I am shutting down my bookstore in New Delhi
In this postmortem from 2015, @devnonymous candidly breaks down the dissolution of their startup, examining the fatal assumptions, misallocated resources, and market dynamics that led to its shutdown.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Early signals were often rationalized away instead of prompting an immediate pivot in distribution or pricing.
The psychological toll of running out of capital compounds operational friction in a solo or small team setup.
Key Antidote: Validate paying willingness before committing months to building sophisticated product features.
Community Debate Themes:
Community discussions on HN centered on identifying product-market fit early, avoiding vanity metrics, and the emotional recovery process after shutting down.
CATEGORY Postmortems & Failures →
HISTORICAL ERA Cloud & Mobile Era (2014–2019)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 166 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 123 comments
Most business shut down because they don't reinvent themselves. If you continue to do what you have been doing you will become obsolete.
Bookstores need to find new model of keeping their customers.
Also its not the online competition but also the pirated books market, where you can find all the NY best sellers at a very cheap price on the streets of India. Students don't buy textbooks but xerox them from seniors or infact there are some shops where they offer to create copies of such highly recommended textbooks for a fraction of the price.
I have purchased 100's of books most of them because while flipping them I happen to stumble upon a paragraph or quite which reasonated with me or the table of contents seem to contain what I was eager to learn.
Amazon offers that with their quick look feature.
Only thing I hated about offline bookstores was that I had to tilt my neck sideways to read the title of these books.
I made an attempt at digitally replicating the bookstore-browsing experience.
What I learned: while there is no shortage of people who appreciate the idea, the number who would appreciate the same experience made virtual is exceedingly small. Small enough to not make an attempt like this worth it.
For those interested: http://bookshopcrawl.meteor.com/
I haven't completely abandoned it...but I am now tweaking it to make something more widely appreciable [ with a new name and new site, so no shameless plug here ;) ].
" The art of browsing and the serendipity of finding unconnected books are hard to emulate in the virtual world. "
I am not so sure about this. I always felt internet made this experience seamless and super convenient. Also, the higher confidence(with more data) with which I buy a book has decreased the regret value in case it turned out to be not so good.
Of course, if their was a highly interactive bookstore which had best of both the worlds, I would always prefer it over the virtual one. Maybe someone should focus on making those.
Nostalgia aside (I spent my childhood in a library) I don't see any value in high street bookstores. Stories like this are sad on a personal level for people involved but they are trying to suggest that we are losing something when we're anything but. My book consumption has quadrupled because of how easy it is to find new books and recommendations online. I am never in a situation where I don't have a book I want to read or I can't get it within 10 minutes.
This makes me sad. It feels like the slow passing of a loved age. I had the same feeling when an old bookstore called "Premier" closed in Bangalore may years ago.
I doubt algorithms and AI can replace the feel of a quiet bookstore where you can browse old, new and unrelated books. Maybe meet someone else with a passion for reading and strike up a conversation, perhaps a friendship.
Bookstores are much more than merely bookstores.