Shutting down my side project of two years
In this postmortem from 2013, @joshsharp candidly breaks down the dissolution of their startup, examining the fatal assumptions, misallocated resources, and market dynamics that led to its shutdown.
Community discussions on HN centered on identifying product-market fit early, avoiding vanity metrics, and the emotional recovery process after shutting down.
You need a team.
I have the same problem doing things myself. I see the overlapping demographics too, I see the nebulous potential use cases too, I see the end products too, I finish them and then get saddened by the lack of polish or details I could put into it to match competitors.
After spending some time at big corps I came away with a realization: I needed a team to back me up.
Those guys that work at the fancy office parks with the free lunches and bus shuttles to everywhere, they don't work that hard! It's because they have the right amount of people to do the right amount of work on the right amount of things.
I also think of it as a fireteam from my Marine Corps training. When we engage in a firefight we utilize tactics of a lead, advance, backup with fire, lead, advance, backup with fire again, repeat.
You need backup.
The process you've established is correct, you just have to keep using that process to find the right product fit. Then you need to make a go at it, delegating work, polish, market, and sell.
Ironic that you make the HN front page when you're shutting it down.
It takes a lot of humility and courage to write such a candid post on something that was obviously the foundation of your hopes for two years. I have great respect for that.
Was it a complete failure? Absolutely not. You've picked up a great amount of technical expertise in the process. More importantly after all this is in the past you'll be able to reflect on it objectively and realise your mistakes and shortcomings - and you'll know, unemotionally, that they were to do on the marketing side.
Rob Walling said something once that stuck with me ever since. If you're looking to build something, approach it in order of "market, marketing, aesthetics, functionality." Not to paint with a broad brush, but it will at least help you realign your focus next time you jump into something like this.
Because you will jump into something like this again.
Your story, down to the timeframe mirrors mine. I created a Pingdom competitor (https://www.pingbrigade.com) that was cheaper to operate and cheaper for the users, while being easier to use and supported IPv6. After I launched it I got several hundred sign ups over the two years, but nobody seemed interested in the paid accounts (they let you monitor more than one thing). I did not realize just how attached I would get to this project and how the fact that it never became profitable would weigh on me. Last month I decided to pull the plug on it and sent out an announcement to the users. I got a few responses of "Noooooo!!!! Why???!!" I know for a fact that business development and marketing were not there and that is why it never took off, but it was my flagship project and it is hard to let it go.
Good luck to you on your next project. Hope it does better.
I agree with alaskamiller - you need at least a co-founder. Having somebody to bounce ideas off of and ask questions to is invaluable.
More importantly though, forget about the technology. After reading your post, it sounds like you're frustrated because you spent a ton of time implementing super hip technology and yet still nobody is coming.
People don't care about technology. They care about what your site does for them. You also didn't appear to talk to too many users to find out what it is they needed.
My advice is to follow the data. If your data shows that nobody needs your site, then shut it down. But don't shut it down because you built it and hoped they'd come without trying any marketing or customer research.
I wonder what would happen if you spend as much time on marketing as you spent on development. I am not sure which would be the best: perhaps blog posts, facebook activity, small ads, or guest posts on different sites.
Or, what if you spent as much time on 'biz dev' as you spent on development. Perhaps talking to some music communities online and having them link to you guys in exchange for highlighting their music or providing some service to them.
I am not saying that the above would work. I likely would have had similar biases as you. But as I grow up as an entrepreneur I am beginning to realize all the hats that I need to wear (and that when I get lucky one of these hats makes a huge difference).
I think what a lot of people are missing in this post (and maybe this is my fault for not making it quite clear) is that I do know marketing is the missing ingredient. I'm entirely aware that you can't build something and just hope that people will come and use it. Even if I didn't want to think about this initially.
The problem with saying "you're almost there, you need marketing" is that I am done. I don't have the effort for marketing. I started the site for fun, to scratch an itch, and that has passed. Maybe I'm close, but in all likelihood I could've done everything right and still got nowhere. I need to draw a line in the sand, and this is it.
However, it's nice to have people acknowledge that the problem is most likely marketing oriented, rather than a fault with the site.
It is a pretty nice site.