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I feel that's a flawed attitude. It's like reverse entitlement. Were I a startup founder, I would make it my goal to ensure that EVERY. single. potential cust

by jat850 16y ago

I feel that's a flawed attitude. It's like reverse entitlement. Were I a startup founder, I would make it my goal to ensure that EVERY. single. potential customer can use my site, within my capabilities. (edit: I don't know why you're getting downvoted; you stated your philosophy as part of the discussion, which I don't think is a good reason to get downvoted.)

Aetius 16y ago
It is my goal. But not right now.
- julianz 16y ago
  Sure, but look at the clusterfuck above where people are arguing about something called Quora -- they can't even agree on how you log into the site, because some people only saw it when you had to use Facebook. Users will only give you one chance, if they see a reason not to come back then they won't come back, regardless of later changes you make.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  I think you have the right goal, FWIW. For now. Because it's about priorities. Especially for a startup. When you're building a startup, in my experience you want to advance on the narrowest front you can, as you build out the feature set and reach the market. Don't provide 5 ways to do X if you can just provide 4. Or just provide 1. Etc. There'll always be room in the future to iterate and add support for additional use cases, additional integration points, and additional polish. But you generally want to get to market fast, get real users, real customers, validate your market assumptions and business model assumptions, and slow or stop your burn rate before your runway runs out. Saying NO to some things frees up additional time/money to say YES to others. So you should prioritize.
mquander 16y ago
I don't think a philosophy of "I'm going to force people to use the proprietary, closed, run-by-a-weird-company solution instead of the existing proven free & open solutions, because it's slightly more convenient for me" is going to be very well-received. Nor should it be.
deleted 16y ago
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by jat850 16y ago

Aetius 16y ago

It is my goal. But not right now.

julianz 16y ago
Sure, but look at the clusterfuck above where people are arguing about something called Quora -- they can't even agree on how you log into the site, because some people only saw it when you had to use Facebook. Users will only give you one chance, if they see a reason not to come back then they won't come back, regardless of later changes you make.
mkramlich 16y ago
I think you have the right goal, FWIW. For now. Because it's about priorities. Especially for a startup. When you're building a startup, in my experience you want to advance on the narrowest front you can, as you build out the feature set and reach the market. Don't provide 5 ways to do X if you can just provide 4. Or just provide 1. Etc. There'll always be room in the future to iterate and add support for additional use cases, additional integration points, and additional polish. But you generally want to get to market fast, get real users, real customers, validate your market assumptions and business model assumptions, and slow or stop your burn rate before your runway runs out. Saying NO to some things frees up additional time/money to say YES to others. So you should prioritize.

mquander 16y ago

I don't think a philosophy of "I'm going to force people to use the proprietary, closed, run-by-a-weird-company solution instead of the existing proven free & open solutions, because it's slightly more convenient for me" is going to be very well-received. Nor should it be.

deleted 16y ago

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