My first startup was a huge learning experience. I did not have any development experience so I hired a developer to build a vacation rental platform. I focused a lot on a proper back end while designing and structuring the front end. I had no job and was paying a developer out of my savings. Meanwhile, I approached listers on craigslist and begged them to list on my website (or let me list them for them, and some agreed).
Long story short, I ran out of money for development, because development is never "finished". You always have bugs to fix, things to tweak and it adds up. I had only maybe 300 listings on the website, zero SEO traction (which is what I was counting on the most) and an overbuilt platform with nothing to show for it. I could have done all of it on WordPress, but no... I was stubborn and thought I'd have a custom back end.
In the end I threw away 100k, became depressed for several years after that and disregarded bitcoin (this was around 2011).
My competitor who started just before me, didn't waste any time and onboarded thousands of properties. They did well organically and eventually sold to Homeaway, and later to Expedia.
That was that.
Mistakes are unfortunately an important part of learning, glad things turned out alright in the end.
Thanks for sharing that story 🫂
Failed projects are the best. I remember mine like it was today. I learned a lot from that experience.
What a tough experience to go through. The lessons learned will benefit you for the rest of your life because you seem like a person who values that knowledge. But it still freaking sucks. Only up from here.
Lo que has aprendido después de eso
The things to learn are:
1. The problem is not the failure: successful entrepreneurs always have many failures in their journey, they just don’t let those episodes demotivate them to continue
2. Fail faster: the importance of narrowing down the feature set and put out an MVP the faster we can, to test the market and learn from the user base
3. Fail forward: after a failure comes always another opportunity to try out… repetition makes success and when successful entrepreneurs hit the ground after a failure, they are already running for the next
Of course, this is why success is not easy, otherwise everybody would be successful entrepreneurs and business men and women. It’s built of hard work, lots of battle wounds, the love for the process of business design and persistence to believe that some day we’ll get it right, because we will! ❤️🤙
the rest of nostr is now so glad you failed haha
100K was a huge commitment
There is no such thing as failing, just learning
I had a startup fail which I put 80k aud into with my wife
A bespoke recipe suggestion tool for home chefs with complex dietary requirements
1.5 years, lots of angst, a few paying customers, lots of “traction”, but actually little to show for it
Entered an accelerator programme, had the idea “borrowed” off me by a team with better aligned skills (one was mates with guys at master chef)
Vc funded them and not me. Had to admit to my wife that we’d got totally screwed
Ones hardest lessons are the best… just got to keep swinging! The day we stop swinging we fail…
I’ve dipped into a few different things hoping one would come to fruition! Grateful for my business but I still look at whatever else I too can take a swing at!
im also in the circles of startups and one thing that is apparent to me is, that users dont care about the tech, but about the product.
use the most boring messy tech, but deliver good product and you have a chance to win.
also, you have to focus on customers from the beginning
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