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I wish the founders well, but I feel like people nowadays give up too early. And this is one of the most extreme examples of that. Most community sites take a

I wish the founders well, but I feel like people nowadays give up too early. And this is one of the most extreme examples of that. Most community sites take a while to grow and you really never know what will happen. Even Reddit was sort of a failure vs. Digg and they sold it off to conde nast. It was only later AFTER the sale when Digg messed up on their own and Reddit enjoyed success as a side effect. You really shouldn't be building a community site if you're so impatient to give up so early. I mean the site opened to public in October 26 of 2016, that's exactly 7 months in existence. It's probably because they raised so much money, which is why you should never raise too much money when you're trying to build a community site. I have never seen a successful community site that raised that much money before getting traction.

TekMol 9y ago
I have never seen a successful community site that raised that much money before getting traction. What are some successful community sites?
- djsumdog 9y ago
  Ugh...sadly Voat. They recently ran into budget problems (they run at $6k/month) and were able to raise enough to keep running for a few months and get volunteers help move it off Azure's overpriced hosting. So there's an example of site, without much money, building off their community. It's filled with a lot of hate, racism and extremism. I still like browsing it, just to see the opinions, try to understand where others are coming from and expose myself to viewpoints I disagree with. There is some good content and some viewpoints I agree with, but I wish more reasonable people on there weren't so drown out. I think moderate people do try, but after barrages of downvotes, they give up (new accounts can't downvote either; you have to build 100 comment points -- which keeps that group think going).
  - FireBeyond 9y ago
    > without much money, building off their community. It's filled with a lot of hate, racism and extremism Probably not helped when they get kicked off payment processors or fundraiser sites for openly hosting underage nudity, sorry, "jailbait"...
    - djsumdog 9y ago
      They banned all their jailbait subverses a while back. I think most services kick them off just due to the hate-speak.
    - obstinate 9y ago
      Their front page right at this moment has several unpleasant articles, including three Islamophobic items, one anti-Semitic item, and one joke accusing liberals of equating conservative economic policy and racism. So that's probably not helpful to their prospects.
  - RUG3Y 9y ago
    Voat was better in the beginning but the no-rules atmosphere and underdog nature of the site attracted a lot of a$$holes too.
    - Houshalter 9y ago
      SSC wrote an interesting thing about this: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/22/freedom-on-the-centralized-web/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/22/freedom-on-the-centrali... Tl;dr, If you build a service that offers freedom, the first users are going to be the people that don't have freedom elsewhere. Which is mostly unsavory people. So voat attracts radical right wingers that are banned everywhere else. Torrents are mainly used for infringing copyright. Tor is full of illegal and disturbing content. And bitcoin is mainly used for shady stuff like ransomware.
  - axlprose 9y ago
    > new accounts can't downvote either; you have to build 100 comment points -- which keeps that group think going At least they're more generous than HN's downvote restrictions. But I suspect it's the upvote limitations on voat that turn newcomers off more than anything, since every other site encourages you to handout 'likes'/upvotes like candy, making it quite the culture shock when you run up against that wall. That being said, it's hard to tell whether any of these voting mechanisms are actually any better at producing fruitful discussion than a plain old-school forum. Seems to me like having any kind of voting inevitably leads to amplifying the effects of group think.
    - Namrog84 9y ago
      Yeah. I wonder how it'd effect usage if down votes from user with under X points simply don't count or have minimal impact. But the user would never really know?
deleted 9y ago
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nebabyte 9y ago
Honestly, as much as I love them: Imzy in its current form was never going to catch on. Other sites can get away with some bad choices like login-required because of momentum, but... The culture and userbase they were hoping to attract was more akin to tumblr, and Tumblrites were never going to leave it for Imzy. Those used to reddit, meanwhile, saw a signup/login screen (or even a "request an invite" screen) and boredly clicked off. Some actively looking for reddit alternatives (like me) waited to get in, but not many.
- rjbwork 9y ago
  >Those used to reddit, meanwhile, saw a signup/login screen (or even a "request an invite" screen) and boredly clicked off. First time I've heard of Imzy I believe, and this was my exact reaction when I went to their front page.
  - spiraldancing 9y ago
    Ditto
    - ChuckMcM 9y ago
      With an initial login/signup screen they definitely should give it at least 5 years, if not 10, to get going.
austenallred 9y ago
> I wish the founders well, but I feel like people nowadays give up too early. It's really difficult to offer perspective like that on something you don't really understand and haven't seen from the inside. It's pretty clear if you don't have product-market fit as a founder. And if you don't have a really good idea of what you could do to get to product-market fit, it's entirely possible it's wise of the founders to stop and try something new, which is what I hope they plan to do now. Much love to Dan, Jessica & the Imzy team. I know how hard this can be; best of luck on whatever comes next.
- santoshalper 9y ago
  A community isn't a product. It is not at all clear from the inside or the outside whether a community is going to gel and take off within a year. Communities =/= products. An entirely different kind of thinking and patience is required to grow a community as opposed to build a product.
  - m3rc 9y ago
    What would you say Reddit's product is then? It certainly isn't content or the platform...
    - nilved 9y ago
      Actually it is the platform.
      - m3rc 9y ago
        Reddit investors and advertisers are not spending money on Reddit because of its platform.
        cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
        That has nothing to do with what a "product" is.
arielm 9y ago
I feel that way too, but I think that's because many founders are opting for funding too early and build their entire operation on money they don't have. When they're funded it's great, but when investors who are expecting some multiple quickly pull out it's game over. I'm not sure if that's the case here, this is just a general thought about early shutdowns.
Angostura 9y ago
I was there from early in the beta. The thing that annoyed me, when I suggested that people should take a look at it was the decision that you had to make an account to see content. Most people visited the homepage and then said 'no'.
- rhizome 9y ago
  The Gardened Wall model. Interesting gambit.
- steedsofwar 9y ago
  This is one of the main reasons i detest pinterest. Lately they have changed, so that you can see small amount of the content, before annoying you with the login screen.
  - annnnd 9y ago
    Ditto for Quora. I see interesting content, but they annoy me so much with their accounts (even when I'm just reading) that I never spend much time there. Don-t worry, I will create an account when I have something to say, but until then just let me be.
- thrillgore 9y ago
  This did them in. If you run a community-oriented website you can't just promise me the moon and then tell me "Your name's not Dan, you're not coming in."
CM30 9y ago
Yeah, community sites are often quite slow to take off. Which is perhaps why these Reddit alternatives are not really the best thing to try and raise capital for. I mean they could theoretically take it off sure. But communities are very rarely going to be 'rocket ship' style instant successes like more traditional service and product businesses. And given how hard they are to make profitable, or how a lot of things VCs will want in order to make them profitable will hurt the community... Yeah, not sure this is the best kind of thing to try and build as a startup business/get venture capital for. At least not initially, before the momentum is built and the community is proven to be successful.
deleted 9y ago
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beagle3 9y ago
On the other hand, life is short. As an entrepreneur, if you spend 10 years on something, you can get 4, potentially 5 done over your life time. If you fail early, you can try 20-30. I suspect the chances of actually succeeding are much higher in the latter case. Instagram was already a hit at 7 months, and even whatsapp was clearly going to be big. I totally understand closing shop without enough traction. I've been involved with quite a few startups and initiatives, and for every "we shouldn't have closed so early", there are about twenty "we should have closed it much much earlier"

TekMol 9y ago

I have never seen a successful community site that raised that much money before getting traction. What are some successful community sites?

djsumdog 9y ago
Ugh...sadly Voat. They recently ran into budget problems (they run at $6k/month) and were able to raise enough to keep running for a few months and get volunteers help move it off Azure's overpriced hosting. So there's an example of site, without much money, building off their community. It's filled with a lot of hate, racism and extremism. I still like browsing it, just to see the opinions, try to understand where others are coming from and expose myself to viewpoints I disagree with. There is some good content and some viewpoints I agree with, but I wish more reasonable people on there weren't so drown out. I think moderate people do try, but after barrages of downvotes, they give up (new accounts can't downvote either; you have to build 100 comment points -- which keeps that group think going).
- FireBeyond 9y ago
  > without much money, building off their community. It's filled with a lot of hate, racism and extremism Probably not helped when they get kicked off payment processors or fundraiser sites for openly hosting underage nudity, sorry, "jailbait"...
  - djsumdog 9y ago
    They banned all their jailbait subverses a while back. I think most services kick them off just due to the hate-speak.
  - obstinate 9y ago
    Their front page right at this moment has several unpleasant articles, including three Islamophobic items, one anti-Semitic item, and one joke accusing liberals of equating conservative economic policy and racism. So that's probably not helpful to their prospects.
- RUG3Y 9y ago
  Voat was better in the beginning but the no-rules atmosphere and underdog nature of the site attracted a lot of a$$holes too.
  - Houshalter 9y ago
    SSC wrote an interesting thing about this: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/22/freedom-on-the-centralized-web/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/22/freedom-on-the-centrali... Tl;dr, If you build a service that offers freedom, the first users are going to be the people that don't have freedom elsewhere. Which is mostly unsavory people. So voat attracts radical right wingers that are banned everywhere else. Torrents are mainly used for infringing copyright. Tor is full of illegal and disturbing content. And bitcoin is mainly used for shady stuff like ransomware.
- axlprose 9y ago
  > new accounts can't downvote either; you have to build 100 comment points -- which keeps that group think going At least they're more generous than HN's downvote restrictions. But I suspect it's the upvote limitations on voat that turn newcomers off more than anything, since every other site encourages you to handout 'likes'/upvotes like candy, making it quite the culture shock when you run up against that wall. That being said, it's hard to tell whether any of these voting mechanisms are actually any better at producing fruitful discussion than a plain old-school forum. Seems to me like having any kind of voting inevitably leads to amplifying the effects of group think.
  - Namrog84 9y ago
    Yeah. I wonder how it'd effect usage if down votes from user with under X points simply don't count or have minimal impact. But the user would never really know?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

nebabyte 9y ago

Honestly, as much as I love them: Imzy in its current form was never going to catch on. Other sites can get away with some bad choices like login-required because of momentum, but... The culture and userbase they were hoping to attract was more akin to tumblr, and Tumblrites were never going to leave it for Imzy. Those used to reddit, meanwhile, saw a signup/login screen (or even a "request an invite" screen) and boredly clicked off. Some actively looking for reddit alternatives (like me) waited to get in, but not many.

rjbwork 9y ago
>Those used to reddit, meanwhile, saw a signup/login screen (or even a "request an invite" screen) and boredly clicked off. First time I've heard of Imzy I believe, and this was my exact reaction when I went to their front page.
- spiraldancing 9y ago
  Ditto
  - ChuckMcM 9y ago
    With an initial login/signup screen they definitely should give it at least 5 years, if not 10, to get going.

austenallred 9y ago

> I wish the founders well, but I feel like people nowadays give up too early. It's really difficult to offer perspective like that on something you don't really understand and haven't seen from the inside. It's pretty clear if you don't have product-market fit as a founder. And if you don't have a really good idea of what you could do to get to product-market fit, it's entirely possible it's wise of the founders to stop and try something new, which is what I hope they plan to do now. Much love to Dan, Jessica & the Imzy team. I know how hard this can be; best of luck on whatever comes next.

santoshalper 9y ago
A community isn't a product. It is not at all clear from the inside or the outside whether a community is going to gel and take off within a year. Communities =/= products. An entirely different kind of thinking and patience is required to grow a community as opposed to build a product.
- m3rc 9y ago
  What would you say Reddit's product is then? It certainly isn't content or the platform...
  - nilved 9y ago
    Actually it is the platform.
    - m3rc 9y ago
      Reddit investors and advertisers are not spending money on Reddit because of its platform.
      - cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
        That has nothing to do with what a "product" is.

arielm 9y ago

I feel that way too, but I think that's because many founders are opting for funding too early and build their entire operation on money they don't have. When they're funded it's great, but when investors who are expecting some multiple quickly pull out it's game over. I'm not sure if that's the case here, this is just a general thought about early shutdowns.

Angostura 9y ago

I was there from early in the beta. The thing that annoyed me, when I suggested that people should take a look at it was the decision that you had to make an account to see content. Most people visited the homepage and then said 'no'.

rhizome 9y ago
The Gardened Wall model. Interesting gambit.
steedsofwar 9y ago
This is one of the main reasons i detest pinterest. Lately they have changed, so that you can see small amount of the content, before annoying you with the login screen.
- annnnd 9y ago
  Ditto for Quora. I see interesting content, but they annoy me so much with their accounts (even when I'm just reading) that I never spend much time there. Don-t worry, I will create an account when I have something to say, but until then just let me be.
thrillgore 9y ago
This did them in. If you run a community-oriented website you can't just promise me the moon and then tell me "Your name's not Dan, you're not coming in."

CM30 9y ago

Yeah, community sites are often quite slow to take off. Which is perhaps why these Reddit alternatives are not really the best thing to try and raise capital for. I mean they could theoretically take it off sure. But communities are very rarely going to be 'rocket ship' style instant successes like more traditional service and product businesses. And given how hard they are to make profitable, or how a lot of things VCs will want in order to make them profitable will hurt the community... Yeah, not sure this is the best kind of thing to try and build as a startup business/get venture capital for. At least not initially, before the momentum is built and the community is proven to be successful.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

beagle3 9y ago

On the other hand, life is short. As an entrepreneur, if you spend 10 years on something, you can get 4, potentially 5 done over your life time. If you fail early, you can try 20-30. I suspect the chances of actually succeeding are much higher in the latter case. Instagram was already a hit at 7 months, and even whatsapp was clearly going to be big. I totally understand closing shop without enough traction. I've been involved with quite a few startups and initiatives, and for every "we shouldn't have closed so early", there are about twenty "we should have closed it much much earlier"