Lessons from a Failed Tech Startup

99 点作者 swimorsinka超过 9 年前

11 条评论

trjordan超过 9 年前

> Lesson 7: Letting Your Startup Rule Your Self Esteem Is DangerousSeems obvious, but there's a reason it happens so often. If you live and breath your startup, you're better prepared to take on opportunities. Even if you're only at your desk "working" for 8-10 hours a day, you can find a lot of serendipity by talking about it with friends and family. Wait, you know somebody who could be a customer? Wait, you made money on your last job and want to invest? Wait, you want to work with us? It's easy to get into a mode where you're forever pitching, networking, and being your company, because there are real benefits.That said, I've talked to a weirdly high number of people who had a kid while founding a company. Their tongue-in-cheek logic: "This is something that's obviously more important than my company. If I'm going to have my self-esteem wrapped up in anything external, it's better to be my child than my company. My business may fail, but I will not fail to raise this kid."Me, I got a dog. It's working out!

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mschenkel超过 9 年前

I found this to be a great article and can identify very closely with it. I created a webservice back in 2010. Fortunately I am still operating, although certainly not "killing it". At least not enough to go full time.Lesson 1. Sales and Marketing. So true. I think every entrepreneur greatly underestimates sales and renvenue growth. It's easy to create "top-down" market share spreadsheets and imagine the opportunities. It just never works that way. I am starting to learn that Sales is a major part of any company. People tend to think that just because there are fewer and fewer brick and mortar stores, and face to face meetings for that matter, that sales isn't an integral a part of a company.Lesson 2. Indeed money is important. But at the same time how necessary is it for a lot of what Silicon Valley is producing these days. Hardware and development tools are the cheapest they have ever been. You certainly don't need a ton of venture backing to create a web service. That is the approach I am taking.Lesson 3. With my web service I never created spreadsheets with forecasted user growth. But at the same time can say growth never really took off the way I had hoped. More important to me is year over year growth.Lesson 4. I am still running this as a sole founder... Anyone out there interested in sales/marketing?Lesson 5. Great point. Always a difficult decision knowing what features to add. More and more I add features and have the requesting customer at least partially fund the development of it. And more often than not don't release them as a "public" features. Sometimes you have to resort to "consultingware" until your fully self-serve web serivce takes off on its own.Lesson 6. Indeed. Never be afraid to reach out to people who sign up for your service and ask them more. Stackoverflow is a great site to "find peoples pain".Lesson 7. Yes - you always have to keep your chin up, especially on days where you feelIt would be interesting if Ross could share some indicators on his revenue. If not, other metrics like how long it took to get the first sale, etc.

gamechangr超过 9 年前

Sales is pretty important.I read an article where Peter Thiel said that most startups fail because of difficulty in Sales and distribution.I read over and over again the value of Sales and the need for a founder to focus on "the business side", but then I still marginalize the role of sales.I'm I broken or do we all do that???

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austinhulak超过 9 年前

Google Cache: <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZcdIAx0jJIAJ:https://thinkfaster.co/2016/02/7-lessons-from-a-failed-tech-startup/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" rel="nofollow">https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZcdIAx...</a>

Johnie超过 9 年前

This post completely resonated with me as a former Googler making the leap into startup founder. It's been drinking from a firehose learning what it takes to get a product off the ground. What I've found is that the entrepreneur community is extremely supportive of each other.For other Xoogler Entrepreneurs out there, a couple of us have started a Xooglerpreneur community with over 600+ Xoogler/Googler entrepreneurs. The group has been hosting monthly tech talks, founders lunches, and other networking events. We have active local chapters in LA and NYC with additional groups growing in Chicago and London.There is an active Slack channel and the group is organizing an Xooglerpreneur Demo Day later this year as well as setting up an Xoogler Angel Fund.Sign up here: <a href="http://www.xooglerpreneur.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.xooglerpreneur.com</a>

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jorgecurio超过 9 年前

I think my lesson was"Don't go off to the races, solving difficult problems for people who won't pay for it"and"To us its a bunch of tables and CRUD generated on top of it. To them, its whether or not theres a free plan."and"Recognize when there is a poor market fit and CHANGE the situation. Falling in love with your own creation tends to blind you."gg startups, hello drudgery

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seibelj超过 9 年前

I just have a lower risk tolerance than a lot of people. I am totally down with creating something new, I just refuse to leave a job that pays the bills to do it. If you work 40-50 hours a week at your real job, that still leaves 10-50 hours per week to work on your own thing, depending on how driven you are, how much stuff you scheduled that week, etc. Startups are so risky that it's way better to reduce your risk any way possible.Of course, if you go the VC funded route and want to be huge, then go for glory and quit your job. But if you want to build a smaller, steadier side business that you grow over a longer time, don't quit your day job.

rpgmaker超过 9 年前

> Who knows where that drive comes from, but I know that many people have it, just like I do.Ego. Nothing wrong with it as long as it's kept in check but let's not pretend we don't know where the drive comes from.

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kearneyandy超过 9 年前

This was an interesting read in particular to contrast with other startup letters. The focus in the first point on sales and other roles is interesting because I've noticed before these posts focusing on the product (such as <a href="http://playbook.samaltman.com/" rel="nofollow">http://playbook.samaltman.com/</a>). The idea that the sales and business will come naturally seems to stem from this kind of advice. It's clear that there needs to be some kind of balance that is usually not talked about.

LyndsySimon超过 9 年前

> At least I didn’t go into debt. I can’t imagine the stress of founders who start by living off credit cards. I further can’t imagine the stress of people trying to support a family while starting a company.I can't relate to this at all - there must be a tiny portion of entrepreneurs that can. I've been blessed to be in a position where I've never (as an adult) been hopelessly poor, but I've absolutely been in a place where I've worried that I'd have enough money to last until pay day. I've been in a position where I've sold anything I could think of to have enough money to buy food, diapers, or enough fuel to get to work and back for the rest of the week.

known超过 9 年前

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.