

Post-Mortems For Ten Products I've Built - dlevine
http://blog.thirdyearmba.com/a-post-mortem-for-ten-projects

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TamDenholm
Does anyone else think that the author could perhaps put that wealth of
experience into a startup that ISN'T aimed at the tech sector?

SaaS apps for the tech sector are ridiculously over saturated compared to
every other sector, go and find a problem for a non-tech sector and apply a
tech solution to it.

Personally i'm in the process of doing this. One is aimed at the tattoo
industry and the other is aimed at the property market. There is WAAAAY less
competition because all techys seem to do is build for their peers, go and
build for someone in a different market that doesn't know they could have a
tech solution to their problem, they will throw money at you for solving it.

If anyone wants a further discussion on it, email is in my profile or comment
here.

~~~
Mizza
I do agree with you, but I think it's a lot harder than you make it out to be.

The issue is domain-specific knowledge. I write tools for developers because I
know how developers operate - I am one. Even though there may be a greater
need, it would be hard for me to make software for doctors because I don't
know what doctors want.

Which isn't to say it can't be done! In fact, it _should_ be done. It just
takes a bit more research (of the you-cant-just-google-it kind) than most
hackers are used to.

~~~
instakill
So what if it takes a bit more research or even a lot more research? If you
want to go into business to make money by building domain-specific software,
not knowing the intricacies is not only inexcusable but should very much be
frowned upon as downright lazy.

~~~
kappaknight
Most startups fail because the serial entrepreneur build stuff they think
people need but would never use themselves. It's not as easy as just
researching what potential customers may need. If YOU are not that potential
customer, then you won't have the intuition to make something better than the
competition when they pop up. Also, if YOU're not the target customer, your
passion for the project will fade way before you actually make money from it.

The above is true for both projects large and small. I still think Google+
will ultimately fail b/c its top level execs don't use the platform and
therefore won't have any insights about where to take it.

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sskates
Wow, it's great to see a bunch of very candid assessments of failure. You
don't get a glimpse of failure very often often, especially for really early
stage stuff, so it's hard to learn from the mistakes other people make.
Appreciate the author for putting themselves out there like this.

Reasons for failure broken down by project: 1) No traction/user retetion/no
monetization potential 2) Weren't able to break into the existing market 3)
Sales problem for an engineering focused team 4) Market opportunity too small
5) Disagreements in the founding team 6) Disagreements in the founding team 7)
Market opportunity too small 8) Disagreements in the founding team 9) Bad
cofounder 10) Bad cofounder

Grouped by reason for failure:

-5 cofounder problems

-3 no traction

-2 traction, but market was too small

Startups are rough.

~~~
bruce511
The exact timeline for all the projects isn't clear, but it hints of a
relatively short period, say 3 years?

10 (make that 11) projects in 3 years seems like a high number to me. Yes,
lessons can be learned by failure, and test pivoting early is good if needed,
but if you're failing this often, and (disturbingly) for the same reasons then
there surely must be a time to step back and take some time to do things
differently.

The disagreements with founders being repeated so often is a sign of
something. I realize that it may indeed be "the other guy" in all cases, but
sooner or later folk will stay wondering if it's you. At best, your ability to
select partners comes into question.

There must also be a balance between this frantic skipping from one project to
another (6 months per project?) and putting in the time to get a product done
right. It _feels_ like you're looking for an overnight smash hit, or you bail
quickly. The conference project felt especially like this. You narrowed the
market to a tiny segment, the segment incidentally that had the least
motivation to pay anything, then opted not to follow through on the markets
that are more likely to pay. It's like you built a job site, focused on people
who already had high paying gigs, rather than people out of work desperate for
jobs, or employers disparate for employees.

I think the article was really interesting, and I think an excellent learning
experience for others - thank you for being honest enough to post it. I think
you have learnt some lessons along the way, and hopefully these comments will
make the xperience more valuable to you. I wish you all the best with finding
the one-true-project you want to commit to long-term.

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kappaknight
You've detailed why those startups failed, but I don't think you've touched on
whether you've learned anything from your failures. Maybe the time period went
by too fast but it seems like you kept making the same mistakes over and over
again:

1\. Not properly validating your ideas.

2\. Working with other people with ADD.

3\. Not marketing the idea, or hiring someone with marketing knowledge to push
the ideas out.

4\. Not building something you'd actually use and pay for yourself.

Did I miss anything?

Side note, I know tons of hackers that just build stuff for fun and are always
"just getting by" with their ideas when partnering with a marketing or social
media person would have done wonders for the startup. I never understood why
they wouldn't just get the proper support system in place before drowning
themselves in code (even when this step has been s-p-e-l-l-e-d out for them as
a necessary step. Is the whole point just to code stuff and to solve unique
problems they haven't solved before? I figured most hackers like to just crawl
into a hole and code and not have to worry about anything else about the
business - if that's the case, why not just stick w/ a 9-5 job?

~~~
foxylad
I think a lot of hackers actually subconsciously sabotage projects when
they've done the interesting coding. I think I detect a whiff of that in this
article.

~~~
kappaknight
LOL - I'm convinced this is why so many of Google's lab stuff are stuck in
beta. The cool parts have been built but nobody wants to finish the last 20%
that takes up 80% of the time. =)

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danhodgins
Lack of market research and validation is a very common reason for B2B
software business failure. And for good reason - hardcore market research can
be tedious, boring, frustrating, and potentially highly disappointing.

What if the market's wants/desires cannot be solved with technology? Perhaps
your prospect's deepest need is simply information about how to do their job
better with existing technology. In this scenario, as an industry outsider,
you are not even remotely capable of meeting their needs, so you shouldn't
write even 1 line of code without talking to dozens, if not hundreds or
thousands of prospects.

Why bother making an app to help tattoo shops schedule customer appointments
unless you have surveyed hundreds of tattoo shop owners? Perhaps their biggest
need is wowing their customers with an Ipad version of their tattoo library.
But you wouldn't know this unless you or someone on your team talked to them!
To me, this is what people like Steve Blank mean when they say 'get out of the
building'. Survey, survey, survey!

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ryanackley
The first item on his list was a todo list. It's interesting because I once
had (what I thought at least) was this killer idea for a personal task
management app.

I was psyched about it until I went and pitched it to a friend of mine and he
was like "It's a todo list. That is the equivalent of 'Hello World!' for
product ideas. Don't do it."

Looking back, he was so right. I think every programmer I know has come up
with an idea for a new spin on the todo list at some point.

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giusemir1978
I like the post a lot. Looks like Dana tried a lot and learnt a lot from what
was not working for him.

I especially like the cultural side of trying, folding gracefully (if need
be), learning and re-trying.

Here in Italy, you can't just do that. Even a graceful fold marks you as a
lifetime failure, it is a sort of social stigma.

I wonder how this works in other parts of the world, in and outside US.

~~~
ra
Are you sure that's how entrepreneurs and investors think in Italy?

I strongly suspect that if you genuinely tried hard in a business that
ultimately failed, and truly learned some difficult lessons then people will
give you another chance.

For most of us, failure is a milestone on the road to success.

~~~
giusemir1978
I have been an entrepreneur for five years.

I decided to close the business and get hired because the risk to reward ratio
was too skewed on the risk side.

According to what I have seen happening to fellow entrepreneurs, when they did
run into trouble they did not get broken but neither had second chances.

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cnorgate
One theme across most of those stories is that the author and his team went
out and built something before validating their ideas. Actually building a
product is perhaps the HEAVIEST way to validate whether there's a market for
the idea. Spend more time upfront validating the idea... make a fake version
of the product, create some landing page that people can sign up for...
anything to avoid going out and building before you know you're on to
something.

It's okay to mess around with products in your spare time if it's just
'tinkering', but if you're trying to do the startup game for real, then lower
investment upfront in ideas is critical to finding one that works.

~~~
danhodgins
I have heard many moderately and wildly successful entrepreneurs and marketers
including Seth Godin, Tim Ferris, Steve Blank, and Eric Ries all mention some
variation of "prove your market first by prototyping your solution and getting
feedback from the market BEFORE writing a single line of code".

The market validation process is relatively obvious and straightforward to
execute, but it's STILL hard to build a successful business around a
compelling solution for a validated market.

------
prawn
5) Wishlist - is Pinterest alerting people to products they've pinned that
have subsequently gone down in price? If not Pinterest, has someone built an
extension/plugin/third-party site that does this?

8) About/Team/Press - I had a side-project (not trivial to monetise) idea
noted down that was slightly similar to this: maintaining beer pages for
pubs/clubs/restaurants by mobile. Usually a pub will put up a crappy list of
beers they have on tap or by bottle. Looking up any more info would be a pain.
But if they embedded a script/iframe from said side-project, they could simply
login from their phone and activate/deactivate to show the right beers, and
the side-project site would serve up labels, descriptions, origin, alc%, etc.
Venues could optionally list prices, mark specials or flag beers as available
on tap/bottle/both.

The insanely large catalogue for wine would make this a lot harder to do in
that market. (BTW, if you know of a way to get a database of all wine and
decent bottle shots, let me know because I have a solid idea on the shelf that
would work with that sort of information.)

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XLcommerce
wow that is a long list! what time period are we talking here? Some of the
ideas seem like they would need at least 12 months if not more to successfully
bring to market. Are you sure you aren't jumping to the next big thing before
giving the last a good go?

~~~
jmilloy
It seems like a lot of the reasons for jumping ship were because there was no
market for the product. Maybe it's just that he's making his brainstorming and
market research phase _sound_ like a product when it isn't yet, but it's
strange to me that one would get so far as a usable product, funding, etc for
a something that they hadn't yet done an ounce of market research for.

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jamesmoss
Great article. As a super techy guy something which really sticks out for me
(and which has been confirmed by my day-job recently) is how key marketing
seems to be. You can have the crappiest product but with the right sales team
its possible to get anybody to buy it.

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epynonymous
several thoughts as i was reading the article, if you look at jason calacanis'
show "this week in startups", the intro to his show has a quote that says
something along the lines of "think about your biggest idea and then go for it
full speed!" that one resonates the most with me, i'm sure that quote was
pulled from somewhere else. anyway, my point is that i've been and am in the
same boat as i have a shedload of ideas, implement some of them half baked
(i.e. no marketing/sales follow through), and then move on to others for
various reasons. but when i read your article, it made me think about this
because it seems that lots of your projects either you or your partner lost
motivation, e.g. wanted to work on something else.

will/motivation to me is one of the most important things when choosing an
idea to execute. of course business model is important, but if you have an
excellent business model and you are only 80% interested, then chances are you
will fail.

ideas are a dime a dozen, put your efforts into the one that you feel most
passionate about from a personal level. not to say that you wasted time on any
of the projects because i'm sure you gained a lot of experience, but focus
that energy on the one thing and you'll go a lot farther than all of the 10+
combined :)

~~~
alexro
If I'm passionate about stuff that won't bring money for sure and there is an
idea that I hate but feel it could be profitable, which way shall I choose to
build a startup in your opinion?

It's easy to pick up to be passionate when doing a side project, and it's a
completely different thing when you think about "going head-on" and need to
pay the bills.

And in real life the choices are more subtle and have more dimensions.

