
How Not To Promote Your New Startup - tptacek
http://groups.google.com/group/barcampla/browse_thread/thread/4b4091eaf6fb6743
======
mbrubeck
Wow. Pratt's obsession with Kickstarter "ripping off" Fundable is especially
silly considering that both are essentially variants of Kelsey and Schneier's
Street Performer Protocol, published in 1998 [1]. (That paper is not even the
first instance of the basic idea, just one of the most well-known.)

Edited to add: I'd be really interested to see one of these sites implement
the Rational Street Performer Protocol [2], which essentially means that each
donor pledges matching funds ("I'll donate $X for every $Y that anyone else
pledges, up to a maximum of $Z"). This gives individuals a stronger incentive
to pledge more; the hard part is coming up with a simple explanation that
first-time users will understand.

[1]: <http://www.schneier.com/paper-street-performer.html>

[2]: <http://www.logarithmic.net/pfh/rspp>

~~~
NathanKP
Would you happen to know why the Austin police were after the company? Sounds
like a messy soap opera, but I'm curious about what went so wrong.

~~~
cfinke
Sounds like Pratt is framing it as his partner making it up as a scare tactic
to try and acquire his portion of the company.

------
mikepence
I was the project manager at Kickstarter during its initial phase of
development, during the time that we went from a single requirements document
and some mock-ups to a functional site. We weren't ripping anybody off.

The boring truth is that we took Perry Chen's idea, and, like any software
project, continued to refine and adjust our vision of what the site should be,
and what the user experience should be, based on the imagined needs of some
hypothetical users.

What we ended up building was only remotely similar to what our requirements
started out with, and the project continued to morph after those initial
stages, to what it is today.

I am sorry that this guy's startup did not take off as Kickstarter has. Making
libelous claims about the work of others, though, is no way to be.

~~~
rythie
I'd have to say I agree - It's quite easy for someone to come up with the same
idea as you and not even be aware that you exist(ed).

Blog posts and comments about my startup (<http://FriendBinder.com>) often
think we copied FriendFeed, SocialThing or some other site though the reality
is that those sites didn't exist when we started early in 2007 (or were in
stealth at least).

That's life I'm afraid.

~~~
rotw
I don't use any of the three services, but the landing page of FriendBinder
made me more curious then FriendFeed's. However, it just looks a tad
unprofessional, with faded looking colours, unsubtle shadows & gradients, and
heavy use of Arial. I'd really get a professional designer to tweak that a
bit, I think you might profit from that.

Or, if you don't want to spend money: Brighter, more friendly colours, replace
Arial with Helvetica, drastically cut down on the italic, draw some subtle,
but clear seperations of the containers. But keep the basic concept intact, I
really like it.

~~~
rythie
Thanks for the suggestions, I've started to move us to Helvetica (except logos
for now) and cut down on italics. Do you have a site, twitter etc.? my details
are in my profile.

------
dschobel
_I cannot tell you how painful it is to watch 5 assholes take your idea and
run with it and not even give you credit. I hate all 5 of them for that. If I
see them, I may punch each one of them in the face. If you have never started
your own company and then had someone else steal the credit for what you
worked hard to develop, you don't understand._

yikes, sounds like entrepreneurship really doesn't suit John.

~~~
Tim_M
Was any patents involved?

------
sofal
This is almost funny enough to become a meme:

 _For those of you who insist on thinking that the truth always lies in
between two accounts of a situation, I urge you to drop that misguided notion,
especially for this situation._

~~~
manbearpig
Wow. And check out www.fundable.com

 _Customers are encouraged to use Kickstarter as a replacement for
Fundable.com and seek legal action against Louis Helm personally should he
fail to resolve your payment issues promptly._

~~~
tlrobinson
He apparently just redirected fundable.com to his new thing.

------
n8agrin
From the article:

 _All it took was 5 super-connected people at Kickstarter (especially Andy
Baio) to take a concept we worked hard to refine, tweak it with Amazon
Payments, and then take credit. You could say that that's capitalism, but I
still think you should acknowledge people that you take inspiration from._

The thing is being well connected does matter. And I wouldn't say that's just
calling it capitalism. Further, getting an idea off the ground is hard
regardless of how well you are connected and how good the idea is. The fact
that Facebook is "the" social networking site shows that one idea can become
successful while earlier attempts fall by the wayside. It happens everyday.
Perhaps Kickstarter will be wildly successful, or perhaps not, but the
connectedness of the founders is only one part of Kickstarter's rise.

To the issue of giving credit where credit is due. If Kickstarter did not use
the author's code or his/her own works, then the author deserves no explicit
named credit. Just as Google deserved no explicit named credit from Microsoft
when it released Bing. Not to mention the other possible legal ramifications
if Kickstarter came forward and publicly acknowledged their idea was based on
Fundable's.

~~~
neilk
People become "super-connected" when they've earned a lot of people's trust or
respect.

Can't imagine why this Pratt guy is having difficulties with that.

------
jchonphoenix
[http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/my-very-bad-
experi...](http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/my-very-bad-experience-
with-fundable-com/)

From the comments that pretty much sums up why he failed.

The quick synopsis: He gathered fundraiser money then just kept it and never
returned it or dispersed it to the users. (Explains the police charges)

------
dennykmiu
For all first-time entrepreneurs, first read the original post and then
remember the following as your first lesson of 2010. Whatever you do, don’t
post on the web immediately after you fail. Don’t try to make yourself look
smart. Don’t try to rationalize your failure. Talking about failure doesn’t
make failure go away. It just opens yourself to saying things you will surely
regret in later days. Instead of talking, you would be much better served if
you just shut up and peddle like hell. Now is not the time to seek fame and
recognition. With success, you will have both. It is much more fun to do a
Blog when you fully recover and share your hard earned experience from the
vantage point of sweet success. Otherwise people would make the obvious
observation that you are nothing but a wannabe. However, if you inadvertently
discover you have a knack for on-line comedy, then you should give up being an
entrepreneur. It is a much better career anyway.

------
callmeed
Good gravy this is sad-not to mention embarrassing for other Oregonian
entrepeneurs like myself.

Connected people (usually) aren't born connected. It's simply a byproduct of
past success. They work hard, network, execute, iterate, succeed and get
people's attention.

If you can't figure that after 4 years, too bad for you.

~~~
olefoo
He doesn't strike me as the sort that's going to be able to make Portland work
with him. Collaboration needs some cooperation; which, well, not his strong
suit obviously.

------
DanielBMarkham
What a laugh!

Gosh I know how this guy feels -- I've had three other startup ideas that were
"copied" by the market and took off in other formats. And he was so dead on
and hilarious in his assessment of presenting to investors: * I tried for 4
years to get people to take Fundable seriously, traveling across the country,
even giving a presentation to FBFund, Facebook's fund to stimulate development
of new apps. It was a series of rejections for 4 years. I really felt that I
presented myself professionally in every business situation and I dressed
appropriately and practiced my presentations. That was not enough. The idiots
wanted us to show them charts with massive profits and widespread public
acceptance so that they didn't have to take any risks.*

But guess what? None of that matters and it's all so much whining. Dude --
don't go 4 years with any one idea. Try maybe a year or two. This is a numbers
game and you may have to get 10 or 15 of these ideas behind you. Forget about
financing. It's a fools game played by people with more money than common
sense and all about jumping on the bandwagon and who you know, not about real
market-changing potential.

Damn I feel your pain. I really do. It sucks to have a paradigm-shifting idea
and watch some other assholes who are simply better-connected run with it. The
marketplace is NOT a meritocracy.

I'm right where they were 4 years ago -- new idea, developing a new site, lots
of upside potential, and lots of odds stacked against me. I could move to SV
and start becoming a professional fundraiser/hanger-on, or I could work my
idea and most likely fail.

I choose to work my idea. I'm not going to create charts or blow smoke up
investors butts. They get so much of that -- it's one of the reasons their
discriminators are so broken. Jesus himself could appear and ask for funding
to start a new world religion and they'd probably respond with something like
"Wonderful idea, Jesus, but your team doesn't look so good -- lots of
fishermen and nobody is even literate. Also the market you're chosen, Judea?
Not so good in terms of disposable income. You should move to Rome. Get to
know some of the Senators. But good luck with all of that. Don't call us,
we'll call you." [damn. That's a good blog idea -- if Jesus was a startup]

Having laughed (and cried) at how real this article was, I wouldn't have
written it. As grellas points out, sometimes venting helps and sometimes it
doesn't. It's time to get moving, not complaining.

~~~
dasil003
_The marketplace is NOT a meritocracy._

Right, and neither is one's own opinion of oneself.

I don't know if this John Pratt guy actually has any intelligence,
perseverance or marketable skills, but one thing he certainly does have is
personality disorder. If I were him I'd take some time to reflect on his
public persona, figure out what's wrong with his attitude, and then go get his
name legally changed before trying again.

------
axod
From <http://pdxcell.com/>

"The image comparison below indicates that I have something to offer in this
area." What???

I think this guy needs some serious therapy. It's not healthy to be that
deluded and angry about things.

You can either spend all your time and energy moaning and whining like this
about how you had some idea once and someone stole it and executed it, which
is _obviously_ trivial if you're well connected (BS). OR you can spend your
energy executing, and making things work.

~~~
mickeyben
This is the first sentence I read in the page and thought the all site was a
joke.

The funny thing about all that is that the guy put a lot of efforts into that
and had the time to think, at least, twice.

------
gojomo
I hope Pratt gets over his misdirected anger.

I was happy when I heard of Fundable in 2005, not because it was a cool new
idea but because it was an old idea overdue for someone to do it right. (In
fact, in 2001 I owned the domains 'payzi.com' and 'tipzi.com' -- as possible
homes for some sort of audience-sourced creative-project funding system to
complement the Bitzi metadata service.)

Fundable didn't quite do it right, for whatever reasons. Now I'm happy the
concept is getting another try from another team.

------
chris123
Wow, that's one of those emails that he should have put in a drawer for a day
and then torn up without ever sending it.

~~~
MicahWedemeyer
Amen. Wish I had a time machine just to unsend some of my own emails...

------
jellicle
Besides some miscellaneous bits about the guy not being a good businessman,
one lesson I think everyone can learn from this is the following:

\--if you do anything with shifting money on the internet, your first and
largest group of customers will be fraudsters. Plans to deal with this need to
be in place from day 1, if not before.

Fundable was beset by fraud, and for whatever reason, failed to deal with it
in a successful fashion.

It's sort of like input/output sanitization. If you take input from one user,
and show it to another user, you've got HTML security problems. If you take
money from one user, and you give it another user, you've got massive fraud
problems, unless you have a comprehensive "money sanitization" process
operating behind the scenes.

------
nitrogen
It was a great sob story until he tried to promote his wireless thing at the
end... Then I just had to laugh.

~~~
Vivtek
Yeah, that's really where it takes a turn for the surreal. "How not to
promote," indeed - and the scary thing is how you can sympathize with his
bitterness and sort of see how there, but for the grace of God, go you.

The part where he calls the founder of the list a troll is also choice.

------
whereareyou
You gotta love his sweet pic at the bottom... page - <http://PDXCell.com> pic
- <http://pdxcell.com/images/johnpratt.jpg>

~~~
drewcrawford
I think this is worth highlighting specifically:

> By nature, most engineers try to tear projects down and explain why things
> won't work or are "too much work." It's often a consequence of how most of
> them can interpret minor hangups as major, nearly-insolvable problems.
> That's why you have to find those rare engineers, like Google engineers or
> Apple engineers, who have a respect for the arts and humanities. Those are
> the engineers who create breakthroughs and push the limits of existing
> technologies. NeXT, a computer company from the 1990's, was a very good
> example of this and its innovations are still being felt today. Its
> technologies underly the iPod, Mac OS X, and the iPhone. Its hardware
> manufacturing advances were far ahead of its time.

> If you are saying that this project is not feasible, you are simply
> incorrect. Non-specialist observers can see that the technology to
> accomplish this is available. We may not yet know how it's going to work
> specifically, but we'll find engineers and programmers who want to make it
> work.

~~~
potatolicious
Step #1 to making sure no capable engineers ever work with you: presume to
know their craft better than they do.

------
mhansen
"I cannot tell you how painful it is to watch 5 assholes take your idea and
run with it and not even give you credit. I hate all 5 of them for that. If I
see them, I may punch each one of them in the face." ... "I am not very bitter
because I realize how much I learned and how much I got to experience"

Good god.

------
petercooper
If you're a "scanner" rather than a by-the-word reader, some advice here..
make sure you don't quit before you get about 7 paragraphs in. That's where it
starts getting funny/sad.

------
tptacek
(The title isn't mine, it's Janey Lee's from Twitter, but it fits and so I
kept it).

~~~
silencio
ha, thanks :) not that I can take credit for anything either, I just happened
to have been subscribed to the barcampla mailing list.

------
grellas
A venting of the spleen, with words improvidently spoken, over a topic best
kept to oneself.

------
DanBlake
Lots of hate for kickstarter.

Pledgebank has been doing this since 04 at least. I run petitionspot so I have
been watching sites like this and they just didnt do a good job. Just look at
thepoint.com ( now groupon ) - They tore it up because they did a good job.
They were in chicago, not the valley.

------
mickeyben
You should read basics about web usability. Nobody will ever read your new
page.

------
rdez6173
I can understand the disappointment, but, come on.. that's what a startup is
all about. Sometimes you have to fail to succeed. Sometimes your ideas will
get stolen. Sometimes Google will buy you for half a billion dollars; it's the
name of the game.

In the end, "ideas" are worthless. It's implementation that leads to success;
you actually have to _build_ the better mousetrap.

------
johnl
I would have liked the article to go into more depth about his rejections and
if he used the rejection feedback to change his marketing strategy. My guess
is when things start heading downhill it all turns into personal problems so I
would ignore that stuff in the analysis.

------
middus
That guy really seems to be a marketing genius
[http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/one-more-
fundable-...](http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/one-more-fundable-
update/)

------
allenbrunson
looks like this particular train wreck has made it to news.yc previously:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=856301>

~~~
gus_massa
Screenshot of Fundable "closed permanently" (October 2009)

<http://img18.yfrog.com/img18/2396/s8u.png>

(image from: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=858033> )

------
wrath
Just a little bitter! You win some and lose some dude! Pick yourself up, learn
from your mistakes and for god sakes Shut Up, no one wants to hear you wining.

~~~
DougBTX
Quote from the bottom of PDXCell.com:

 _You can also hire me to teach you how to build your self-confidence as a
standup guy or give a talk to your organization on the subject. The image
comparison below indicates that I have something to offer in this area_

------
azharcs
Perfect example of "Lets kick the guy when he is down", and Seriously why is
this even here? I rest my case.

~~~
silencio
I feel somewhat obligated to reply because I originally tweeted this (and with
a title similar to the above).

I didn't do this to kick the guy while he's down. It's that on Twitter I knew
enough people working in various roles in startups and even just most
companies that I thought this would be a good warning to all of them of what
never to do. You don't _ever_ publicly accuse your competitor of outright
ripping off your idea (if that really was the case, take them to court, but
it's clearly not appropriate here). You don't publicly attack your co-founder
because it didn't work out for whatever reason. You especially don't do either
one in an email to a group of pretty tech-savvy and possibly well-connected
people and then go on to attack said group when they don't respond favorably
because oh noes, they're being unfair to you. All because you wanted to tell
them about your new startup.

Pratt seems to want to get more connections and more interested eyes looking
at his new project for funding and development and more, and he's not helping
his case by acting the way he does. All this bad press could have been
prevented if he had edited out most of his original email. It should have been
something like "Hey, remember me, we might have met before at a previous
BarCampLA...I was one of the guys behind Fundable. I'm now working on a new
startup called PDXCell, and I'd appreciate it if you'd check it out!". Not
this burning-all-bridges tactic. I tend not to talk much at BarCampLA events,
but I've still met people there looking to fund startups, talented
developers/engineers/hackers, marketing types, and more. That's a lot of
potentially useful connections that will now remember this guy as someone
never to work with.

So while some of the comments here might really be kicking the guy while he is
down, I saw this link as an educational moment, especially to HNers that might
someday (if not already) find themselves tempted to do the same. I'd hope
Pratt realizes what he's doing wrong eventually..

------
ddemchuk
It appears the author has the wrong idea that a good idea demands exclusive
success...if that were the case, I would imagine most of us would be
millionaires.

You can't complain about something being hard to execute on and then bitch
because others executed the idea better than you could. That's just the nature
of the game.

~~~
dschobel
That was my (probably engineer-biased) take as well. Pratt seems to think that
their awesome idea even with shitty execution (by his own admission) should
have won the day.

------
manbearpig
The hilarity continues at PDXCell.com Check out the section entitled: "A
response to this page". Shoulda known he was an Apple fanboy.

~~~
wmf
Yeah, trying to defuse expert criticism by accusing experts of being narrow-
minded really sets off my crackpot alarm. (History _is_ full of cases where
expert consensus was wrong, but I think these cases are notable precisely
because they are exceptional.)

------
jprattx
I got new iPhone. Now what's next.

I got new Mac OS. Now what's next.

I read the Y Combinator news feed. Major drama from some nutjob who ruined his
company and was a douchebag. Ha ha.

Cool. Now what's next.

I read the TechCrunch page. Now what's next.

What's Apple working on next?

Ok. What's Google working on next?

Ok, I found out. Now, what's next?

What does Tim O'Reilly say is the next thing?

Ok. What does Cory Doctorow say is the next thing?

Ok. What does Andy Baio's link blog say is the next thing?

Ok. What does Mashable have to say is the next thing?

[continue as nested loop: your wasted life on the computer]

~~~
romland
Not to wind you up further, but I think you mean "infinite loop".

I had never heard of fundable.com or you prior to the exposure initiated by
this thread. I started looking up the all the background information I could
and I tried (hard) to not pass undue judgment. The problem is not so much what
others wrote about you or your business, the problem is what you wrote. In
your messages you start (somewhat) rational and reasonable, albeit frustrated
(for reasons anyone can understand). Then as you are coming to wrap-up of what
you write, you say something that really makes me cringe. I don't know how or
why you do it, but seriously, before you post something I urge you to sit on
the text for a couple of hours before pressing that submit button.

Your name is attached to that shit.

(yeah yeah, feeding the troll, bbye karma -- should I have any)

------
jprattx
I have three phrases for Y Combinator blog commenters:

BENCH WARMERS.

TROLLS.

LOSERS WHO HAVE NEVER TAKEN RISKS IN THEIR LIVES OR OPENED THEMSELVES TO
PUBLIC OR PERSONAL ATTACK.

\- John Pratt (yes, it's me)

~~~
etfb
Check out <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism> \-- the
phenomenon is real!

Seriously, you need to cut out the coffee, stat.

------
jprattx
If you comment on tech blogs like this, you're probably a loser. People who
accomplish things don't have time to leave comments in tech blogs unless there
are stories written about them.

That means if you are reading this, you are probably a loser.

Sorry, fags.

-John Pratt (yes, it's me)

~~~
etfb
Hey, HNers! Keep baiting him! The weather satellites show a spike in
temperature over his location. At the rate he's steaming up, he'll explode
into a fine red mist in a couple of hours!

("Fags"? Really? This from a grown-up? Utterly bizarre. Is this a fake account
or something? It's done well, if so.)

~~~
thesethings
Yeah. I can't believe anybody would really use the "f" word in a forum like
this (or ideally anywhere, but especially in an otherwise civil, focused forum
like this). Probably (hopefully?) a fake account.

~~~
wgj
His own replies to his google groups posting are just as bizarre. Sadly, this
looks authentic.

~~~
Klondike
Eh, the account was only registered to respond to this post. I'd presume John
innocent until proven guilty.

~~~
wgj
I was referring to the follow up comments made on BarCampLA using the same
gmail account as his original post there. Those comments have the same tone as
the ones made here.

