Startups Seven strategic errors I made launching my webapp |
- Seven strategic errors I made launching my webapp
- One of the hardest decisions in my life | Starting a business or working a full time job
- What should be our priority?
- Overcoming personal burnout? (silver lining inside)
- Preferred vs common shares in small startup
- Hire a PR agency for a product launch or do it yourself?
- Cofounder Exiting (Advice on compensation)
- Startup Graduate School Competition - Rejected
| Seven strategic errors I made launching my webapp Posted: 30 Oct 2018 11:54 AM PDT These are just a small sampling of my many blunders over the past year since I've launched. Obviously there were a bunch of things we've done right too, but I think failure is generally more instructive than success. It's my hope this list manages to help at least one person :)
This is one of the more insidious pieces of all the popular advice out there, usually given as an axiomatic truth of the universe. I launched back in July of last year to a disaster, not only was our website hideous with a limited value prop for any attempt at product market fit (still working on this) but our server died whenever more than five people tried accessing certain pages at once. And while eliciting feedback from users is always a great thing, you shouldn't need users to tell you that your site will explode, is hideous, has limited value etc. Once you launch, you are locked in. No more days off. You need to keep going or die. Immediately after launching, it was not enough to just have a neat system... our webapp would need content -- and content takes a whole lot of time and effort.
Our main feature was a content aggregator (think any subreddit). Now if you're familiar with the history of aggregators (digg, fark, reddit etc.) you will know that they all astroturfed their early content. Paying a bunch of people a few dollars an hour to be active community members early on didn't do much for us besides drain our limited war chest. Unfortunately, like with opiates, once you start this is very hard to stop. My cofounder would constantly tell me that we were hemorrhaging money for limited gains, but I wouldn't listen -- I didn't see a way forward without the astroturfing. I eventually learned my lesson but not before going through an enormous amount of capital trying to keep up with the big boys.
In the immortal words of A Boogie with a Hoodie it's money over everything-- nothing else matters. Looking at my view counts, facebook growth, influencer engagement and I would pretend that these things mattered. These were just rationalizations, of course. If you are pursuing venture capital perhaps, these things can be valuable to look at, but not for an independent group like us.
My market is huge on social media. Some of the other competitors in this market have some of the largest, most engaged audiences on earth. I decided we'd make a huge push to grow out our base here, and the results have been mediocre at best. I pursued influencers, did giveaways, created twitter, fb ads, created 10x content etc... Other websites still beat our traffic handily by just manipulating their SEO pages with wordpress plugins with a tenth of the effort (with adware on their website too-- thanks google!)
When these tactics did not work, instead of retreating and regrouping I doubled down and hired even more to see if there was going to be some breakthrough threshold. There was not-- and while our war chest slowly evaporated, I still had tremendous difficulty bringing myself to eliminate underperformers. Even being aware of the sunk cost fallacy did not help with my rationalizations.
Social media is a wretched hive of scum and villainy as everyone knows. Even some of the most popular accounts frequently engage in nefarious and scammy tactics, especially in my market where there are a ton of new young and naive internet users. One of my pet peeves were accounts hosting fake giveaways. Here I was spending my hard earned money on giveaways and some of these scammers were even using my own "proof" pictures! Through posting my own extensive research I was able to eventually expose a whole bunch of these fraudulent accounts (Twitter, facebook will do nothing to police their platforms). Justice was being done, yes! It almost felt as good as getting a paycheck, seeing those guys make excuses for themselves and then delete their accounts. Eventually I noticed one of our own (100k+ base) influencers was doing the same thing I was crusading against elsewhere (though she went about it in a smarter fashion, only about half fakes) and I had to decide what to do. Thankfully I could brainstorm in our discord chat channel about this and solicit the opinions of our staff. We eventually decided we'd expose what we knew, and approached the app developer of the giveaway system the influencer used to cover our bases. The developer agreed that she was practicing fraud. We decided it'd be best to handle this anonymously, launched another twitter account, posted the evidence of the fraud with a ton of screenshots and it went mostly according to plan, the influencer tried to save face of course, making a bunch of excuses and then went into hiding a few days later citing a need for some privacy "whatever, as long as you're gone" I told myself.
Fast forward a month later, one of our weekly-paid staff was developing a habit of being a complete flake. Missing content deadlines, not showing up etc. I asked her if she needed some "shore leave" to recuperate and come back, to no answer. A few days later I decided action needed to be taken-- now imbued with some Nietzschean will to fix my previous errors, I told her she was being replaced. She'd receive her next check (even though she well under the bare minimum time required for the past three weeks) and thereafter she'd not be receiving any pay from us. She did not take it well. She thought she'd take us down and wrote a long screed on her twitter account about how awful we are to stop paying her even though it's not at all her fault that she wasn't able to work, she was in her last year of high school, needed to study and didn't have time. Yawn, I thought, this sorta entitlement is gonna get laughed off twitter. Who is going to believe this crap? The answer of course was lots of people. It was quickly taken up by the aforementioned influencer, who was contacted with a whole bunch of screenshots taken from our staff chat. Uh oh. She soon unlocked her older account to join in, with some new accusations that we were practicing fraud ourselves. Despite having mailed out thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, and being transparent about everything that we do this was STILL happening to us. Within hours we had lost a thousand plus followers and our notifications were completely dominated by the worst kind of negative comments, calling us assholes, liars, Nazis (which was especially amusing, being as I am Jewish) basically anything that could be weaponized against us was brought in, regardless of how absurd. Everyone to battle stations! We decided to go with the classic strategy of lawyering up, and sending the ex-staff a cease and desist and threatened to bring legal action against her and with that she deleted her account about 48 hours after the initial post, but not before a lot of damage was done (on top of new legal expenses). We're still going today, a year and half later. A little stronger, a little smarter, and a little more wary of the same traps with a huge new update coming soon to placate the google serp gods.. And while I think even if I read this post myself before launching I'd have made many of the same mistakes in the same exact way, hopefully at least some of y'all are smarter than me and can take something from this. [link] [comments]  |
| One of the hardest decisions in my life | Starting a business or working a full time job Posted: 30 Oct 2018 04:24 AM PDT I'm faced with a very hard decision and I don't know what to do. I'm 24 and I'm living with my parents right now working full time. I have a stable job with great benefits but I'm miserable going into work. I like everyone I work with but the job itself sucks. Now I've served my year here and have opportunity to look at other higher paying better jobs within the company and eventually move out of my house. To be honest I don't want to be working for a company anymore. I really just want to start an online business. I have saved plenty of money to start a business and have done a lot of research regarding it. I know that it will be a lot of grinding but I know that I can eventually get to where I want to be. The biggest fear is what my parents will think. Right now they see I have a great job making good money staying at home right now and easily could move out but they don't see how much I hate my actual job. I'm afraid of failure and I know I shouldn't be but I just want to make my parents proud and I don't know how they will feel about me quitting and working full time toward an online business. I really want to just quit and startup an online business more then anything but my parents are the only ones holding me back from doing so. What do you guys think? Do I move up within the company or do I say fuck it and quit and start my online business regardless of how my parents feel about it? Edit: Thank you for all the feedback guys I really appreciate it. The thing with doing this on the side isn't a good option for me. My business idea is in the fitness industry and I have 5+ years of training and knowledge in the industry so I'm not going to give up my 8-12 hours in the gym a week (cause that's my business + what I love doing) to work on the side of my full time job for an online business. I can't work part time for the company either. Also have been doing a lot of research on the side and know what direction I want to take with the business just haven't started the business yet. Edit: Thanks again for the feedback. I think I'm going with the route of working on this part time with my full time job and once I've started this up and am hitting goals then I will eventually quit my job when I know things are going towards the right path. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 30 Oct 2018 04:06 PM PDT I have a mobile app at MVP stage. We've done everything out of pocket so far but need funds now to take it to the next level. Because our business model is based on commission (it's a gig app), theoretically we could focus on user acquisition and getting the app, as it is now, to a point where it's generating funds and paying for itself. But my concern is that, because it's early stage, that may lead to negative App Store reviews and a bad first impression. It does the job, but it's basic at this stage. On the other hand, what we have is certainly enough of a working prototype to potentially interest investors, except they may want to see more users on the platform. This feels like a chicken and egg situation. What should be our priority at this point? [link] [comments]  |
| Overcoming personal burnout? (silver lining inside) Posted: 30 Oct 2018 03:32 PM PDT Well it's been about two months of grind. I created revenue growth between month #1 and month #2. I have achieved ~$15,000 - $20,000 in revenue from customer #1. My goal is two accounts with sizes over $20,000. I put a ton of work in to draft a master agreement such that I could justify a customer signing on $20,000. That customer turned out to be not a decision-maker, instead acting like a cog in the wheel for an investment group, so in essence he wasn't forthcoming about the seriousness of moving ahead with my sales effort put in. He just wanted to vacuum up my IP even though we put a mutual NDA in place. My burnout started to kick in two weeks ago when I was drafting the master agreement. I received an unexpected urgent freelance request from a group I've done work with in past. At $100/h I added it to my load. Now, my growth with the customer #1 has stagnated and is mostly working with me outside the SoW, I'm working on a very small intro budget for partner group #1. Customer #1 is in the black, but sounds like he's barely keeping his head above water, let alone being able to present an entire program to the managing director/CEO. Given time, I might be able to make this sweet for him, but right now I have a big long backlog of R&D to tend to. Besides all of the above, just invoicing, not having health insurance, etc. etc. is starting to catch up with me. Good news Americans, in our f***ed up healthcare system you may now enroll in open enrollment. I put out some responses to more promising lead roles that would pay $150k in my market (quite a bit cheaper cost of living than SF). Oddly, I got the best assurance from one of my contractors. He "believes" in the product. Contractor simply needed to exit to find health insurance for personal problems. He's still around if I need him, and he's replaceable. Two weeks ago, I was about to hire a project manager to manage the contractors, pull $150/h from a $20,000 account size, and grow my customer #1 account whilst pursuing partner group #1 to develop a new channel. Now, everything just feels ****ed. All that general administration has made me need to take significant time off to refocus on research and development. I don't know, I've been playing video games it feels like for about a week and I'm depressed and/or burnt out. I just want to hire more contractors and grow a contracting network, because at the very least contractors call you "boss" haha. I'm a good boss who just needs to remember to make my people earn it, though. $150/h take for custom solutions work would have been doable to execute all of this. But that customer negotiated in bad faith and I don't have the want to sue him and make his life a living hell. I'm just going to shop his deal around because he invalidated our MNDA, but I'm burnt out pursuant to needing to tend to other real business and my R&D backlog. I don't even know if I'm employable at this point. Recruiters love presenting me, but hiring managers look at my resume and think, "wut?" and it sucks. What happened for you in these scenarios? [link] [comments]  |
| Preferred vs common shares in small startup Posted: 30 Oct 2018 07:10 PM PDT I work for a very small startup (<5 employees). I believe strongly in the company and as such, a large portion of my compensation is in equity. Recently my CEO has been insisting on having preferred shares until he recoups his initial investment, which is close to 300K. Is this normal? I've heard about preferred shares holders screwing over common share holders when a liquidity event occurs but could someone explain just how this might happen? Can/do preferred share holders have absolute power? If so, what good are common shares in a small startup? [link] [comments]  |
| Hire a PR agency for a product launch or do it yourself? Posted: 30 Oct 2018 04:52 PM PDT A bit ago someone posted a question here about hiring a PR agency for their startup's product launch. I wrote a reply which went over the broad strokes of how to do it on your own. I went back and realized there was some detail missing so I expanded on some of these ideas in a longer post you can find here. I really think that unless you are either cash-rich and lazy or are too compartmentalized, you should tackle at least the first launch yourself. You can get external help but the bulk of the outreach should be handled internally. (If this breaks the rules in any way, I'd be happy to change the post. I just want to start a conversation about PR, product launches, and startups) Full Post: I don't write often, or ever. I had a short lived blog where I ranted about really random things and then attempted to write something useful for the SEO community. It didn't pan out. But as some people who know me well may tell you, I frequent Reddit often and there, I try to contribute a lot. So a little while ago (23 days as of me typing this according to Reddit), someone made a post on /r/startups asking if anyone had ever hired a PR agency for their startup's product launch. It's a good question. It's a natural question. I mean, who else knows the ins-and-outs of the press world better than a PR pro, right? These people make their living connecting people and businesses with the right publications and influencers. They craft narratives and feed stories to hungry journalists. They are the newsmakers behind every Techcrunch article — or so I thought for a long time. But, the reality isn't as straightforward. PR agencies have their place, but if you're a startup in the truest sense, not the Uber-is-still-called-a-startup sense, then you don't need one. You, my good chum, need to roll up your sleeves. There's no secret sauce and once you've done it once, you are set for future launches. Now, don't mistake what I wrote with "All PR agencies are a waste", they aren't. If you are a larger organization with lots of compartmentalization and specialization, you should have a PR AOR — it will make your life better and at the same time, this post is probably not for you. However, if you are pre-product or still fresh, this is something you absolutely should handle on your own. TL;DR in the middle of the post It's short but there's a lot here to unpack. The main takeaways are simple: Have your narrative ready. In the words of my favorite professor in college (Shout out to Dr. Hardy), "So what, who cares?" Seriously, no one gives a sht about your new 'IOT Dapp for Taco-related Gifs'. Just say it's a Staples 'Easy' button that sends your friends taco gifs because, well, tacos, need you say more? Journalists, bloggers, influencers et. al. are busy. Get to the fcking point — quick. So what and who cares. Answer that and you're golden. Have your sh*t together. Your press kit should include everything you need for someone to either write a story or copy/paste everything as-is on their Tumblr (kidding, friends don't let friends Tumblr). Caring will get your story published. Spend 10 minutes to understand if the person you want to write a story is a good fit or not. Secure an agreement on embargo date/time before you send your press kit. Rookie mistakes ruin launches. Get the verbal nod that the embargo agreement exists. It's one of the few places in business where a simple word actually holds a lot of weight. Get your team on board and unify your product vision internally first before trying to spread and amplify externally. The List So you have your sh*t together. You have your narrative. You have your press kit. You have a list of people you want to start reaching out t…oh. Yea, the list, you need that. How do you find the most relevant people to write about your Taco Gif Button? (Sidenote, I'm really backing myself into a corner with this analogy.)
Now what? Now you need to roll up your sleeves. But first, you need to get some help and that takes buy-in from your teammates. A company that PR's together, <something something's> together… This is a crucial point that I want to stress. Involve your entire team and/or company. You just created this seemingly awesome (and possibly useless) product that you're ready to share with the world. You and your team worked hard. Now it's time to take that effort and turn it into a singular vision that you pitch to the very people that can get you to the masses. Getting your team, engineers, PMs, even the C-suite, to join in and pitch stories puts every single person on the same page. Everyone drinks the same kool-aid. Everyone's slightly different vision of the product unifies into one cohesive narrative. Your narrative. Email Time So you have your press kit, you have your list of press targets, you have your team psyched and ready, it's email time. You're going to send a minimum of two emails to each person on your list. The first establishes the embargo time and date and has your quick pitch. The second includes your press kit and any other information you want the person to know in the launch. We're going to focus on the first email because I think the second is self-explanatory. Subject Line Short and sweet — For example, Embargoed until 9:00am EST December 3rd, 2018 — Taco Button Will Reshape Shitposting Forever I mean, who wouldn't click on that email, amirite…? First Section — 2–3 sentences max So remember when you spent some time reading each person's articles and getting to know their points of view? Time to put that to work. Show the journalist that you care about their work. Cite something you read and take a stance. For example, Hey Person, I was reading Shitposting Daily the other day and saw your article about Simpsons shitposting. I actually don't think Homer steams hams at all. It's a dead trope but you did make a good point about Flaming Moes. Keep it short but show that you know their work. The Meaty Body The last section should have a soft segue from your intro and your pitch. This is where you take that unified product vision and distill it to 7–8 sentences. Here you outline:
Be direct. Be sincere. For example, Now that you have my shitposting bonifides, I wanted to pitch you a story I think you would like. My team and I built the equivalent of the Staples 'Easy' button for shitposting. Everything is automated. Just press the button and our cloud does the rest. Perfect Taco Gif shitpost every time. We're launching on December 3rd at 9am EST. If you are good for the embargo, I will send you our press kit with hi-res images, launch video, press release, and obviously a Taco Gif button of your own. Rinse and repeat until you've made it through your list. In reality with a team of 3–4 people doing this the week before launch, you can cover a massive amount of ground. Even a small number of agreements to the embargo will net you good coverage. Generally, once you get picked up by at least two or three publications, others publish within a day. You should aim to make as big a splash as possible on launch day so look to amplify any article via your social channels and use other promotional media to your advantage be it Product Hunt, Reddit, Hacker News, or the dozens of other Startup communities. Actual TL;DR:
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| Cofounder Exiting (Advice on compensation) Posted: 30 Oct 2018 03:37 AM PDT I am a co-founder of a 6 months old startup. To read more on why I am exiting: https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/9rfsr2/dilemma_of_a_cofounder/ A basic summary:I was persuaded by a fellow co-worker to quit and work full time on an app that allows users to buy now and pay later without a credit card. This has never been done in our country so I think it is a great idea. We built the MVP got funded by an accelerator with tag along investors recently. I begin to feel more of an employee than a co-founder, input I gave fall on deaf years. Micromanage and lack of trust. I am passionate to go all in and work really hard, so i proposed to have more responsibilities, more open to discussion when making decisions and negotiate on the shares to have more skin in the game. Replied I got: He is unable to change because most decisions are based on gut feeling. Was always looking for someone to build the MVP instead of a co-founder. Basically I feel used since we already have the working product, but feelings aside I do not want to flip out and ended up with nothing. I want to do what is best for the company, investors and myself. Current stage:
Next stage: Scale using the funds received Current breakdown of shares:
Board members :
Since we can't come to an agreement, we spoke to the lead investors of me wanting to exit the company. The lead investor propose:
Reasons:
I do not think this is worth what I sacrificed, what should i propose? was suppose to give them an answer by tomorrow. [link] [comments]  |
| Startup Graduate School Competition - Rejected Posted: 30 Oct 2018 10:59 AM PDT Brief Overview: My team and I recently applied to enter into a startup competition for graduate engineering students at my university. In preparation of the signing up for the competition I formulated a team and met with several people to discuss my business proposal. My idea revolved around preliminary design work, essentially taking an idea and seeing if it's feasibility in the matter of hours (using various techniques and software models). When entering the competition we had to provide a brief overview of our business proposal, goal, objects, target market, and potential competitors - so I shortened my 25 page business plan to a single page and submitted it to the competition. (Keep in mind this competition is for startups teaching students how to create, manage, and provide funding for best ideas) Upon further evaluation the application was rejected with no feedback into why it was rejected. Everyone who I've discussed my business plan with thought it was an excellent idea (business and engineering professors, and other facility) and could really speed up the preliminary design work, saving time and cost all while evaluating more concepts and configurations. I'm sitting here thinking my idea must've been really bad if it wasn't selected? or are they looking for specific things and mine wasn't one? My Question: Was everyone just being nice and just saying it was a good idea? I've taken a step back in pursing the business and re-evaluating the business proposal in an attempt to figure out where I went wrong and trying to strengthen my business proposal. Also how do I know if my business idea is sufficient? Edit: Target Users where engineering design firms in the space industry. I have worked at a couple big space companies (NASA and Lockheed) and understand the preliminary design workflow. The business plan wad comprised into a series of 8 phases (each being a service on it's own while each new phases compounds on the previous one adding new capabilities and depth), certain phases were designed to expand into other markets, we were creating several new platforms in one, essentially a preliminary engineering design center. [link] [comments]  |
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