
From 0 to 100k users in 72 hours: the full story behind Breakup Notifier - theli0nheart
http://dlo.me/breakup-notifier/
======
jarin
Hey, thanks for the shout-out and glad I could help in some small way. Sorry
about spelling your name wrong :)

It seriously doesn't matter what you do, the moment you step off the well-worn
path the haters will come out in full force.

Back in 2005, I had just gotten out of the Navy and I used to be a regular on
a fairly popular forum. After seeing one of those dogtag impact printers in
the mall, I did some research and realized they could do photo-quality
engravings on then-current iPod Nanos. Since graduation time was coming up, I
had an idea to sell personalized Nanos online (this was before Apple did free
engraving, and before stick-on skins hit the market).

I ordered an impact printer on eBay for about $900 and did some test runs,
which turned out great on Zippo lighters and the sample dogtags, but would
always screw up on the iPod Nanos (I did mine and borrowed a few from some
nice friends). I realized that the machine had a bent shaft and tried to get
it repaired, to no avail. A new machine would cost around $2500, and the
window of opportunity for graduation was already closing, so I decided to
abandon the project and get back to software consulting.

Naturally, I posted about the whole venture on the forum, and oh man did they
go nuts. It was like a shark feeding frenzy. At first, I got kind of mad that
they didn't understand that I felt $900 was an acceptable risk to try out this
idea, and that they were trying to troll me because they thought that I was
beating myself up over it. In fact, the opposite was true, I was super glad
that I tried it. I was just going to spend that money on a massage chair,
anyway. I did end up getting a massage chair later, which they also trolled me
about because it had speakers and an iPod dock (this was before Apple products
were cool). :)

Eventually, I realized that they would NEVER understand the idea of trying out
ideas until something sticks, and I realized that the forum was not only a
time-waster but also an unhealthy environment. I stopped posting there pretty
shortly after that (partially because they started e-stalking and IRL
harassing someone else and I realized I was about one step away from that
happening to me), but I still go back once in a great while to see what's
going on, just out of curiosity, and it's pretty funny because they still talk
about it. I guess fame and fortune have gotta start somewhere. :)

~~~
dexen
Thanks for sharing your experience.

Surprisingly, perhaps, this is the first post that actually made me consider
entrepreneurship. You indicated succinctly what positive and negative forces
to expect -- and how to reality-check an idea (people freaking out over it
;-))

~~~
jarin
Being an entrepreneur is like periodically being dragged through Hell and
loving it. :)

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snorkel
Why do Facebook app developers tolerate so much abuse from Facebook? This app
to me seems like a perfectly well behaved Facebook app that is within the
social spirit of Facebook, and during its moment in the spotlight a Facebook
bot kills the app and the author's personal account, no warning, no
explanation. From a business perspective I would discount Facebook as an
unstable and unsupported platform simply because any app within can get pulled
any time without warning or explanation.

~~~
jacques_chester
> Why do Facebook app developers tolerate so much abuse from Facebook?

500 million registered users.

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jazzychad
Thanks for the shoutout, Daniel! Also, Stammy and I were watching Leno live
when he mentioned Breakup Notifier in his monologue... it was St. Patty's Day,
and I had about nine black-and-tans in me, so I went a little nuts on your
behalf :)

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nischalshetty
You did not tell, was ur app ban revoked? How's it going now? Great post,
totally inspirational and yes, take constructive criticism and forget the ones
out there to destroy anything good being done. As long as you think it's the
right thing to do, it is the right thing to do.

One of the most exciting and genuine posts I've read in a long time.

~~~
theli0nheart
Thanks!

Good question, and yes, the ban was lifted.

Facebook had no issue with the actual idea--it was just the negative feedback
from users on the stream stories that lead to it being banned to begin with.
Problem was that Facebook didn't give me a straight answer on what I did wrong
until about 5 days after I was banned, which killed any momentum I had going
for me.

~~~
edanm
I'd also love a follow-up post about how Breakup Notifier and Crush Notifier
are doing nowadays.

By the way, thanks a lot for the post, it was a great read. And I'll just join
all the others and say: don't let the TC commenters get you down. You did
something amazing.

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orionlogic
Nice job. It could be said that there is and always will be a huge market for
Stalking apps. I remember the days of icq/msn where there were apps that shows
the who was invisible, who blocked you etc... With the proliferation of API's,
social and open web, there will be interesting mashups or even privacy
leakages. Something like "find 15km radiuous(4sq) where status is not
relationship lookup(facebook) last.fm account whom listens Jazz and
employed(linkedin)". Who needs dating services where all information is
available?

~~~
nbaumann
SQL-style queries of any social network? Where do I sign up?

~~~
dpritchett
Facebook has FQL and Yahoo has a YQL console that's wired up to lots of
different sources: <http://developer.yahoo.com/yql/console/>

~~~
nbaumann
Yeah, I've diddled around with it and it's great. Would love to see it hooked
up into more services though.

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szcukg
I read about your blog.You're something that I would want to be like.Get in
and create stuff just like that.I read about the comments surrounding your TC
post.Don't bother about others mate.It's not about who innovates,it's who
listens first and you did a great job with your apps.BTW I don't mean to say u
didn't do innovation, just the whole steal/theif concept is bullcrap.I haven't
used your product as I'm not on Facebook, so why not give it a thought about
making it for people who cannot login through Facebook.

~~~
jarin
It might be pretty tricky to implement for non-Facebook users, since you
wouldn't be able to choose people from your friends list and the people would
also have to set their relationship status to Public.

~~~
szcukg
Yes totally agree with that but what if I can tell you the link of the person
on Facebook.I know this is going to be difficult to implement but it would be
awesome to have it

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rudiger
In addition to the technical details, I'd like to know what sort of impact BN
has had, particularly how things are going now. Have you been able to
capitalize on BN's popularity? Is it still popular now that it's been
reinstated?

Anyways, great writeup; I'm looking forward to your future posts.

~~~
smogzer
I believe capitalization should follow the path of relationship automation:
onBreakup(): sendFlowers(x);

You could partner with a local flower/chocolate shop and have it taken care
of. Another idea is to pay for sms delivery of breakup, sort of a premium
advantage.

~~~
Schultzy
Wouldn't that just make you seem like an uber creeper?

How would you know if the breakup was clean or messy or who initiated it? You
could seriously damage your shot at the rebound by sending flowers and
chocolate to a girl who's world just fell apart.

I suspect that the monetization of this will more likely be in the form of 1)
a future project where the experience is applied, 2) an opportunity resulting
from the reputation, or 3) advertising.

It might not be a bad idea though to add some sort of "What to do now" plan
and incorporate the flowers/chocolates as options.

------
Sindrome
I spent a whole 8 hours this weekend playing with the Facebook Graph API for
iPhone. Half of that was with no progress. The documentation sucks. The forums
are barren. I've read post after post about breaking changes. What am I
getting myself into.

I've spent over 5 hours trying to access my friends relationship status and
cant get it to work. If anyone can help I would really appreciate it. Here is
a Stackoverflow question I made:
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5373077/access-friends-
fu...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5373077/access-friends-full-user-
object-on-facebook-graph-api-for-iphone)

------
thenayr
Great share. Really interesting to see how an idea went from a simple question
to someone to a viral web-app in no time at all.

Out of curiosity, how are the stats on Crush notifier holding up?

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techclimber
Thanks for writing this up, it's interesting to see how this came to fruition.

I also can't believe all the shit in the TC comments. People really have
nothing better to do with their time than rain on someone else parade, I
guess.

------
paul9290
Indeed you have to have a thick skin. Whether your making a brand new idea on
the net or gained success at executing an idea others have worked on people
are going to be hateful.

Im glad TC implemented the Facebook commenting system, but as Ive noticed some
trolls are just creating fake accounts to spew their BS. Though it does seem a
lot less then before.

~~~
BobKabob
I'm glad TC moved away from Discus and moved to the facebook commenting
system. I won't ever comment there again. I was wasting far too much time on
TC comments.

------
sammville
Nice post man!! Waitng for the tech details..

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sayemm
Great write-up, thanks for sharing Dan. Reading about your experience reminds
me of threewords.me a while back, how it just blew up and spread virally
through HN and the rest of the startup ecosystem. It's one of the great things
about light-weight Facebook apps I guess, they naturally have mass appeal.

The Breakup Notifier also inspired me to whip something up to find out
whenever someone removes you as a friend. It's my first Facebook app and I
just wanted to get my feet w/ the API: <http://friendsnomore.net>

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tersiag
Really nice post, I felt like I was re-living the week as you wrote

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markklarich
Seems like people would be interested in knowing how many potential suitors
were watching their status and waiting for them to become available. You can
envision this as the new status symbol. Instead of how many friends you have,
it would be how many people are on your notifier list. In fact, some of those
people being followed might jump ship earlier knowing that there are plenty of
others waiting in the wings.

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fourstar
This is what HN is all about. Looking forward to more...

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doubleconfess
Dan, I just read the techcrunch article about the Crush Notifier site. I hope
you realize that all of the vitriolic comments were almost certainly the work
of the "competitor site" that thought his ideas were ripped off of. He
probably either made multiple accounts or enlisted his friends to rip into
you. There is literally no other explanation for that kind of crazy response.

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jk215
Awesome post.I love reading these stories. Very interested in the technical
details followup.

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jscore
What kind of app was this? I'm curious how you handled the massive traffic to
the site.

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jdp23
Great post ... wow, what a ride! Thanks for taking the time to share the
story.

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Timmy_C
The best part of this article, for me, was the link to letscrate.com.

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krat0sprakhar
Lovely post. Thanks for posting this. Eagerly waiting for the technical
details.

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racerrick
Great story. Thanks for taking the time to write up the story.

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forkrulassail
Interesting. Thanks for the writeup.

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originalgeek
So, let me get this straight, you wrote an app so that your sister-in-law
could get set up as the rebound girl for the "perfect" guy?

