I love the discussion about all this. For a bit of context, I kept the article focused on the technical because that is the primary audience of my website. There is a criticism that I focused too much on the technical side in the article. That's entirely possible.
My choice to focus on the technical is because my lessons basically boiled down to:
1. Don't focus on the technical (#1 YAGNI, #2 Ignore software upgrades, and #3 use the tools you know)
2. Deliver something valuable to the customers as fast as possible.
In other words, I tried to say "don't focus on the technical side."
I admit in the article that the technical focus of the article itself was emblematic of why the project failed.
> Up to this point, I’ve written about the technical failings of the project. This is an emblematic example of why the project failed. I didn’t help my customers and was too focused on the technology.
Perhaps I was too subtle on that point.
Thanks for all the feedback. I've enjoyed reading the discussion.
Great Article! There is far to few of these in the world. So many companies go under but keep their website and linked-in in a state that looks like they still exist.
Did you look at competition? CollegePlannerPro seems to fit the same area you're going for, did you differentiate from what they were doing? I just was curious if there's a market fit for something like this, always thinking of running w/ a failed idea that still has runway, but I have so many half-finished MVP's it's not even funny.
I've got a bookmark folder of startup ideas to clone. So far I've cloned 0. Too busy freelancing. But I usually like two types of businesses :
1. Simple w/ multiple competitors doing 5-10k+ per month, like uptime monitors, wp management, social media posters/schedulers, crm's, project management.
2. More complex apps usually vertical specific with nobody really competing or filling the void, or the ones that are out there are shitty. Whether an idea I had, or someone else on a forum/reddit/hn etc or failed.
Yours would've in my mental compartmentalization of 'apps to maybe clone/build' fit into the second category, but looking at what's out there, I don't think a 1 person team could really compete w/ CollegePlannerPro - seems to have most things you'd need as an IEC.
I'm just wondering if you saw what they were doing at any time and thought, well shit. I'll never be that good, might as well give up. (I've had that thought a lot!).
tldr; Have you seen College Planner Pro, did seeing a polished competitor like them have any influence on shutting down?
My choice to focus on the technical is because my lessons basically boiled down to:
1. Don't focus on the technical (#1 YAGNI, #2 Ignore software upgrades, and #3 use the tools you know)
2. Deliver something valuable to the customers as fast as possible.
In other words, I tried to say "don't focus on the technical side."
I admit in the article that the technical focus of the article itself was emblematic of why the project failed.
> Up to this point, I’ve written about the technical failings of the project. This is an emblematic example of why the project failed. I didn’t help my customers and was too focused on the technology.
Perhaps I was too subtle on that point.
Thanks for all the feedback. I've enjoyed reading the discussion.