Ask HN: Did your YC (or other incubator) startup fail? What are you doing now?
What year did it fail, how long after the program did things end and what are you doing these days?
56 comments
Here's my (long long) story: http://blog.paulbiggar.com/archive/why-we-shut-newstilt-down...
Am now doing https://circleci.com, so it has a happy ending.
Am now doing https://circleci.com, so it has a happy ending.
Hey Paul, I'm the founder of Beacon http://www.beaconreader.com - would be interested to hear your thoughts (if you have any) on the space now. Can I send you an email?
Not the guy you're asking but I have something to tell you.
I've never heard of Beacon, so I went to your site. The site does not immediately and clearly tell me what Beacon does. That sucks.
No, I don't want to watch a video to find out.
Only at this point do I know what it does:
"When you fund a writer on Beacon, you also get access to every story from every other writer. New writers are added each month so your subscription becomes more valuable over time."
Weird that I "also" get access, as you didn't actually tell me that you get access to a particular writer if and only if you fund them.
It seems like your product is niche journalism. What you are apparently currently triyng to sell is "Pay a journalist." That is not a product and it is not a value to anyone except the journalist.
An alternative sales pitch would be: "We're building a grassroots journalism network. For $5 a month, you can sponsor a writer whose work interests you to get access to their work, and as a bonus, we'll give you access to the entire network."
It's realize highly presumptious of me to say all this. I would expect that you already know it. Plus, maybe your model for generating new subscribers does not include "they go to the website never having heard of what it is before." So, sorry if I'm wasting your time.
I've never heard of Beacon, so I went to your site. The site does not immediately and clearly tell me what Beacon does. That sucks.
No, I don't want to watch a video to find out.
Only at this point do I know what it does:
"When you fund a writer on Beacon, you also get access to every story from every other writer. New writers are added each month so your subscription becomes more valuable over time."
Weird that I "also" get access, as you didn't actually tell me that you get access to a particular writer if and only if you fund them.
It seems like your product is niche journalism. What you are apparently currently triyng to sell is "Pay a journalist." That is not a product and it is not a value to anyone except the journalist.
An alternative sales pitch would be: "We're building a grassroots journalism network. For $5 a month, you can sponsor a writer whose work interests you to get access to their work, and as a bonus, we'll give you access to the entire network."
It's realize highly presumptious of me to say all this. I would expect that you already know it. Plus, maybe your model for generating new subscribers does not include "they go to the website never having heard of what it is before." So, sorry if I'm wasting your time.
Thanks for your thoughts. Really appreciate hearing them. For what its worth, we just launched 2 weeks ago so I would be surprised if you had heard of it.
I'm well aware of the lack of mass consumer appeal right this instant, and you're quite right that niche journalism is exactly what we are going after right now. The pitch will become much more consumer oriented in a few more months when our offering becomes more appealing to "random visitors."
For what it's worth, we think we are building a wedge that ties nicely into this http://ycombinator.com/rfs1.html
I'm well aware of the lack of mass consumer appeal right this instant, and you're quite right that niche journalism is exactly what we are going after right now. The pitch will become much more consumer oriented in a few more months when our offering becomes more appealing to "random visitors."
For what it's worth, we think we are building a wedge that ties nicely into this http://ycombinator.com/rfs1.html
For balance on the video aspect - I actually significantly prefer having a video that saves me the time/effort of scrolling around and reading, and this certainly seems to be a popular trend.
("Some of the people, some of the time" etc. etc.)
I'm amazed that reading is not about 10 times as fast as listening to someone talk in a video for most people on this site. I can't stand videos for this very reason: my time is limited, and listening to someone drawl on without being able to search or scan is maddening.
However, if they're trying to sell to people who are willing to pay for READING content, maybe it's best to have a written description.
I, for one, rarely watch videos, due to the disruption of a soundtrack to those around me (get out the headphones, etc.).
I, for one, rarely watch videos, due to the disruption of a soundtrack to those around me (get out the headphones, etc.).
We've had quite a high conversion rate, so I'm pleased with it too. We're selling the journalist as the atomic unit instead of the story, so although people often say "why not show more content?" I don't believe they would convert anyway -- and at such an early stage, I'd rather focus on the people who are passionate about the product and journalism.
The idea of beacon is really good, but I agree with PP that the implementation needs work.
If I am going to buy one of these authors work, I need to see that work. You need a front page, with the best stories this day from your selection of writers (for free). People will come back for that page, creating stickyness, a feeling of personal relationship with frequent featured writers, and sales.
That might get you into google news, or linked on sites like this, so people hear about you.
Also, I think giving access to the whole network dilutes the product. I don't know what other model to suggest.
Oh, and if you are paying these people, you might hope to be able to write to them and suggest they cover particular topics.
If I am going to buy one of these authors work, I need to see that work. You need a front page, with the best stories this day from your selection of writers (for free). People will come back for that page, creating stickyness, a feeling of personal relationship with frequent featured writers, and sales.
That might get you into google news, or linked on sites like this, so people hear about you.
Also, I think giving access to the whole network dilutes the product. I don't know what other model to suggest.
Oh, and if you are paying these people, you might hope to be able to write to them and suggest they cover particular topics.
I hate the term "sucks" when applied to someone's serious work.
I see where you're coming from, sometimes Honest Feedback can be a bit harsh. But Honest Feedback is the Best Feedback. I've learned to turn negative feedback into constructive criticism. You can't take it personally, these are things that may potentially help your business (assuming you can identify and solve whatever problem is raised). I'm an optimist at heart, but when it comes to feedback, I always tend to focus more on the negative feedback. In terms of fine tuning my product, I think there is more to learn from the negative feedback (not to imply that positive feedback is not valuable). I don't consider my job well done until there is no negative feedback (rare), or I do everything I can to minimize the negative feedback. It has become an effective strategy that allows me to learn from potential customers and fine tune the product (customer feedback loop).
It is possible to give "Honest Feedback" with out saying something "sucks."
I'm not going to disagree, but I think it's important to note that Honest Feedback is unfiltered. So if they think it "sucks" then they should be able to say that it "sucks" and this shouldn't reflect badly on them. If anything, the person receiving the feedback should be thanking them for investing the time to even provide feedback (instead of bouncing and moving along, never to be seen again).
I took it as "That's a bummer" not "Your work is shit".
Haven't you created a chicken and egg problem for yourself? You want people to fund a journalist, but they will only be able to read said journalist's articles after they fund him. How do you get around this?
All these journalists are established professionals who are hand picked and have followings in the thousands to tens of thousands.
Sure. paul.[lastname]@gmail.com
Very honest retrospective, that was a great read.
Thanks for this awesome and honest startup story! I've mentioned it on the teamspir.it FB and Google+ pages.
Other incubator. 2004-2007. We had a good product, but didn't focus enough and instead pivoted twice to arguably worse products. The company barely scraped by until last year, when it was sold to a well-known market player. We founders were so diluted by then that we only got a minor amount. Was a great journey but won't be repeating it until I find a product I believe 100% in. You have to be in it to win it. Working as a consultant now and one thing I can say for sure is that running a startup gives you one hell of a headstart competence-wise.
When you say consulting, what do you mean?
To me, consulting is 'providing outside expertise and advice, to teach a client what to do and how'. For instance, you might have a sales consultant teach you how to build a better sales pipeline. A software consultant would show you how to commission outsource work, or design a service architecture, but not actually implement them.
I get the feeling that on HN it means something else?
Often, people here transition very easily into consulting, and treat it as a worst case fallback job, which is crazy because I figured the kind of consulting mentioned above is engaging, well paid, really hard to get started in, and a business in itself.
To me, consulting is 'providing outside expertise and advice, to teach a client what to do and how'. For instance, you might have a sales consultant teach you how to build a better sales pipeline. A software consultant would show you how to commission outsource work, or design a service architecture, but not actually implement them.
I get the feeling that on HN it means something else?
Often, people here transition very easily into consulting, and treat it as a worst case fallback job, which is crazy because I figured the kind of consulting mentioned above is engaging, well paid, really hard to get started in, and a business in itself.
I think a lot of people use it interchangeably with "contracting". i.e. working as an expert temporary employee on a specific product/problem usually at a higher wage than the "permanent" employees.
As an ex-consultant/contractor, you're exactly right - it's often confusing because different companies call it different things. I've done both types (consulting on the high level goals, and actually implementing things) and I've rarely seen a company that draws much of a distinction, oftentimes the first leads into the second anyways, usually at the same rate.
Terminology, meh...these days I just say I was a hired gun, because some people think there's an actual distinction between consultant and contractor, but I was never clear on what it was, even though I was doing it...
Terminology, meh...these days I just say I was a hired gun, because some people think there's an actual distinction between consultant and contractor, but I was never clear on what it was, even though I was doing it...
I meant contractor. I think it's a european thing - most contractors here call themselves consultants.
Other incubator. It failed in early 2012, a little over a year after it was founded and probably 6 months too late. I'm now working at one of the other startups from my batch, and things are going great.
It was really tough to pull the plug, but it was really obvious it was time to do so. We were out of money in the bank and weren't making enough revenue to stay aloat
It was really tough to pull the plug, but it was really obvious it was time to do so. We were out of money in the bank and weren't making enough revenue to stay aloat
Looking back, what would you say were the problems?
Were they more about the product, or how you approached the process of building a business?
Just curious about your experiences. It can possibly be both.
Were they more about the product, or how you approached the process of building a business?
Just curious about your experiences. It can possibly be both.
Thanks for chiming in here. I was going to mention it to you but you beat me to the punch.
2010. I went into a 2-day startup crashcourse with a rough idea that I didn't even plan on telling anyone (so rough it was) and went out with a prototype done by a google-employed engineer (I wasn't a programmer at the time) and a couple of investors ready to back me up. In the following months, I (me personally, not the situation neither anyone else is to blame) failed miserably and went through a very rough psychologic breakdown.
You might be interested to read about what is called the "upper limit problem". There's a book called The Big Leap which discusses it in an accessible and helpful way.
My co-founder and I ran into a lot of logistical issues when building out a Bitcoin remittance platform. One of the biggest blocking issues was dealing with regulatory compliance and preventing people from committing fraud on the service. Turns out that these headaches are extremely common across all Bitcoin companies, so we 100% switched to http://blockscore.com/ which drastically simplifies compliance and anti-fraud.
I failed in 2005 (wasn't an incubator, more like an angel thing). We started in 2001 and had some moderate success, but in the end the business wasn't scalable, and the concept was horribly flawed at a point in time where most of our customers had financial difficulties. The business/myself was acqui-hired, luckily, otherwise I'd just have gone under with all the personal debt I had (unwisely) accrued.
Now I'm kicking around some ideas.
Actually, after nReduce failed I thought I might try a second take on the idea of a community-based incubator.
Check it out: http://launchway.net/posts/blog
Now I'm kicking around some ideas.
Actually, after nReduce failed I thought I might try a second take on the idea of a community-based incubator.
Check it out: http://launchway.net/posts/blog
What happened to nReduce? It seemed to be a good idea, and had some traction for a while.
That's what I thought, but then they shut down suddenly. To be fair hadn't checked in on them for a while, apparently things haven't been great for some time. But I still think this is a concept worth pursuing, so I'm trying to see if I can iterate on the work they did in that space. We'll see!
Anyway, I'd appreciate any feedback from HNers on the project, it's very new (went live as a rudimentary version last night).
Anyway, I'd appreciate any feedback from HNers on the project, it's very new (went live as a rudimentary version last night).
I got a cease and deasist letter :)
Now doing a new startup. Launched on November, so help us grow: http://www.allthecooks.com/download
Now doing a new startup. Launched on November, so help us grow: http://www.allthecooks.com/download
Yes it failed (other incubator). Maybe 7 or 8 months after. I started working at a another startup where I knew one of the cofounders. It was definitely the right choice.
Sometimes ideas just take a while to take off and will be ultimately successful. Sometimes ideas are just bad, and you need to kill them and move on. Sunk costs can be a bitch, but you're not getting that time back, so make the most of the future.
Sometimes ideas just take a while to take off and will be ultimately successful. Sometimes ideas are just bad, and you need to kill them and move on. Sunk costs can be a bitch, but you're not getting that time back, so make the most of the future.
UsableHQ ... other accelerator 2011, failed 2013. Look back through my HN comments for (parts of) things I learnt during the story.
Now doing Pitcher.io :)
Now doing Pitcher.io :)
I noticed pitcher.io uses hash fragments do you guys plan on going to pushstate? Have you noticed any issues with google indexing the hash URLs?
I'd love to go that way, but I've never managed to get backbone.js pushstate to work. And yes, I have noticed that Google doesn't like hash URLs. It's annoying.
But, that said, Google search traffic isn't a likely source of users, so I've not spent much time figuring out a solution yet. There are much bigger problems to solve before that. Like how to stop posting on HN when I should be working. :)
But, that said, Google search traffic isn't a likely source of users, so I've not spent much time figuring out a solution yet. There are much bigger problems to solve before that. Like how to stop posting on HN when I should be working. :)
I've visited Pitcher.io. I think the messaging on the site is kind of complex, maybe you should focus on one value proposition and communicate that?
Kind of curious what happened with the team from Diaspora. I thought they pivoted to a website where users posted pictures and could place text on them.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Zhitomirskiy
On the evening of 12 November 2011, Zhitomirskiy was found dead in his San Francisco home by police responding to calls about a suspected suicide.
Zhitomirskiy’s mother, Inna Zhitomirskiy, did not comment on reports of his history of mental illness, but she did say on his participation in Diaspora, "I strongly believe that if Ilya did not start this project and stayed in school, he would be well and alive today."
On the evening of 12 November 2011, Zhitomirskiy was found dead in his San Francisco home by police responding to calls about a suspected suicide.
Zhitomirskiy’s mother, Inna Zhitomirskiy, did not comment on reports of his history of mental illness, but she did say on his participation in Diaspora, "I strongly believe that if Ilya did not start this project and stayed in school, he would be well and alive today."
Darn, that's really sad. Diaspora is a really cool concept, though I'm kind of soured on social networking after years of Facebook. Perhaps I'll give it a shot soon since this guy literally gave his life for the project.
The team is working on makr.io last I heard (https://makr.io/).
Other incubator. 2012-2013. Came in with B2B enterprise software (invalidated that), and came out with a consumer subcom startup. Bootstrapped that to 6 figures in 12 months. Growth plateaued, but it's a going concern (~$7200 MRR). I spend about 5 hrs a month on it now.
My main squeeze is http://featurekicker.com -- software that helps teams “make something people want.”
With FeatureKicker, you can quickly add a button representing a new feature on a website. When a user clicks on the experimental button, our tech opens a modal window and gets user input on the new feature.
You can also get feedback on existing features of their website, so they can improve their product.
Any and all feedback is welcome...
My main squeeze is http://featurekicker.com -- software that helps teams “make something people want.”
With FeatureKicker, you can quickly add a button representing a new feature on a website. When a user clicks on the experimental button, our tech opens a modal window and gets user input on the new feature.
You can also get feedback on existing features of their website, so they can improve their product.
Any and all feedback is welcome...
Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur. -Ron Conway
Most of the answer will be bounce backs from a failed startup to a surviving/successful one.
Most of the answer will be bounce backs from a failed startup to a surviving/successful one.
Depending on one's financial situation, it's pretty reasonable to do consulting or something in between, especially if the founders are older or otherwise have higher income potential. (Going from $250/hr or $250k+/yr consulting to $0-3k/mo startup wages kind of sucks if you don't get an exit...)
We failed early 2013.
I was the founding engineer, but ended up doing Product Management at http://frankandoak.com after.
Engineering -> Business oriented role was the easiest thing I could think of.
Engineering -> Business oriented role was the easiest thing I could think of.
We ended up helping retailers integrate iBeacon functionality into their existing app and supply them with with BLE hardware at http://www.beaconmaker.com
http://omnipapr.com Not a startup yet just really a side project. You can have a look at the interface with the test account. user:test pass:win
This seems to be going really good. Do we have any site or something that lists sort of failed startups in one place?
2011 , kept the product up and running at my own expense for the next year, joined a big corp starting of 2013.
Very interesting topic. I wish it would go on and not vanish in nothingness..