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I appreciate your candor. I struggle with some of the same issues, especially when it comes to finding new customers. I imagine a lot of other devs have the sa

I appreciate your candor. I struggle with some of the same issues, especially when it comes to finding new customers. I imagine a lot of other devs have the same issues. I recently decided to take a similar approach, which I'm calling "quickie startups". The max timeframe to build a quickie for me is 2 months. It's not so much a desperate shotgun approach as it is just getting ideas out of my head, into reality and seeing which ones have merit. In my head, they're all winners but we all know it doesn't work out that way in reality, as evidenced by a few of your projects (and mine). I definitely sympathize with your disinterest in a project once it's launched. Building is a fun, creative process. The let down comes when the world is apathetic to your startup and you feel more excitement about the next one, rather than trying to shove something people don't want down their throats. I agree that you have to give it some time with each one and really try to find your market, but when you are bootstrapping, it's more cost effective to focus on the ones that users gravitate toward.

seiji 16y ago
I had the same thought recently too -- get a stable and self-contained product live in six weeks, try to drum up users the next two weeks, then move on to something different. Ideally, each two month product is an orthogonal component of a larger product. When enough components are complete and live, just snap everything together to generate something nobody saw coming. I'm branding it as "6 startups per year." My first three speaking engagements are already booked.
il 16y ago
I don't mean to be overly critical or dismissive, but I think this is a guaranteed recipe for disaster. It takes more than a couple of months to build steady traffic and gain traction. For me finding customers is the easy part- they're out there, and there are a few proven ways to generate lots of traffic quickly that WILL get you customers. The hard part is getting cash flow positive and monetizing properly. That means minimizing CPA and traffic costs, maximizing customer CLV and all of the other things that come with running a profitable business. Getting more money out of a customer that what it costs to acquire him is the hard part. It's trivial to generate $1 million in revenue for any mass market product in a few months. I've seen others do it time and time again with direct response campaigns. That million from paying customers might cost you $10 million to acquire however. Assuming you're targeting a large market and solving a real problem, any one of your projects has the potential to be wildly successful. The ones that aren't just haven't found their audience yet. Fortunately, there are economies of scale and snowball effects as a product grows, so once you've gotten a small customer base and some initial traction, everything becomes much, much easier. Commit to a single, well thought out idea, and see it through rather than starting from zero every 2 months. Test different traffic sources, pricing models, etc. It's a fool's errand to test different startups.

seiji 16y ago

I had the same thought recently too -- get a stable and self-contained product live in six weeks, try to drum up users the next two weeks, then move on to something different. Ideally, each two month product is an orthogonal component of a larger product. When enough components are complete and live, just snap everything together to generate something nobody saw coming. I'm branding it as "6 startups per year." My first three speaking engagements are already booked.

il 16y ago

I don't mean to be overly critical or dismissive, but I think this is a guaranteed recipe for disaster. It takes more than a couple of months to build steady traffic and gain traction. For me finding customers is the easy part- they're out there, and there are a few proven ways to generate lots of traffic quickly that WILL get you customers. The hard part is getting cash flow positive and monetizing properly. That means minimizing CPA and traffic costs, maximizing customer CLV and all of the other things that come with running a profitable business. Getting more money out of a customer that what it costs to acquire him is the hard part. It's trivial to generate $1 million in revenue for any mass market product in a few months. I've seen others do it time and time again with direct response campaigns. That million from paying customers might cost you $10 million to acquire however. Assuming you're targeting a large market and solving a real problem, any one of your projects has the potential to be wildly successful. The ones that aren't just haven't found their audience yet. Fortunately, there are economies of scale and snowball effects as a product grows, so once you've gotten a small customer base and some initial traction, everything becomes much, much easier. Commit to a single, well thought out idea, and see it through rather than starting from zero every 2 months. Test different traffic sources, pricing models, etc. It's a fool's errand to test different startups.