the communities they target. Makes SEO a damn site easier too.

Hope this helps!

~~~
hinoglu
I've heard the second sentence a millions times :)

maybe it won't make it, but the best part of it is i got many feedbacks
including yours that'll help me in the future.

also i learnt much about erlang, ejabberd, mongodb, js frameworks, xapian etc.
not that much of loss i guess :)

------
sjs382
I built <http://isshort.com> because I wanted to promote healthy link
shortening, and created an API so that Twitter clients can use it. I promoted
it on reddit, HN, techstartu.ps, Quora (in response to a question) and by
emailing the people who were an inspiration for it (simon wilson, the people
responsible for rev=canonical and rel=shortlink).

I've been completely unable to gain traction for isshort.com, with 43 visits
to the site in about 5 days.

~~~
aes
Let me give you some feedback for isshort.com.

1\. The landing page does not tell what the service is for and who is it for.

On the first look, it looks like just another URL shortener - but why would I
use it over something like 3.ly or j.mp?

2\. I tried to read the explanation but bored out. I don't care what "healthy
link shortening" is or what rev="canonical" does. The blog post is longwinded
and filled with jargon and terms I don't understand. "Publisher"? Am I a
"publisher"? Do I want to be? What is the target audience? Am I in the target
audience? It's difficult to find out.

3\. I put in "google.com" and out comes INVALID_URI.

4\. Not having a "Submit" button feels somehow awkward. I'm not sure what I
should do in order to shorten the URL. I eventually discovered that pressing
Enter and clicking on the "isn't short" text works, but I'd feel better with a
"Submit" button.

~~~
irons
Amen to all of that. I didn't know until I tried it with an unsupported host
that it would turn around and provide a j.mp short URL, which is great, but
non-obvious. Until then, I'm wondering why I'd want to use a link shortener
with a seven-letter TLD.

It's a serious mistake to disallow shortening TLDs like "google.com", because
that's what people are likely to type in to test the service. It's deadly to
ever let a user see a hostile, wholly uninformative error message like
"INVALID_URI".

Owing to unnecessary ajax and a submit button which doesn't reflect presses,
if I fail with google.com and then try yahoo.com, there's no indication that
the site has received or acted on my second attempt.

Labeling your only button with an image, in an oddball font, using text that's
both passive voice and a negative statement, is not OK, as you implicitly
acknowledge in the introductory blog post, when you have to tell your
potential users which piece of screen real-estate to click.

I knew what rev=canonical and friends were, and even I didn't have any idea
what the phrase "healthy link shortening" meant to you. I thought it might
have been a point about not relying on the Libyan government. The introductory
blog post isn't doing its job. The list of sites with their own shorteners
should be on the front page, and should be longer — that's how you connect the
site's value with potential users.

The service itself is useful, though I'd most like to see it incorporated into
Twitter clients like Hibari, which use bit.ly for everything. Evangelizing an
API is harder. Good luck.

~~~
sjs382
Yeah, the API is the product. The website is a demo.

I will work on explaining this a bit better.

------
siliconeagle
When you look at how apple has succeed, it's the way of the future. They
didn't provide any new functionality that wasn't on mobile devices before.
They just made it simple, it's the new paradigm, design is now more important
than functionality.

I'm am not an apple fan, mind you, I am an Android dev who built a podcasting
app - and most of the complaints I get are "I can't figure it out" and "why is
it so complicated". It _is_ overloaded with features and some appreciate it,
but some don't.

The way I think of it, is that life is frustrating at times, and people will
go to great lengths to avoid that feeling of frustration. Software might do a
lot but if it not quick to use then its pretty well useless. In time gone by,
how many man hours been wasted trying to find that elusive checkbox in windows
to fix a certain small problem.

Simplicity is the most important thing, people want life to be simple - why
can't it be simple !!! That's why apple is making billions.

There is always an element of randomness though. To some people a design (e.g.
my podcasting app) will seem logical, but to others it will be a frustrating
mess. I am happy to have a set of users who are fairly tech capable. but I do
constantly receive a hail of abuse from the less capable who really want to
use it, but cant figure it out. Some people actively resent the fact that I
have made them feel stupid (Saying exactly "I am not stupid", had that exact
phrase about 30 times I think).

Sometimes I think 3 interfaces to a product are necessary, "simple"(only basic
stuff), "cool" (medium), and "super"(everything). Different people like
different things.

------
makeramen
problems I see with what you've said:

 _> >I've been in the "build->launch->move to next project" loop for some
time._

From my experience making a few apps, launching is just the first step, not
the last. People will care about products you care about. If you're just
building stuff to throw out onto the internetz and hope a few randos latch
on... well, that's exactly what you'll get. If you want dedicated users who
keep coming back, you'll have to steadily improve your projects, and nurture
them into full-fledged awesome products. There are no shortcuts, what you put
in is what you get out (usually).

Also, the original idea is almost never perfect. Products evolve over time,
flickr didn't start as a photo site. Listen to you customers, but not too
much, find the problems that REALLY need solving. Like Henry Ford said, "if I
listened to the customers, I would have made a faster horse." What he really
means that the customers wanted faster transportation, not necessarily a
horse. You need that insight to see what the core problems are, and solve them
in novel ways.

 _> >I lack visual design skills, but yet trying to do my best to provide a
usable UI for the products. One of my motives in building a product against my
lack of visual skills is knowing that "they started as crap too"._

That is not good enough. Knowing you suck at UX is a good start. But
justifying it by calling out reddit, twitter, and stumbleupon? That's just
naive. You want to know what made them succeed? THEY GOT BETTER. They didn't
sit on their ass saying "well, those other guys suck, so I can too." No, they
were the ones saying "I'll endlessly strive to make my product better every
single day."

Software adopts the personality of the developer(s). Users can tell when the
developer actually loves and cares about something enough to follow through
with good support and updates. Similarly, users want software that gets to the
_core_ of their problems, not just shallow complaints, which brings me to my
next point:

 _> >My projects are mostly based on features that are missing or
misimplemented in the existing products._

Do NOT base your software on a feature. Features are shallow, like breast
implants. Build VISION and PERSONALITY into your software, and people will
love you even if you're flat-chested. Again, this goes back to UX/UI and
taking care of your product and helping it evolve a personality AFTER launch.

~~~
mcrittenden
> Features are shallow, like breast implants. Build VISION and PERSONALITY
> into your software, and people will love you even if you're flat-chested.

Just wanted to make sure no one glossed over that gem. Great quote.

------
adrianoconnor
Me too. I blogged about it the other day, in a fashion:
[http://www.adrianoconnor.net/2010/10/the-bad-news-about-
your...](http://www.adrianoconnor.net/2010/10/the-bad-news-about-your-amazing-
product-you-still-need-to-do-marketing/)

I believe there are two highly valuable skills you need to run a successful
business: 1. The ability to create amazing products (either yourself or
through motivating others) and 2. Ability to get your message out and get
people interested.

I fail badly at #2. I guess I need to find a partner who is naturally magnetic
and can sell dreams to people. The thing is, once you're over that hump you'll
get momentum -- you can ask for feedback, you can engage with those people,
and, hopefully, they'll hep you spread the word. Alternatively, you can throw
ad-dollars at it and work on the conversion rate, but advertising is mostly
owned by people with lots of money so you'll drown before you manage to even
start swimming.

------
codyguy
"they" usually don't come.

~~~
grammaton
Well said. Very few people hit it out of the park the first time. You have to
try, try, and try again, without ever having any more chance of success per
given try no matter how many times you do. This is something too few have
really wrapped their heads around.

------
nutjob123
We had someone talking about a similar situation a few days ago. Being able to
produce a product is nice but it won't sell itself by merely existing. "If a
tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
If you release a product and no one knows will anyone buy it?

------
sammyo
On this point: "it's too complicated, there's no order"

An important element of useablility that is often ignored and misunderstood is
familarity. In many ways it just does not matter that MSWindows or Facebook is
clunky, or violates important useability or is just wrong or broken. When the
environment hits a critial mass of familarity the only way to co-exist with an
entrenched community is compatibility. As galling as it is to use a windows
file picker look & feel, it's what folks are familar. Changing the visual
paradigms does happen (review the history of the web) but fairly quicky a new
normalicy (see web pulldown bars) gets established. Show some examples and/or
look for a design partner.

------
sdizdar
First, I'm 100% convinced that design does not sell the product. It some
instances it is very important, but in other instances it is not.

I'm using many confusing and ugly products but since they solve my problem, I
use them (all HA software product on market, etc.).

I believe the key to solve something people really need. Hey I still have
problems how to do code reviews (for cheap - like $10 per seat) - something
like google wave but code reviews.

Now, there is also problem how to get your message out and get people
interested (since they might not know they have a problem you are solving). I
was told to watch infomercials on TV and try to make something like that on
your home page, blogs, forums...

------
symptic
"And admit that the waters around you have grown, and accept it that soon
you'll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you is worth savin', then you
better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone, for the times they are
a-changin'."

------
Cowboy_X
You seem to have a pretty good idea of your own shortcomings — which is a good
sign imo, nobody can or should be good at everything — so why not play to your
strengths and partner with someone else for the design work?

I've been doing small self-generated projects with 1-2 partners for years. One
of them is gaining traction and about to take off in a big way (I hope). I
never would have got to this stage on my own.

Note that having a partner isn't the same as selling out, or developing a
project with an overmanaged 12-person team, etc. It's pretty much the same as
going it alone but with a friend to bounce shit off of.

------
erikpukinskis
Those specific users may be gone forever. But there are always more users, and
there are always more markets. Don't worry too much about it. And I wouldn't
worry about your visual design skills either. As you pointed out, the internet
is littered with ugly but successful sites.

I do, however, recommend that you worry about that pesky "i didn't understand
which problem you are solving" issue.

My advice would be to shut down your computer and talk to your friends and
family. Go to dinner. Tag along with them in the grocery store. Even better...
do something with them that you enjoy. And then listen to what's going on in
their lives. What challenges are they facing? What challenges are you facing?

Start making a list of these things. You don't even have to write them down,
but make mental notes of the things people struggle with. Every time you come
across a challenge, think "could a computer help with this problem?" If the
answer is yes, then think "how hard would it be to engineer?" If the answer is
"not too hard for me to knock out a prototype in a week or two" then add this
to another list in your head: promising ideas.

You'll need a lot of them. I have a list of about a hundred products that I
think I could build in a week that solve a problem that I or someone I know
cares about.

With that list, start thinking about the ideas in more detail. Think about
some of the implementation details in your head. Maybe spend a few hours
starting to implement some of the trickier parts of them to get a sense of how
har they'd really be. Think about how you could make money off of them.

Notice which ideas keep popping into your head. Notice which ideas make you
excited when you think about how they would feel to have built. Notice which
ideas come up over and over.

You need to be doing this all the time.

Start telling people about your more promising ideas. Pitch to your friends,
your family, your coworkers, strangers you meet at parties. Don't worry about
people stealing your ideas. Any feedback you get at this stage is worth much
more than the risk of losing an idea you have barely invested in. There's
always another, better idea down the road.

Notice the difference between mild enthusiasm and genuine enthusiasm. "That
sounds great!" doesn't mean much. "I need that! You should build that!" means
a lot more. "I told my friend about your idea and they want it too!" means the
most. If you find an idea that is already spreading before you've even built
the site, that's a good sign.

Once you start to have ideas that a) solve a problem several people care
about, b) are something you can implement, c) seem like they could make some
money, d) excite and spread through your friends, and d) keep coming back into
your head, that's when you should start implementing them more seriously.
Write a 1-2 week minimum viable product.

I really think that if you do this kind of exploration process, you'll have a
much stronger footing to stand on with your products. It's much faster to play
with the idea in this way than it is to make a prototype, and you need to
evaluate hundreds or thousands of ideas before you find a good one, so stick
to this kind of fast evaluation process. Save prototyping for ideas that have
already been vetted.

------
lkozma
When you mentioned reddit, it got me thinking. When I first saw it, I didn't
just think "I will use this".

I actually thought: "man, I want this to succeed, it would be awesome if they
could pull it off, it is obvious that such a thing will work only if they have
some initial users, so I'll use it for a week and hope that it gets enough
momentum".

I can't really pin it down what prompted that initial reaction, but it was
somehow more than it being useful. It could be the minimalist design or the
way the developers sounded, I just wanted to help them.

------
brudgers
> _"I got the following feedback several times: 'it's too complicated, there's
> no order, no title in threads, other forums(phpbb style) are better' "_

People come to "BBS's" for the content of the discussions. The software needs
to extend that content or enhance the community. For many purposes, off the
shelf packages are probably sufficient. If your users want phpbb features,
then using phpbb is the way to go.

------
sp4rki
If your users are telling you that they can't see what problem you're solving
it's very probable that you really aren't solving any of the problems you
think they have. Also you probably also underestimate the need for goodlooking
visuals and good usability. This things are paramount if you want to get some
sort of traction. Why not include someone with design sensibilities on this
projects of yours?

------
badmash69
Try answering these questions:

Who is 'they' ? How many are "they" ? right now , where are "they"? Do you
know even one of the "they"?

Ahh, its so much easier to give advise . If it makes you feel any better, I am
also trying to find my version of "they".

In the meanwhile, get Steve Blank's Epiphany book and keep reading and
applying until you have found the "they".

Good Luck !!

~~~
hinoglu
Thank you, I hope we all will be able to find our versions of the beloved
"they" :)

------
troydavis
Do (or did) you personally use the things you've created?

Testing & dev doesn't count. Are you passionate user #1?

------
vital101
The thing is, you need to make the users come to you. Marketing and
perseverance are what make start ups successful. You can have a brilliant
product, but unless you convince people it adds value to their lives, they
won't come.

------
PhrosTT
maybe you're discounting the importance of luck...

somehow society just decides your thing is cool. like when there's 5 equal
products and one is successful for no particular reason.

i always think about how weird bars are. you can 2 equal bars but 1 is packed
every night... even with zero distinguishing differences. society just says
'oh that bar usually has people, let's go there'.

the problem may not be the product but figuring out how to convince people
it's the cool _______ to use.

~~~
rick888
"like when there's 5 equal products and one is successful for no particular
reason."

I don't think it's chance. If there are 5 equal products and 1 is successful,
there is a reason. You may not be able to see it right away, but it's probably
due to: UI, marketing (the right people saw it), benefits, or simplicity.

Look at twitter as an example of this. It's a simple idea and there were many
other potential competitors, yet it's still #1. Why?

I read an article about how they targeted influential bloggers (people that
had thousands of readers). This wasn't luck, it was an intelligent marketing
move. Myspace did the same thing. They targeted musicians (which in turn got
fans to get on board).

"i always think about how weird bars are. you can 2 equal bars but 1 is packed
every night... even with zero distinguishing differences. society just says
'oh that bar usually has people, let's go there'."

If you can get women to want to come to your bar, the guys will follow and you
will have a packed bar. Two bars also are never "equal". There will always be
differences (ambiance, drinks, price, maybe the bathrooms are unclean, etc).

~~~
PhrosTT
I guess what I was referring to is that sometimes things just blow up.

At a certain point Rainbow sandals became the defacto sandal of southern frat
boys. Did they market to them? No. Some influencer decided he liked them and
it slowly spread. Now it's just the established norm. Most of society just
follows trends. And if you're a company, you are at the mercy of these trends.
Yes you can try to create them, but you can fail just because your rival got
lucky.

Did Smirnoff Ice instigate Bros Icing Bros? No but they're sales spiked
because of it.

Did PBR market to hipsters? No but they adopted it as their own and now PBR
reaps the benefits.

Run DMC wrote about Adidas without being paid a cent. Was Adidas really BETTER
than any other shoe brand? Adidas just kind of got lucky.

You may throw something back at me about reaching influencers... yes you can
try to do that.... but to a certain degree you're at the mercy of society's
whims.

~~~
rick888
"You may throw something back at me about reaching influencers... yes you can
try to do that.... but to a certain degree you're at the mercy of society's
whims."

You are right about this. But, the amount of companies that became successful
due to this sort of luck are the exception rather than the rule. It doesn't
happen that often.

------
trizk
It could be that you just need to stick with it longer. If you are not out of
funds, keep refining your product and trying to market it. Thats what I would
do.

~~~
hinoglu
My projects have lifespan of 1-2 years, i do my best to get them going or to
sell them duringthis period. if still the goal is not achieved, they take
their places in the attic.

------
gallerytungsten
What does your product actually do? Does it solve a critical problem? Have you
done any customer development?

------
known
"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes." --Oscar Wilde

------
hasenj
> I even deployed a localized copy of cnprog as a forum on women's issues

Stackoverflow is designed for tech-savvy people.

You can't just make assumptions about what your users want/need/know. You
actually have to listen to feedback. If your response to feedback is "WTF",
well that explains why you don't have many users.

It also means you didn't really build 'it'; you built the wrong thing and you
don't want to fix it.

btw, usability > visual appeal.

