I don't understand: "Sand Hill Exchange" accepted items of real value (USD and BC) that could be used to "purchase" (or bet on) things named after real securities that trade (or are expected to trade) on public markets for a profit.
I would be surprised if a regulatory body didn't come after this setup. There is a very bright regulatory line around gambling and investing in most countries that a typical person should have known about. What am I missing? Why should I sympathize with Sand Hill Exchange?
I've always wondered about this with traffic tickets: How can officers have discretion on how to prosecute and still satisfy "equal protection under the law"? Or does equal protection only apply to federal statutes?
[Edit: Thank you to OP for sharing, and my heart goes out for your exp]
thanks for answering the questions. i depend on node at my day job, so i am particularly interested in npm's future.
i understand someone has to pay for the servers and development time, but would it be possible to give a hint for the types of things you plan to charge for? Even just a rough sketch of "we will offer private repositories" or "we will offer support." I appreciate the "reassurances" that nothing will change today for me, but the ambiguity prevents my latent paranoia from going away.
[Edit: Keep it up, and I wouldn't describe any of this as critique!]
Slide 9, "Notice how de-emphasized Start is." Following the arrow, I see that "Find" and "Start" are the same size and believe are emphasized similarly in the header. What cue am I failing to notice that one is de-emphasized?
A subtlety that's lost is between Slides 26 and 28 the user has two separate flows and browser sessions. It doesn't come across clicking next,next,next without reading your text.
[Edit: I didn't notice there were titles, so the only recommendation I have is to put something in the center of focus -- a graphic, a blurred out gmail inbox, a "later that day" film satire, etc.]
On 35, I had a different reaction to the facebook button there. This flow seems like it's based on creating a non-facebook account -- most people here in the flow already have signaled to Meetup they don't want to use fb. Why ask again? It seems like an unnecessary widget that may carry overly strong emotions for some customers. I wonder if this hook successfully converts non-fb users to fb users.
On 44, what was the initial goal for creating an account? Wasn't it to do something specific within the group? At 44 it feels like this flow was a glorified "sign-me-up-for-the-newsletter" form instead of joining a community. Do you have any thoughts about what should be changed at this step in the flow? Should users get dropped back on the PDX meetup page? Should users get introduced to actual neighbors, much like a host would when you show up to a party? Does slide 44 always work that way for all meetups?
[Edit: Good point on 45-47, I guess I expected to see the whole page 48 be in orange pen! That flow looks very confusing to me, and I think I was trying to nudge you to call it out if you thought so, too.]
Super interesting story, and thanks for sharing. I think you're referring to your time at DraftMix, right? Admittedly that was a really hard connection to find online [see below].
That said, quietly using partner/alumni investment as a signal for VCs doesn't quite fit the "Startups are a perfect meritocracy" narrative I'd prefer to believe...
[below]
Interestingly, searching for "Matt Maroon" (on Google, Crunchbase, AngelList, etc) yields results like [0] that only mention Blue Frog. Same for your blog. Wouldn't care otherwise, but I wanted to know if your story could be true or to dismiss as an internet rant.
However there was one interview-like-thing [1] still hanging around the Google Index that connected DraftMix [2] with a "Matthew Maroon" as the CEO [3]
I saw you got downvoted for another comment, but in general you've got the narrative right.
Microsoft sent a patent demand letter to B&N. B&N went public as part of its defense. Microsoft countered with two separate deals:
1) Settled the patent issue privately for a revenue-sharing deal and cash payment.
2) Microsoft committed to invest in the Nook business (called New Corp by B&N) which eventually led to Microsoft purchasing Nook for a premium.
So, while the immediate settlement was probably measured in hundreds of millions, the total outlay from Microsoft shareholders to B&N shareholders was close to 1 billion even though it was spread over multiple and disparate deals.
Prior to the patent letter neither company had a significant relationship.
Very sorry to hear this outcome, and I wish the best for the team. Perhaps you can sell standalone products? There is still value in never having to touch paper, and I would have been a happy customer had I known the wait list was done. It was such a promising product!
Most interesting quote to me, and thank you so much for the candor.
> After several months of testing and refining, we reasonably concluded that we were executing well and collecting good data—it told us that there wasn’t enough demand to support the cost model. Our monthly operating deficits were too high, and even though we continued to get better at acquisition, each small success actually saw our cash curve decline further because our density remained flat. For longer than we would be willing to tolerate, we would lose money for each additional customer we gained. Despite the massive interest in our company, we learned that the product we built did not find fit in the market we targeted.
P.S. I am doubly sorry to hear that the USPS shut down the partnership due to threatening unwanted!! ad revenue... this is making me feel even more sad.
As an American who only heard of TenCent late in 2013, I also did not know that WhatsApp was a subscription service. Holy batman that feels either evil or genius.
Makes sense why the app asked for my cell phone digits when I first installed, and I'm happy I never gave it...
May I suggest two other narratives that don't involve politics behind "the problems being solved ... are typically addressed at other geeks, upper-middle class consumers, entrepreneurs, and the startup community."?
Why geeks, upper-middle-class, etc? That's where the perception of easy money is, and you see a lot of it here because this is one of the target audiences.
Why startup community or fellow geeks? There is a mantra to solve a problem you have, which means there are a lot of geek- or startup-related apps.
I would also ask you to believe that there are many people who are working on products outside of the "consumer app" space that doesn't advertise, per se, on this site.
I've always wondered how differently municipalities would behave were the fines forbidden from funding operations. For example, what if all fines had to be paid to a trust, and only the interest from the trust may be used for capital projects? Then only taxes could be used to pay for operations. At the federal level this change wouldn't make a big difference, but at the local level it would affect 50% of some budgets.
I imagine a lot of what seems like frivolous ticketing would shift towards something else.
Edit: @stinkytaco -- Agreed. Maybe frivolous tickets would be replaced with frivolous taxes? The money does have to come from somewhere, and I agree that the vast majority of civil servants are just enforcing otherwise reasonable laws :) Still a fun thought experiment.
Completely agree with @thatthatis, but one separate thought.
> "talks began in October"
> "they [HandyBook] had a much better and well-defined marking model and they had already developed what we were trying to iterate, but better."
Is this related to the departure of the people behind the https://giveit100.com/ around then? The non-technical founder was responsible for marketing at Exec, for example. I could imagine were I in her shoes and heard this back then I also would be looking for new work.
I actually was just counting the 38 emails I got. I didn't feel like I could tell one way or another from HN comments or twitter, and I appreciated your thoughts. The snark was earned! (And I upvoted you)
About the tone -- I think you're right to criticize it. I liken the situation to competing against a sports player who uses steroids when you do not. The other player gets the press, the accolades, and the reputation even though he cheats. So when the player gets caught with a failed drug test and suspended from the sport, of course it feels great to be vindicated.
The Everpix team was dumping its product on the market and either lying or ignorant about it. They and the others left my team with the very hard decision to abandon our own sweat and blood for no fault of our own. We loved our product and wanted to be able to compete, but we saw we would not get a seat in this game of musical chairs. We resented the other competitors and their high capitalization, and we prefer to limit VC pitch tours. Failing to include that bias would have been dishonest, and the resulting tone was cathartic. I have no apology for it.
Swisspol's reply reinforced to me that the team was unaware of their underlying failed business model -- nothing in my analysis assumed constant costs or even distributions as suggested -- and selling a product for less than variable costs throughout 2013 was major business sin. It's forgivable for the first months or so, but the fact it persisted until the day they closed the doors is very telling. And yes, they should have closed their doors "immediately" when it was obvious from very early in the data they could not get positive margins, just as we did. Remember, this was a paid product and not an Instagram clone. My analysis was not hindsight, it was confirmation of hard work I did in April 2013. The VC-related emails had a similar tone attacking the analysis as "unfair" or "inappropriate" for a web-based startup.
Everpix should be a cautionary tale for other startups to make sure their gross margins are positive! My other research has a much more neutral tone, but in this case photos are very emotional.
tl;dr -- the crux of the issue (right or wrong) is making the evaluation information too public. From the news story:
> "[Administrators' primary concern was] making YC [Yale College] course evaluation available to many who are not authorized to view this information,”
> "[Administrators also asked] how they [the site operators] obtained the information, who gave them permission to use it and where the information is hosted."
Edit: Agreed, I don't buy these are the real reasons.
This post will be downvoted to hell, but I have been wanting to say this for a while and can't find a way to contact you. (My email is my HN handle at gmail)
You may or may not be right about this or the rest of VC-istan. But I LOVE the fervor and color of your posts. I love hearing a contrarian view. And I would love to buy you a cup of coffee or beer to say thanks for making my time of HN so much more interesting.
Edit: Thanks for the reply, and I'm relieved to hear others share my sentiment. I have seen you refer to rankban elsewhere, but this was the first time I understood what you meant.
Also, yesterday I published research about Everpix shutting down and I got two groups of feedback:
1) From startup founders generally positive comments or clarifying questions. All were constructive conversations.
2) From VC-connected people generally defensive FUD and ad hominems.
It was very interesting to watch, and you are certainly not alone.
"Like" is relative and based on tradeoffs. Loved Rick's talk, thanks.
This last year I worked on a project with people from the valley, we used Go, and everyone contributed quality code. This is because people in SF area know Go.
A year ago I worked on a project with people from the midwest, we used node, and got the same quality. Much fewer people in the midwest know Go.
Independent of my feelings about both environments, CSP, callback hell, etc, at the end of the day my team and I have to build a product, and I try to pick the tool that best matches our combined skillsets.
I love Scala as a language and would encourage you to learn it on the way to becoming a more rounded programmer. It does have its warts, and compile times kill me. On HN the two common recommendations are:
* Go
* Node.JS (with Promises while we wait for generators!)
I personally use node for large-scale stuff since more people know JS, but a lot of this comes down to personal preference.
Thank you for responding thoroughly to the write-up. I think you're absolutely right that we both are clouded by preferences and philosophies when looking at this data. Your conclusions are just as valid.
The only point I would make is that I did not assume constant photo sizes, even distributions of users, or constant costs in the long term. I did assume these variables changed each month. What I tried to do was match what actually happened each period to determine if there was an operating profit.
I agree had the business expanded to other revenue streams or had been able to migrate to a different infrastructure it may have become a profitable ongoing concern. It just doesn't look like you had been able to get to either in the time you had.
But I think you will in the next venture. Again, I cannot stop thanking you and wishing all the best!
I really appreciate yours and the GP's comments because both describe different parts of the Everpix puzzle.
You're right that capital should seek the highest returns, but one way to measure the likelihood of getting that return is by evaluating the marginal costs and revenues of a product. When a company sells each product for a loss, it is impossible for the company to provide a positive return on the capital. In those cases, like with Everpix, it becomes a question of "when" and not "if" the business will fail and the return will be zero. The only rational way to play the game that way is to hope for an acquisition.
That's why I look at detailed parts of business models like this, it helps elicit the overall picture in the same way functional a test case elicits overall product health. There is an art to ensuring proper overall coverage with multiple tests.
> I don't think they didn't know they were burning their reserves, that their cost structure was unsustainable.
This is where I disagree and why I wrote the analysis. I think the company didn't understand they were selling their product for a marginal loss:
From the numbers neither statement was true, and from the confidence in the tone it seems like they didn't know for a while. Subscriptions did not cover AWS costs. It looks like it might have become known internally when asked directly from others taking a look:
> "The reason we were getting closer and closer to being positive on variable costs ... is, yes, improved monetization, but more importantly AWS optimizations." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7043555
I really appreciate that you released the underlying data. It is one of the best gifts you could give to the community. I think you and I would greatly enjoy chatting at a bar about this crazy startup world.
We just have different opinions and philosophies about building businesses: For me it's important to sell products at a marginal profit generally. I don't think whether the business is VC-backed or bootstrapped makes one difference: I look at both of those are tools to finance fixed costs, not to subsidize ongoing variable operations. The underlying economic principles are the same to me. But, that's this man's humble opinion.
I'm not sure I buy that the "marginal loss" [was] "easily" fixable through infrastructure [changes]. If it were easy you would have done it that way from the beginning or sooner in 2013. I buy that the infrastructure changes required more investment or planning, but in general in software "easy" things are the things you've already done. Otherwise we'd be experts at planning and estimating :)
Best of luck in the next venture, and again thank you so much for releasing the data!
I would be surprised if a regulatory body didn't come after this setup. There is a very bright regulatory line around gambling and investing in most countries that a typical person should have known about. What am I missing? Why should I sympathize with Sand Hill Exchange?