3 ms·

10 years ago I built an almost amazing business that schools, universities, teachers and students could use to build elearning and web apps. Think Square Space

10 years ago I built an almost amazing business that schools, universities, teachers and students could use to build elearning and web apps. Think Square Space + Moodle + Udemy. Heres a demo if you're interested https://vimeo.com/2221065 https://vimeo.com/2221065 The demo doesn't show much of the learning management features but they were also complete. But the app had memory leaks and I didn't have the cash to pay expensive engineers to fix them. For months and months I tried to fix the problems myself until finally I was given the choice of giving up my business or my wife. I don't regret choosing my family because we had another daughter before the marriage ended and she wouldn't be alive if I chose to continue with my business instead. I learned ... 1. I should never have given up. If you don't give up you can't fail. 2. I shouldn't have believed my mentor who said there wasn't a market for my product. A company entered the same market and now they are worth over $1bn. Listen to other people but have faith in yourself. 3. Be careful to choose the right technology. I chose Plone/Zope/Python the same stack that was used by CIA. I thought I was very smart about that but I didn't realise that specialists in this tech would be so difficult and expensive to hire. 4. Don't blame anybody. In the end it was my choice to give up. 5. Everything is as it is meant to be.

skunkworker 8y ago
Interesting, at the time you were dissuaded from going into that market could the actual TAM support your business idea or would it have been more viable later?
- tonyoconnell 8y ago
  My mentors were based in Ireland, one was Managing Director of the European Software Centre for a huge computer hardware company and another was president of the university in my city. In Ireland education is mostly financed by the government and I suppose they couldn't see the market. I live in Thailand where the only good schools are private so I saw things from another perspective. Yes, the management and support fees could have supported the business if I focused on private schools who were willing to pay a few hundred dollars a month.
ttty 8y ago
So what happened to the app, you sold it to somebody or just let it die?
- tonyoconnell 8y ago
  I spent hours and hours, months and months, up all night trying to fix memory problems, that I wasn't qualified to fix. It was one of the darkest times in my life. Everyone I loved wouldn't speak to me because I wouldn't give up. Then one night when I couldn't take the loneliness anymore I deleted the server, local copies and backups and went to bed.
  - mrep 8y ago
    Memory leaks in a python web server? Did you try just accepting the leaks and restarting the web server every x hours? That is what my old team did with our python web server.
    - tonyoconnell 8y ago
      I used to have to restart it all the time but I never thought to just set it to automatically reboot. I should have known that most computer problems can be fixed if you switch them off and on again.
  - lonelyperson777 8y ago
    Hello I'm in the same situation. I'm now very lonely and depressed because I've been working on my startup alone for 2 years with no support. I'm also stuck on a problem which is very hard to solve. You said in the parent comment that you wouldn't give up. How do you keep going when you feel so lonely and miserable and you have anxiety attacks because you fear that you will get nowhere in life?
fortydegrees 8y ago
> 1. I should never have given up. If you don't give up you can't fail. I think if you expand the scope of 'failure' to mean your life, as opposed to just the business, then you didn't fail. You were pursuing a strategy that would have led to the failure of your marriage, which is much worse than a failed business. I think you succeeded.
- irishcoffee 8y ago
  I think the marriage did end.
  - tonyoconnell 8y ago
    Yeah, it ended about 6 years after that.
- tonyoconnell 8y ago
  The marriage ended ... but I can hold my head high knowing I tried my best. I grew and learned so much after the marriage ended that I never would have if we broke up back then so I suppose everything worked out for the best.
tempuser24 8y ago
When you say the CIA do you mean the Central Intelligence Agency ?
- kirubakaran 8y ago
  They probably mean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culinary_Institute_of_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culinary_Institute_of_Amer... I fell for that once. I'm embarrassed to admit that I thought she was a spy for a couple of minutes until I picked up more context. I'm sure I looked super disappointed for the rest of that conversation.
- tonyoconnell 8y ago
  Yes. And the FBI use the same tech https://plone.com/secure https://plone.com/secure

skunkworker 8y ago

Interesting, at the time you were dissuaded from going into that market could the actual TAM support your business idea or would it have been more viable later?

tonyoconnell 8y ago
My mentors were based in Ireland, one was Managing Director of the European Software Centre for a huge computer hardware company and another was president of the university in my city. In Ireland education is mostly financed by the government and I suppose they couldn't see the market. I live in Thailand where the only good schools are private so I saw things from another perspective. Yes, the management and support fees could have supported the business if I focused on private schools who were willing to pay a few hundred dollars a month.

ttty 8y ago

So what happened to the app, you sold it to somebody or just let it die?

tonyoconnell 8y ago
I spent hours and hours, months and months, up all night trying to fix memory problems, that I wasn't qualified to fix. It was one of the darkest times in my life. Everyone I loved wouldn't speak to me because I wouldn't give up. Then one night when I couldn't take the loneliness anymore I deleted the server, local copies and backups and went to bed.
- mrep 8y ago
  Memory leaks in a python web server? Did you try just accepting the leaks and restarting the web server every x hours? That is what my old team did with our python web server.
  - tonyoconnell 8y ago
    I used to have to restart it all the time but I never thought to just set it to automatically reboot. I should have known that most computer problems can be fixed if you switch them off and on again.
- lonelyperson777 8y ago
  Hello I'm in the same situation. I'm now very lonely and depressed because I've been working on my startup alone for 2 years with no support. I'm also stuck on a problem which is very hard to solve. You said in the parent comment that you wouldn't give up. How do you keep going when you feel so lonely and miserable and you have anxiety attacks because you fear that you will get nowhere in life?

fortydegrees 8y ago

> 1. I should never have given up. If you don't give up you can't fail. I think if you expand the scope of 'failure' to mean your life, as opposed to just the business, then you didn't fail. You were pursuing a strategy that would have led to the failure of your marriage, which is much worse than a failed business. I think you succeeded.

irishcoffee 8y ago
I think the marriage did end.
- tonyoconnell 8y ago
  Yeah, it ended about 6 years after that.
tonyoconnell 8y ago
The marriage ended ... but I can hold my head high knowing I tried my best. I grew and learned so much after the marriage ended that I never would have if we broke up back then so I suppose everything worked out for the best.

tempuser24 8y ago

When you say the CIA do you mean the Central Intelligence Agency ?

kirubakaran 8y ago
They probably mean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culinary_Institute_of_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culinary_Institute_of_Amer... I fell for that once. I'm embarrassed to admit that I thought she was a spy for a couple of minutes until I picked up more context. I'm sure I looked super disappointed for the rest of that conversation.
tonyoconnell 8y ago
Yes. And the FBI use the same tech https://plone.com/secure https://plone.com/secure