10 ms·

Thanks for the feedback. I've closed the service

139 points by nickl 16y ago

jhuckestein 16y ago
Everybody here seems in agreement with the guy just shutting down the service. My first reaction was WTF. In fact, I think the OPs last comment is a little rude. None of the commenters were advising him to shut down the service. They were trying to help improve the service ... Altogether it's just weird.
- kranner 16y ago
  As the first commenter on that thread, I can tell you I felt like shit when I read the last comment. And all I told OP was to change the copy a little.
  - gabrielroth 16y ago
    We can't know what was in the guy's head, but it doesn't make sense to me that you'd feel like shit. You suggested he change the copy a little. Someone else asked if he'd consulted a lawyer. Someone else pointed him to the Wikipedia page for Flooz.com, which includes the sentence, "In 2001, Flooz.com was notified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that a Russian organized crime syndicate was using Flooz and stolen credit card numbers as part of a money-laundering scheme, in which stolen credit cards were used to purchase currency and then redeemed." My guess is that it's the realization that he was in way over his head, rather than your suggestion that he edit the copy on his site, that led him to change course.
    - kranner 16y ago
      Thanks, I realize it wasn't my comment that made OP do it. It's just that I found myself leading the lynch mob, without intending it.
      - stakent 16y ago
        No. You, among others, saved him from lots of trouble.
        kranner 16y ago
        Thanks, I should have seen it that way.
mkramlich 16y ago
I love to see reactions like that from entrepreneurs because sometimes that's what should happen. Some ideas -- at least in their present form and in the present context -- are just dumb and need to be abandoned so folks can move on to something else.
jw84 16y ago
As the great warrior-poet Jay-Z once said: "on to the next one, on to the next."
- sdrinf 16y ago
  Word of encouragement: "This too shall pass" :)
  - philwelch 16y ago
    "This too shall pass"--encouraging words when a startup doesn't work out, but not the best toast at a wedding.
    - cubicle67 16y ago
      ditto with "on to the next one, on to the next."
    - alex_c 16y ago
      Interesting distinction, since the relationship between co-founders is often compared to marriage.
      - philwelch 16y ago
        Maybe, but you can have another startup. One particular startup failing doesn't have to mean the end of the co-founder relationship. And it would be equally a dick move to say "this too shall pass" at the beginning of a startup.
- rokhayakebe 16y ago
  Your timing is perfect. Edit: Had you said 'on to the next one' once, it would be just fine. By saying twice you actually made me sing it. Well done.
pinksoda 16y ago
There is still room for quality payment services like this. In particular, high-risk and micro-payments, would be great niches to get into. The primary problem is that to do this right, you will need to spend a lot on legal fees or find a lawyer to work for equity in your idea(you wouldn't even have a single customer yet). I've run the scenario a million times and I would love to create a start-up that can disrupt, maybe even revolutionize the payment processing industry. My friend runs one of the big PayPal sucks sites, and makes several million collecting residuals by forwarding angry PayPal customers to open a real merchant account. I've seen first hand every possible complaint and gripe you can imagine. Someone find me a VC that wants in on this. I'll take a $1 salary.
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
  As a consumer it's easy to say "PayPal sucks!" because you only see one side of things. If you try to create a replacement you would see just how incredibly difficult it is to run a worldwide online bank. If you're ok lying back and serving as a money laundering conduit up until the point that every government in the industrialized and developing world shuts you down, then fine. Otherwise you've got a lot of legwork to do.
- jasonlotito 16y ago
  Yes, and no. I had a startup in this industry, and I still work in it. Here's your biggest problem. It isn't PayPal or Google or any online service. It's the credit card companies and the banks that control this. The best part is, your entire business will be based on the premise that the bank lets you process. They can drop you for whatever reason. It's not hard. Trust me, they'll manufacture whatever evidence they need to. Sure, you could take them to court, but meanwhile, you are without processing. No. You cannot disrupt an industry when you rely on that industry to help you disrupt it. Of course, you could bypass the credit card companies all together. A lot of companies do this with prepaid cards. Not only does it allow those without a credit card purchase their service. You could create a generic pricing card. But then you have to convince merchants to use your system, a system that has no users. And users need to buy your cards with no merchants on board. It's a chicken and egg problem. Honestly, I think social networks will play a part in this in some manner. Flattr, while using credit cards, shows a unique angle on micro-payments, and is probably the first really innovative payment scheme I've seen since... well, ever since credit cards. Being positioned in Europe probably helps matters.
mtigas 16y ago
Can you imagine how much worse this could have been if they’d never posted this and simply plowed ahead? Knowing when you’re in over your head is crucial and it looks like they caught it early enough since they opened up the feedback thread. Hopefully they’ll take this, regroup, and have a bit more ground to stand on in the next phase or project.
- JonM 16y ago
  Totally, a few days and a bit of embarrasment here is much better than ploughing months of work in with no return.
  - moon_of_moon 16y ago
    Pretty sure a real entrepreneur will not view that as embarrassment. This is the only way to start. Build something, put it out, review lessons learnt, improve it, build the next thing... Bill Gates' first idea for a company was one that made devices that were supposed to be installed at traffic junctions, IIRC. (ref: business at the speed of thought) Way to go Vasudeva.
elbenshira 16y ago
Can someone tell me what RubyPay was about? The (ex)founder took down everything.
- kranner 16y ago
  Micropayment wallet system, with a spread between buying and selling points.
rubypay 16y ago
Just saw this post about our startup, I'll clarify some things since some people seem interested. RubyPay was a points based payment system for digital content that anyone could use. Points were bought for cash, and redeemable for cash. It was released because we wanted to generate some feedback on the model. RubyPay was closed so quickly because we realized some problems, and didn't want any live transactions going through our system that we'd later have to refund. Among some of the problems were: 1) allowing anyone to sell content without a screening process for them or the content 2) allowing consumers to redeem the points for cash, which brought a whole new set of laws into play 3) not anticipating all of the ways that fraud could propagate through the system We're currently working on the service to address these and other issues. We've also discussed the business further with lawyers, became PCI-DSS compliant, and are in the process of forming industry partnerships. As always thanks for the feedback (there was another discussion thread on HN too), it helped us quickly pivot and iterate on our model, and probably saved us tons of time and headaches.
- parallax7d 16y ago
  Well good luck to you. Don't worry about the haters that say you won't make it because there is no trust built up like the trust users have for Paypal. Who trusted Paypal when they first got started? And many people certainly don't trust them now.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Good to see you guys pro-active on this, that's better than to end up a few thousand (or worse) in the hole because of fraud and in trouble with the law. The original thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1709481 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1709481
StavrosK 16y ago
Has anyone used bitcoin? I'm not sure how scalable it is, but it's very handy for online payments (peer to peer, no fees, etc etc)...

139 points by nickl 16y ago

Everybody here seems in agreement with the guy just shutting down the service. My first reaction was WTF. In fact, I think the OPs last comment is a little rude. None of the commenters were advising him to shut down the service. They were trying to help improve the service ... Altogether it's just weird.

kranner 16y ago
As the first commenter on that thread, I can tell you I felt like shit when I read the last comment. And all I told OP was to change the copy a little.
- gabrielroth 16y ago
  We can't know what was in the guy's head, but it doesn't make sense to me that you'd feel like shit. You suggested he change the copy a little. Someone else asked if he'd consulted a lawyer. Someone else pointed him to the Wikipedia page for Flooz.com, which includes the sentence, "In 2001, Flooz.com was notified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that a Russian organized crime syndicate was using Flooz and stolen credit card numbers as part of a money-laundering scheme, in which stolen credit cards were used to purchase currency and then redeemed." My guess is that it's the realization that he was in way over his head, rather than your suggestion that he edit the copy on his site, that led him to change course.
  - kranner 16y ago
    Thanks, I realize it wasn't my comment that made OP do it. It's just that I found myself leading the lynch mob, without intending it.
    - stakent 16y ago
      No. You, among others, saved him from lots of trouble.
      - kranner 16y ago
        Thanks, I should have seen it that way.

mkramlich 16y ago

I love to see reactions like that from entrepreneurs because sometimes that's what should happen. Some ideas -- at least in their present form and in the present context -- are just dumb and need to be abandoned so folks can move on to something else.

jw84 16y ago

As the great warrior-poet Jay-Z once said: "on to the next one, on to the next."

sdrinf 16y ago
Word of encouragement: "This too shall pass" :)
- philwelch 16y ago
  "This too shall pass"--encouraging words when a startup doesn't work out, but not the best toast at a wedding.
  - cubicle67 16y ago
    ditto with "on to the next one, on to the next."
  - alex_c 16y ago
    Interesting distinction, since the relationship between co-founders is often compared to marriage.
    - philwelch 16y ago
      Maybe, but you can have another startup. One particular startup failing doesn't have to mean the end of the co-founder relationship. And it would be equally a dick move to say "this too shall pass" at the beginning of a startup.
rokhayakebe 16y ago
Your timing is perfect. Edit: Had you said 'on to the next one' once, it would be just fine. By saying twice you actually made me sing it. Well done.

pinksoda 16y ago

There is still room for quality payment services like this. In particular, high-risk and micro-payments, would be great niches to get into. The primary problem is that to do this right, you will need to spend a lot on legal fees or find a lawyer to work for equity in your idea(you wouldn't even have a single customer yet). I've run the scenario a million times and I would love to create a start-up that can disrupt, maybe even revolutionize the payment processing industry. My friend runs one of the big PayPal sucks sites, and makes several million collecting residuals by forwarding angry PayPal customers to open a real merchant account. I've seen first hand every possible complaint and gripe you can imagine. Someone find me a VC that wants in on this. I'll take a $1 salary.

InclinedPlane 16y ago
As a consumer it's easy to say "PayPal sucks!" because you only see one side of things. If you try to create a replacement you would see just how incredibly difficult it is to run a worldwide online bank. If you're ok lying back and serving as a money laundering conduit up until the point that every government in the industrialized and developing world shuts you down, then fine. Otherwise you've got a lot of legwork to do.
jasonlotito 16y ago
Yes, and no. I had a startup in this industry, and I still work in it. Here's your biggest problem. It isn't PayPal or Google or any online service. It's the credit card companies and the banks that control this. The best part is, your entire business will be based on the premise that the bank lets you process. They can drop you for whatever reason. It's not hard. Trust me, they'll manufacture whatever evidence they need to. Sure, you could take them to court, but meanwhile, you are without processing. No. You cannot disrupt an industry when you rely on that industry to help you disrupt it. Of course, you could bypass the credit card companies all together. A lot of companies do this with prepaid cards. Not only does it allow those without a credit card purchase their service. You could create a generic pricing card. But then you have to convince merchants to use your system, a system that has no users. And users need to buy your cards with no merchants on board. It's a chicken and egg problem. Honestly, I think social networks will play a part in this in some manner. Flattr, while using credit cards, shows a unique angle on micro-payments, and is probably the first really innovative payment scheme I've seen since... well, ever since credit cards. Being positioned in Europe probably helps matters.

mtigas 16y ago

Can you imagine how much worse this could have been if they’d never posted this and simply plowed ahead? Knowing when you’re in over your head is crucial and it looks like they caught it early enough since they opened up the feedback thread. Hopefully they’ll take this, regroup, and have a bit more ground to stand on in the next phase or project.

JonM 16y ago
Totally, a few days and a bit of embarrasment here is much better than ploughing months of work in with no return.
- moon_of_moon 16y ago
  Pretty sure a real entrepreneur will not view that as embarrassment. This is the only way to start. Build something, put it out, review lessons learnt, improve it, build the next thing... Bill Gates' first idea for a company was one that made devices that were supposed to be installed at traffic junctions, IIRC. (ref: business at the speed of thought) Way to go Vasudeva.

elbenshira 16y ago

Can someone tell me what RubyPay was about? The (ex)founder took down everything.

kranner 16y ago
Micropayment wallet system, with a spread between buying and selling points.

rubypay 16y ago

Just saw this post about our startup, I'll clarify some things since some people seem interested. RubyPay was a points based payment system for digital content that anyone could use. Points were bought for cash, and redeemable for cash. It was released because we wanted to generate some feedback on the model. RubyPay was closed so quickly because we realized some problems, and didn't want any live transactions going through our system that we'd later have to refund. Among some of the problems were: 1) allowing anyone to sell content without a screening process for them or the content 2) allowing consumers to redeem the points for cash, which brought a whole new set of laws into play 3) not anticipating all of the ways that fraud could propagate through the system We're currently working on the service to address these and other issues. We've also discussed the business further with lawyers, became PCI-DSS compliant, and are in the process of forming industry partnerships. As always thanks for the feedback (there was another discussion thread on HN too), it helped us quickly pivot and iterate on our model, and probably saved us tons of time and headaches.

parallax7d 16y ago
Well good luck to you. Don't worry about the haters that say you won't make it because there is no trust built up like the trust users have for Paypal. Who trusted Paypal when they first got started? And many people certainly don't trust them now.
jacquesm 16y ago
Good to see you guys pro-active on this, that's better than to end up a few thousand (or worse) in the hole because of fraud and in trouble with the law. The original thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1709481 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1709481

StavrosK 16y ago

Has anyone used bitcoin? I'm not sure how scalable it is, but it's very handy for online payments (peer to peer, no fees, etc etc)...