

Make your bootstrapped startup work - Lessons from the trenches - ibagrak
http://codercofounder.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/make-your-bootstrapped-startup-work/

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fookyong
Sorry to sound confrontational but:

Why should we listen to startup advice from a startup that is still just a
landing page and a mailing list signup?

You talk about MVPs and getting to launch, but you yourself have not
launched... I'm confused.

~~~
ibagrak
Look, I am just reflecting on what things could have been done differently,
and those that would have maximized the delta with our current status. You
don't have to listen to advice, but if you are building something and you are
in those first few months of bootstrapping, I do believe the advice is still
sound.

When we started out I had a notion of what the primary obstacles to launch
would be. I now have a completely different notion of what those obstacles
are, and I think it's perfectly fine for me to share what I've learned myself.

~~~
delano
Reflecting on something while working through it is interesting to me b/c it's
less prone to revisionism. Maybe just refer to it less as advice and more as
an experience.

~~~
ibagrak
Agreed. I should have stayed away from advisory tone.

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nopassrecover
Off topic, but you're building a like-system (I have a part-time hobby one
I've been sort of working on too) and I just wanted to wonder how you decided
to go ahead?

The biggest concern I had was that the market is saturated with solutions that
don't work because of disinterest, and anything I made could be beaten well-
enough by Facebook in a good week's work. Sure I had a couple of edges but I
couldn't spot _the_ edge that would fix everything, and when I found a local
competitor (I live in a pretty small city with minimal startups) I was
convinced that everyone must be working on this.

So.. long story short I'd love to hear how you decided this was the thing to
work on and how (without giving too much away) you hope to overcome the
problems for your product's sector.

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edw519
Hard to argue with anything in this post except one thing: the fact that you
made it in the first place. I really don't mean to be negative, but you should
be building when you are blogging.

For the record:

as soon as possible != after you blog about it

a landing page != a MVP

lessons from the trenches != yet-to-be-launched

Please practice what you're preaching and get your MVP out there. Then blog
about it. That's something I would want to read about.

~~~
ibagrak
Admittedly I got a little carried away with this one, so thanks for bringing
me down to earth. I think some of the frustration having to do with our
current status is turning into these long winded tirades on my blog. I'll keep
them more toned down and private in the future.

I do hope to write something that you will enjoy reading about soon.

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atomical
"We are building an online social app that lets you stay on top of and enjoy
anything that your friends find interesting, good, likable, cool, irresistible
and noteworthy, or things they just liked for no reason. Of course, it's also
a way for you to tell your friends what you like."

This description reminds me of Facebook.

