

Startups Don't Die, They Commit Suicide - ttol
http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/27/startups-don%E2%80%99t-die-they-commit-suicide/

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dools
_"and every day we’ve continued to win the most important battle for any
company: existence"_

That's just it. I had a client a few years back and I thought they were just,
well, I mean it sounds harsh but I thought they were a joke.

They were in a highly competitive industry and everything about their product
sucked.

I never _really_ took them seriously. But then about 8 months after I'd been
doing regular work for them they called me and said "There's a problem with
the billing integration on signup". I was like "How did you know?" It was a
problem that wasn't immediately apparent and there were no warnings in place
on their system to detect this kind of problem. The guy said "well we usually
get 5 or 6 signups a day and we didn't get any".

This was astounding to me. I couldn't _believe_ they got 5 - 6 people signing
up every day.

Now, 3 years on, they get about 40 signups a day. They have iteratively
improved their service, and there's the really killer thing: the markets we're
dealing with are HUGE here people. Huge.

I had this little epiphany the other day, about my service 8centsms.com. Here
is a service that makes between $500 and $2000 per month - but the bulk of
that is from 1 or 2 bulk marketing clients. I want it to be a "personal"
messaging solution though.

The problem is, there are only 27 regular users. Pathetic. That's so small it
makes me want to cry.

But then I thought about it like this: what if I told you that I had a service
that only had 27 regular users (who really love the service). Then I told you
that I knew (somehow, theoretically) that those were the only 27 people on the
planet who would ever use it or love it, and we'd already signed them up -
wouldn't you think that was utterly impossible?

In fact, the presence of 27 users just indicates that there must be more -
many many many many more - who would signup and use our service if we marketed
it properly. Isn't that amazing?

Don't commit suicide, just exist. Engage with your users and get more signups.
If even one person falls in love with your product, that proves that there
must be thousands, even millions more out there that will do the same. Because
the alternative (that you managed to find the 1 person out of 7 billion that
love your product) is so unlikely as to be considered impossible.

~~~
maxklein
Why do you want it to be personal, when your money comes from B2B? Why not
refocus towards reaching more bulk marketing clients?

~~~
imjk
I agree, the fastest way to gain traction may be to market more to the bulk
marketing client list (who clearly see value in it). As the word spreads among
them, you may gain critical mass and see your service spread to more general
clients.

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revorad
That's a great writeup Justin, but it would lend you even more credibility if
you mentioned the time you gave up - Kiko. The only reason I've seen cited in
interviews is that Google jumped into the market and conquered it overnight. I
don't believe that at all. I think if you stuck to your guns, you could kick
Google calendar's ass and be successful despite the initial competitive
setback, much like the great examples you give in your article.

Did you get bored of working on Kiko or were you looking for a bigger, crazier
idea?

~~~
justin
I think we could have made something happen with Kiko if we had stuck with it.
However, I honestly don't think we were ready as a team to make it happen --
we didn't really understand the market (two kids right of college who never
used calendars!). We spent a lot of time trying to come up with ideas for how
to make Kiko work (one of those brainstorming sessions led to Justin.tv), but
just couldn't think of anything we should was compelling.

~~~
revorad
_we didn't really understand the market_

Quote from your article:

"These were guys with very little knowledge of the tech industry, two
designers who had a programmer working with them part time.

....

Even their lead (and only) engineer had moved back to Boston. As a casual
observer from the outside, they appeared isolated and discouraged.

....

But they didn’t give up. They kept at it."

Like you said, _persistence isn’t just key — it is everything_.

I honestly feel that if you have determination, you can make any idea work and
make it big. But it helps if you are having fun while doing it.

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mgkimsal
Let's see... the "fail fast" meme was pushed out by the "pivot" meme, and
we're likely to start seeing more of the "persevere at all costs - see, I did
it, so you should _never ever ever_ give up ever!" meme soon.

The only constant I see is "change the meme every so often".

~~~
efsavage
All three are facets of the same thing. You fail fast so you know when to
pivot, and where to pivot to, and you persevere to make it through the pivot.
You can easily add a hundred other adages and cliches to this pile. These are
just new buzzwords for old wisdom.

~~~
mgkimsal
Ummm... I don't think the 'fail fast' notion is at all related to the
"persevere at all costs" meme I've seen popping up the past couple weeks. The
whole point is that the PAAC supporters got the point of failure (or perceived
failure) multiple times, but did not fail. Often there's no mention of a major
pivot, just that they "kept going".

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Maro
Everything written here is true, but you have to be careful. Following advice
like this, any startup, even ones ultimately doomed to failure can be
continued indefinitely.

~~~
hvs
Of course. That's what separates good entrepreneurs from "no so good" ones. I
think his advice applies to businesses in general as much as startups, its
just that established businesses creating new products have more resources to
work with. That doesn't change the fact that one of the most important
abilities of someone in business is dealing with uncertainty and making
decisions without enough information.

------
elrodeo
Reading tons of articles about succeeding in entrepreneurship I have learned
one thing: it is a rat race in a labyrinth. A few will win; the rest will be
consigned to oblivion. And you never know in which group you are until it's
too late (or obvious).

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jjb1
my view on the article aside, the reason this type of advice is well received
by entrepreneurs is because the blood/sweat/tears formula consists of elements
we are all in control of (contrary to the outside investment/luck elements
that you read about and say, "well hopefully that shit works out"). not a bad
thing at all... primary focus should be on elements you can control, with the
others being secondary

