

My Start-Up: 3000 unique users a day, only 3 offers? - citizenkeys

My YCombinator Applicants Video page ( http://wikitorrents.org/wiki/ycombinator_applicants ) got over 3000 uniques in a single day, many from domains of "very big name" companies here in the Bay Area.<p>I moved to Silicon Valley this summer to find angel funding and/or work.  With me practically begging for angel money and/or work in the page comments, I thought for sure somebody would say "Hey, Patrick.  You did all this basically by yourself.  Obviously, you've got some sort of talent.  We'll definately help you out."  Instead... nothing.  I got a total of 3 legitimate inquiries, all of which I responded, none of which I've heard back from a day later.<p>My question is... with all the deep pockets and easy start-up money I hear about, what's it take to get somebody to actually commit to some angel money?<p>Patrick Keys<p>citizenkeys AT gmail DOT com
======
iampims
Patrick,

3,000 uniques in a single day doesn’t validate an idea, let alone a business
model. The influx of visitors you had is equivalent to the traffic _any_ blog
receives when one of its post hits the HN front page. Yet, none of them is
complaining about not having gotten a lucrative book deal.

That being said, the idea of a _torrent of videos_ is interesting. I’m much
less convinced about its implementation. Not to sound rude, but a bunch of
links on a wiki, that's it?

Maybe you could look at XSPF? It’s a shareable playlist format. See
<http://www.xspf.org/quickstart/> for more info. Since you are sharing links
to videos, distributing them into a standard format could be a good idea for
instance.

Or hook it to the YouTube API, to provide more info about each video. And most
of the time, it takes a while before things get off the ground, so be patient
and keep working hard on it.

Good luck.

~~~
citizenkeys
"Working hard on it" requires seed money and somebody that believes that the
founder just might be able to pull off the idea. You can't work hard on an
idea while you're worrying about food and rent.

The point with the ycombinator video page was this: theoretically, if you had
365 lists, each able to generate that much uniques each day, then you'd have
over a million uniques a year just with that traffic. A million uniques is a
good size of traffic and potential traction.

~~~
cheald
No offense, but unless you're working 3 jobs to cover food and rent, you can
work hard on an idea without seed money.

Stop watching TV (seriously, unplug it and put it in a closet). Stop playing
video games (same deal). Stop going out barhopping. Devote your evenings and
lunch breaks to working on your idea. You have plenty of time that you're not
utilizing. You'll find that most startup founders - especially new
entrepreneurs without a previous "win" - don't start by getting seed money
thrown at them for an idea. They toil in every spare moment they have to
produce a product that is worth investing in.

pg says "Running a start-up is like being punched in the face repeatedly" and
it's true. You get to bust your ass 24/7, bend over backwards, wear sixteen
hats at any given time, and learn at least 3 new major skill sets for no
promise of reward, and a better-than-even chance of failure. If you're not
willing to give it all you've got, then honestly, entrepreneurship probably
isn't for you.

~~~
citizenkeys
I don't watch tv, don't play video games, nor do I drink or go "barhopping".

To paraphrase paul graham (yet again), you can't realistically run a start-up
and work a day job. If you do, then you're not really running a start-up. And
if you don't work a day-job, then eventually you're likely to run out of money
until the start-up gets profitable.

~~~
cheald
It doesn't have to be TV or video games. What do you do in the evenings? What
fills the space between "clock out of work" and "go to sleep"? What do you do
in the morning before you wake up and go to work? Just nearly everyone (three-
job single mothers excepted) has a _lot_ of time that they don't utilize. My
point is that you can grow your product and business by making use of that
time.

pg's right - you probably can't successfully run a full-tilt startup AND work
a full time job. You don't have a full-tilt startup yet. You have an idea, and
it's a lot of blood, sweat, and bleary-eyed mornings to get to the point where
you'll need to put 100% of your time into it. "pg said I have to have seed
funding first" is a pretty lame-ass excuse for why you can't work on your
product.

If you think the only two states you can be in are "Working at a desk job" and
"Being given a bunch of seed money to quit your desk job", you're
misunderstanding the whole process, and cutting yourself way short.

------
zbruhnke
Ok Patrick, here goes. I do not know your entire situation and i would like to
start off by saying I am no "expert" in the field of UI or UX, but I can tell
you that your site has some usability issues that you said you were going to
address which is a good thing, but you need to do that sooner rather than
later.

As someone who has been down this road (and yes I was turned down by
Ycombinator tuesday too) I know that hardly anyone succeeds the first time
they try something. The idea itself may succeed in the long run, but the
implementation must change for it to work. You NEED to know that.

If you are dead set on your ideas working as is you will probably never have
them actually work.

Keep in mind that everyone feels that their idea is wonderful and it will
succeed, I believed that so much to the point that I took jobs selling cars on
the weekends and working at geeksquad at night just to pay my bills while
trying to make it. Ultimately I did so, but I would argue it was the tenacity
I had that made my success a reality (I was also very lucky like most
entrepreneurs). If you are not willing to do anything and everything it takes
to succeed including eating cans of soup 1/2 can at a time in order to stretch
meals out for several days and sleeping on your bedroom floor because you sold
your bed on craigslist to pay your server bills chances are you are not the
kind of entrepreneur anyone is interested in investing in.

Listen to some of the stories of the guys who made it but just barely. My
recent favorite is Brian Chesky who is one of the founders of AirBnB ... truly
a teriffic story where they believed in their idea enough to sell CEREAL to
make a software company stay alive.

That my friend is wanting it and THAT is the kind of spirit and tenacity that
the "deep pockets" in SV are looking for.

------
cperciva
Remember that the best way to get money is to not need it. Investors aren't
interested in "helping you out"; they're interested in making money, and
broadcasting "we were rejected from YC and we're desperate for money" isn't a
very good way to convince potential investors that you can make them rich(er).

~~~
citizenkeys
They call it "angel money" for a reason. If you were "ramen profitable", then
you wouldn't need angel money, you'd need legitimate venture capital to get
big fast. "Ramen profitable" right now is about 500 bucks a week.

I also indicated I was looking for work. If I had some outside work, I could
self-fund my ventures. With all these deep silicon valley pockets, I'm
surprised nobody offered me any sort of work.

~~~
coryl
Maybe your project just isn't interesting enough, or has little commercial
potential.

~~~
citizenkeys
Tell that to twitter, instagram, or even youtube.

A website where people can only type 140 characters at a time in a little box?
Forget it.

A mobile app that lets you take one picture and post it online? Been done
already.

A video sharing site that may never be legimately profitable? No way.

~~~
coryl
Listen Patrick, maybe you're upset that you were rejected and that's why your
lashing out. I don't know. I was rejected from YC last summer; in hindsight,
the idea we had was garbage and we deluded ourselves into buying our own hype.

You've bought into your own hype. I've been to your site, I have no idea what
it does or why its useful. It looks like a bunch of wikipedia scraped articles
thrown together. It doesn't solve any problems or make life easier or fun for
anyone.

Don't try to cite examples like Twitter or Youtube, they are freak chances and
you CANNOT simply replicate patterns to success. So humbly, and as politely as
I can say, I suggest you wake up and stop bullshitting yourself. Stop whining,
step away from the computer, and either change your project or kill it.

------
benologist
Your front page says you plan to sell the domain to the Wikimedia guys at the
earliest opportunity and that your grand plan is to have full length videos
all over Wikipedia. Wikipedia publishes images/etc that they have the
verifiable _right_ to include. I really can't imagine any circumstances other
than vandalism where going to Arnie's page = sit back and watch the Terminator
movies. So that's the first obvious problem.

The second is this. Lists of videos are a Google search. On any topic, and up
to date within minutes. If I want to maintain my own list then I can make a
playlist or use Delicious or browser bookmarks or StumbleUpon or dozens of
other services.

You need a much, much, much stronger idea, a calmer approach and a much better
measuring stick than 3k visitors from HN.

------
iuguy
I stopped reading through the comments and went to your site. Two things:

1\. You're being abrasive, defensive and confrontational in your comment
responses. This is partly why you're getting downvoted and you're not being
taken seriously. It's difficult to take someone seriously when the help being
given (in some cases from people who've done a lot more than you have) is
being flung back in their face.

2\. Nobody knows whether your idea would work or not, but your execution needs
a lot of work. Have you researched the market? What's the market for a list of
downloadable videos? How will you monetise? What separates you from other
torrent or video list sites? How will you stop the MPAA from shutting you
down? Why is it that when I go to the front page I get a blog and not the top
videos? Why should I stump up money to support this?

Now for number 2, instead of being defensive (and I can tell you're angry
about your YC rejection, but it's not all of us that are trying to help you
that rejected you) look to answer those questions. You need to work out not
just if this is viable but how viable this is and what type of return an
investor should expect based on investing X (where X is a range of different
amounts of cash that you need) and how that money will be spent.

You have what appears to be an MVP, I'd suggest you work on pitching for
investment in order to grow traffic and improve usability and organic SEO.

You need to go out and find investors, they're not going to come to you. Be
pushy, be tenacious, ring everyone up in the valley if you have to. Someone
will invest in your idea if it has legs. You just have to work on putting your
idea into a structure that sells well to an investor.

------
bobf
It may be harsh, but here's some honest feedback: I don't see the value of
WikiTorrents. (That probably doesn't mean anything, as I wouldn't have
considered Twitter to be a huge winner either, but it is a data point for you
nonetheless.) The name is non-intuitive, as it doesn't have much to do with
torrents - or wikis in the traditional sense. Manually compiled/user-submitted
lists of videos seems to be easily duplicable, meaning there is little
competitive advantage.

~~~
citizenkeys
It's very tao... Some people look at the empty bowl and say "this bowl is
empty and therefore worthless."

Other people look at the bowl and say "this bowl is empty. How useful to have
an empty bowl that I can fill."

I'm a member of the second group. The site has little to do with wikis and/or
torrents. The value of wikitorrents.org is the lists of videos, not the
simplicity of the site. One good list of videos, regardless of the topic, can
generate an exponential amount of traffic that find that particular list
useful. If you had seen the traffic from just that one specific list of
ycombinator applicant videos, you would understand the potential.

~~~
cheae
isn't it easy to replicate?

------
thenayr
Upon visiting your site for the first time (I went straight to the link and
cheated), I am entirely overwhelmed and confused. 10 minutes in and I've yet
to discover exactly what it is your site aims to help me with.

Things that stand out:

Why is the front-page a list of blog posts written by you asking for funds? I
can't think of a worse way to welcome users to your site. Not to mention I
haven't a clue what I'm looking at..

A "we need money" page. Begging for money is hardly a way to get someone
interested in funding your company. This page is highly redundant and the
Paypal donation button is also extremely tacky.

An @gmaildotcom email doesn't exactly come off as being professional. It
doesn't take more than a couple seconds to setup an email for your own domain
and IMHO just looks much more professional.

The big sidebar links on the right. What are they? Popular links? Favorite
links? I've still yet to figure that out.

Overall I'm having a hard time seeing exactly where all the hard work and
effort towards this site is going. Not to be rude, but it's certainly not
towards the design and usability of the site. The site itself is something I
could throw up in a day with any decent CMS (drupal comes to mind
immediately). It seems most of your effort has gone towards convincing
yourself that you have something amazing on your hands and trying to convey
that through... begging?

Upon visiting your twitter I was greeted with the message
"<http://wikitorrents.org/> for all your BitTorrent wiki needs." That really
doesn't mean anything at all. Not to mention it looks like this site has been
around for over a year now. I'd expect there to be at least some signs of
growth at this point. Why would someone invest in a year old site that hasn't
more than a few pages of content? Maybe I'm missing something here?

------
YuriNiyazov
Ah yes, the "wtf??" reaction that happens a few days after a yc rejection. Its
one of the 5 stages of coping with a loss. You are now at "anger".

------
hkuo
Did a quick google search for the term "lists of videos". This link came up
second: <http://superl8tive.com/>

Seems similar to what you're going for, and they appear to have been around
for a while.

Checked their compete.com stats to get a rough idea on their traffic, and it
doesn't look good. From 1600 uniques about a year ago down to 467 a couple
months ago.

And their execution is not that bad.

So given their traffic, similar idea, and length of existence, it doesn't give
much confidence that this idea can have a large audience.

Not raining on your parade. Just want to offer this little bit of research and
my take on it. I think you may want to push the idea even further given the
non-success of this similar execution.

------
answerly
Just to contribute a data point:

We were lucky enough to be accepted to YC a couple batches ago. It took us
about 2 months of constant pitching and investor wrangling to close our seed
round after demo day.

It is great that the original post brought you some initial visibility. It is
not clear to me that you have done much to proactively capitalize on that.

~~~
citizenkeys
Well... that's what this particular thread is all about.

What exactly should I do "to proactively capitalize" my "initial visibility"?

~~~
answerly
For example...

I just looked up your LinkedIn profile and you have a contact that is
connected to 5 entrepreneurs that I happen to also know who have raised seed
funding. Have you tried reaching out to that person to get intros to those
entrepreneurs (4 of which have raised money in the last 3-6 months)?

~~~
citizenkeys
My personal belief is that a broad "anybody want to help" approach is better
than a creepy "in your face" approach to a particular person. I would think
that singling-out a particular person and harassing them would result in
burning all sorts of bridges. That's just my particular belief.

Seriously, What other suggestions you got?

~~~
martinkallstrom
That particular belief was actually one of the most counter-productive ones I
have come across. Not only will you never get a meeting with a business angel
unless you actually reach out to anyone. If your own view of your business
potential is that pitching it to someone would pretty much amount to harassing
that person, then maybe your idea needs a little more work.

Bottom line is that neither job offers or angel financing will come to you as
a result of you indicating that you need it in a comment on a web page. You
need to talk to actual people (yes, to their faces) and tell them what's in it
for them. It's not about them helping you, it's you offering them something
valuable.

By the way, if your site has nothing to do with torrents, maybe the word
torrent shouldn't be in the name? To not confuse people.

~~~
citizenkeys
I agree that seeking "face time" with particular people is useful and
necessary. But the initial comment sounded like I should stalk people, corner
them, and in general be a jerk. I refuse to do that.

I also agree that the idea "needs a little work", probably more than a little.
That's what seed money is intended to address: keeping a roof over my head
while I work on the idea.

To paraphrase Paul Graham, for the third time in this thread, the final
product tends to look very little like the initial idea.

Yes, I agree the site probably needs a name change. The very initial idea in
this case was user-created lists of bittorrent files, "Wikipedia meets
BitTorrent", if you will. I've modified the idea to include links to videos
that are not bittorrent files, including youtube, vimeo, posterous, and
justin.tv. So yeah, the site probably needs a name change, which I've
considered for awhile.

~~~
answerly
>But the initial comment sounded like I should stalk people, corner them, and
in general be a jerk. I refuse to do that.

Thats a pretty big leap from my initial suggestion of asking one of your
existing LinkedIn contacts to introduce you to one of their existing LinkedIn
contacts that may be able to help you out.

You've got some good food for thought and advice from others throughout this
thread. I'd suggest taking a time out, coming back and reading through the
30ish posts here with as objective an eye as possible.

------
bfung
I've seen some posts about wikitorrents the past few days; finally went to see
the site. Perhaps the amount of unique page views (especially on that page) is
a side effect of ycombinator brand and timing of events and investors trying
to see what kind of companies ycombinator wants to invest in (in an effort to
better their own investments).

What are the unique page views from other pages? Or the entire site in
general? Why should someone use this site as oppose to something like facebook
or del.icio.us? Aside from combining two buzzwords together (wiki and
torrent), I can't actually tell what the site is really about (and there's
nothing that would point me to some description...) or the value it would
provide. Also, I don't really see what it has to do with bittorrent except for
a banner on the right side.

Hope this feedback helps.

~~~
citizenkeys
WikiTorrents doesn't really have much to do with bittorrent. It's an evolving
idea.

The idea is simple: if you can come up with a good, unique, specific list of
videos, then you can translate that easy into lots of traffic. Traffic =
traction = money.

~~~
bfung
who gets the money? =P Why wouldn't I just put that list of videos on my own
blog to generate revenue?

I think my point is that it's not enough to just make something that's already
been done (a website of a list of stuff...). Your solution needs to solve
someone's problem... say if you had some algorithm that could generate these
interesting lists of videos w/o user intervention, or some automation to
aggregate videos of similar content.

~~~
citizenkeys
..I agree with your suggestions. But algorithms without user intervention and
automatic aggregation sound like version 2.0 features. My idea right now is
building something that reliably works, basically a version 1.0 product.

------
krisneuharth
What if you compiled all of this scraped data and made microsites for each
category? I think your idea is interesting but so far the implementation is
off-putting. You could do all sorts of organic SEO tweaks and then put some
ads on the pages for a revenue stream.

Don't give up, but also don't expect people to throw money at you for making
something. If that were true, everyone on HN would be millionaires.

~~~
citizenkeys
I don't consider my goal of 500/week to pursue the idea much the equivalent of
people throwing money at me.

That's about minimum wage to pursue a technical idea that might payoff big.
$500 a week is nothing by silicon valley standards.

~~~
krisneuharth
Have you considered the possibility that your awful attitude, inflated sense
of entitlement, over-attachment to a poor implementation of an unfocused idea,
etc. are contributing to your lack of success finding this all important
fabled VC money? Let that sink in.

Now, I gave you encouragement and a legitimate suggestion on how to take what
you have and spin it into something that would probably generate some money.
Others have done the same in this thread. You responded with a delusional
claim that people should provide money for you just because your idea "might"
pay off big. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence on HN that speculative
words like "might" are pretty worthless. If you think your idea is that good,
commit to it, prove us all wrong.

It is however counter productive to complain to fellow HNers, who are most
sympathetic to the frustrations of trying to build products people want, about
some bias against you because no one wants to give you jobs or money for your
talents. That is not how it works.

------
timelinex
When reality doesn't match expectations, modify expectations to match reality.

You can start by actually getting realistic data on:

1) Time to get angel investment

2) Number of people with 3000 unique in a single day that hit front page HN.[I
reach front page only for a brief period and had 2k unique visits, twice]

------
jim_h
What exactly is your project?

I looked at your link, but it seems like it's just a collection of videos. I
went to the main site, but it seems like it's a blog.

~~~
citizenkeys
The project is user-created lists of downloadable videos. The main page looks
like a blog because I'm presently redesigning the main page.

"User-created lists of downloadable videos" may sound simple, but it's
deceptive simplicity will make it the twitter and/or instragram of its day, I
am entirely certain of it.

~~~
timelinex
Ok, what is it sustainable competitive advantage?

How do you plan on getting traction?

What are the legal implications?

How much have you personally invested both in terms of time and money into
this project?

What previous projects have you completed?

Can you get a friend to co-found this with you?

Show us something that would indicate you punch above your weight class, eg
Academics, Social, Hacking.

~~~
citizenkeys
Sustainable competitive advantage is that we don't incur the costs of
bandwidth or storage. Videos are stored on any other site on the Internet.
Another advantage involves some API possibilities.

Traction is people creating lists. Yes, the ycombinator list got 3000 uniques
a day. But ANYBODY can create a very particular list of videos that draws that
many uniques or more. More traffic equals more traction.

I have invested a year of work into this project. Self-funding is my
development time and hosting costs.

I don't have much in previous projects worth showing off.

Why do I need a co-founder?

~~~
timelinex
"Twenty years of real-world experience in various technology-related jobs." It
is worrying that you don't have anything to show after such a long time
period. Well, all i can say all the best.

------
user24
There's a huge difference between "3000 uniques a day" and "3000 uniques in a
single day". What's your average traffic per day this month?

But more importantly, there's really no necessary correlation between traffic
and value. (examples: wikileaks, geocities, cuil, somafm, and, well I mean
just browse through TC's deadpool)

Can you instantly answer what your business model is? How much revenue you
expect to have in the next 6 months? What your competitors are doing, and how
your service differs? Who your users are? And what the next iteration of your
product will be?

If you have to think about those things, you're not ready to be acquired.

(disclaimer: I'm talking out of my ass based on what I've read not what I've
learned.)

------
ashleyw
If you need money so bad, why not move away from San Francisco?

------
citizenkeys
My final comment about the value proposition before I go to Thursday NightLife
at the California Academy of Sciences (
<http://www.calacademy.org/events/nightlife/> ):

The value proposition of WikiTorrents.org is that you can easily find a
continually evolving list of videos about whatever topic you're researching,
no matter how specific or obscure the topic and no matter what sites actually
have the videos.

~~~
ABrandt
To put it simply, your value proposition doesn't exist. Maybe after years of
seeding the site with content, but _right now_ I cannot "find a continually
evolving list about whatever topic." In order to gain traction among users,
you must provide me value _now_.

I know you might feel like you're getting beat up in this thread, but every
comment I've read has been constructive criticism. Take it in stride and don't
discount anything offhand. I can almost see your vision for WikiTorrents; it
has merit. You're certainly passionate so I believe you can do it.

~~~
citizenkeys
The paradox, as is frequently explained, is that many of the most successful
sites are those that people spend almost no time on.

Lets say you go to google, find a search result, and click to leave google. If
you do all that within a coule seconds, then google was successful even though
you spent almost no time on google. This is similar to that.

Remember, too, to paraphrase paul graham for at least the fourth time in this
thread, that the yahoo directory started out as jerry yang's personal
collection of bookmarks.

jerry yang's multibillion dollar company bought out paul graham's viaweb and
made paul graham into a millionaire.

so consider all that, let it all sink in, and then decide whether you want to
tell me that my idea is bad.

~~~
perucoder
I've avoided posting because there's really nothing more to say, but c'mon!
Are you really comparing yourself to Jerry Yang? That was in the 90's and he
was one of the first. That bus has come and gone. Just like if I put up a list
of my favorite links. No way in hell is that going to turn into allenslist.com
and make me a million bucks for doing nothing.

There is way more competition now. Listen to what people are telling you.

------
fanatico
What were the 3 legitimate inquiries? And how did you respond? What kind of
money and terms are you trying to raise?

------
timelinex
clickable: <http://wikitorrents.org/wiki/ycombinator_applicants>

------
TYPE_FASTER
A day later? Give it a week or two.

------
petervandijck
Link to video?

~~~
citizenkeys
video of what?

------
zackattack
i don't know why everyone's giving you so much shit. ignore them and proceed
with your idea. like you said, you OBVIOUSLY have talent. who cares what a
bunch of nerds think. are they your taret market?? serve them with the
ycombinator videos. then find MORE markets. HN is just a fraction of the
internet

p.s. i feel like you could use a free awesomenessreminder, contact via email
and i'll hook you up

------
citizenkeys
You all criticize my idea and yet "workflowy" is a YC-funded site devoted to
making lists: <http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/04/workflow/>

<http://hackerne.ws/item?id=1870473>

~~~
gallerytungsten
I checked out your site, and also checked workflowy just now.

Let's compare and contrast.

1\. They have at least a somewhat clear and professional design. One that's
focused on just the one problem they're solving. (I do have to criticize the
horrible kerning between the "W" and "o" of their name though.) Minor quibbles
like that aside, your site design is awkward at best.

2\. They have a video that explains the problem they are trying to solve; and
you only need to watch the first fifteen seconds or so to understand that they
are an online outlining tool. Does the world need that? I don't know. But it
seems they are definitely solving a problem. Your site is unclear and lacks
this kind of focus.

------
citizenkeys
I think many of you are missing the forest for the trees. If the idea were
profitable, I wouldn't be looking for seed money. If the implementation of my
idea were very refined, then it would be a mature product and not a working
prototype.

The idea now is a working prototype of a site where users can create lists of
videos. That's all the idea is supposed to be. Right now, it's very rough
around the edges with lots of usability issues. That's why I need seed money
to work on it and make it user-friendly, add features, move features, etc.

If I may paraphrase Paul Graham, implement an idea that the founder himself
needs. In my case, it's lists of videos I can find all over the Internet. To
quote Paul Graham again, release early, release often, and surprise your users
by constantly listening to them and revising the product.

~~~
LabSlice
Every startup has the chicken and egg problem -- It's worth a million dollars,
but only if it had the customers/dollars/advertising/partnerships to make it
succeed.

You've obviously got belief and vision for the project, which are great traits
to have. But consider yourself being an investor. How do you calculate the
ROI? Will giving you $500/week (peanuts) generate a future return of
$1,000/week or $20,000/week, or maybe just $10/week? Investors are business
people, so they need some way to guesstimate a ROI. If I sponsor you, then how
can you convince me that I will at least break even on the investment within
the next 2 years?

