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The big problem here is that it sounds like you took an "if I build it they will come" approach, which is just never viable for this type of thing. The reality

The big problem here is that it sounds like you took an "if I build it they will come" approach, which is just never viable for this type of thing. The reality is that because no one is using this protocol, your pitch is a really bad one for anyone you're pitching to - you think they should spend the time and effort to use your protocol, and what will they get for their effort? Nothing. No one else is using it, so they'll be implementing an interoperability protocol that doesn't actually make them interoperable with anyone else. Why would anyone ever do that? Why wouldn't they wait and see if others adopt it first? This whole post honestly feels very self-centered - particularly "re-explain how common-data-model helps us (why are we explaing this to CTOs and techinical founders?)". You have to explain it because you're asking them to do work. They get to ask you whatever they want, as many times as they want, because you're not presently offering any value whatsoever. You need to stop assuming that everyone else shares beliefs about your protocol that are obvious to you, the person who spent a lot of time and effort planning and building it. Instead, put yourself in their shoes - what would make this attractive to them? Since we're talking about interoperability, clearly if there were a lot of other folks using it, that would be a selling point. You obviously can't offer that, but you could try to get soft commitments that companies would use it if a critical mass of other companies did too - if you get enough of those commitments, you can then show that there's potential value. You really need to find someone who understands sales or business development to guide you here. It sounds like you built this with no real input from anyone, and now you're taking it to companies, explaining what it does and getting frustrated that they aren't responding positively. The one thing that it doesn't seem that you're doing at all in those meetings is asking questions. Why are you on HN asking what you're missing and what it would take to get people to sue your protocol? Ask the people who you want to use it! When you're in those meetings, you should be asking people what would make this attractive to them and what would incentivize them to implement it. What you're doing right now is selling, and the way that you sell someone something is by understanding what problems they're facing and providing them a solution to those problems. The first step in that is asking questions - otherwise you're the car salesman trying to sell a guy a sports car because you think sports cars are neat, and you never bothered to find out that he's looking for something to take his five kids to their sports practices. If you're serious about making this work, I really recommend finding someone with business development experience to help you out - if you don't, you're just going to keep spinning your wheels until the folks you're trying to convince just don't want to spend more time dealing with you. I know folks on HN are often deeply scornful of BD, but this is exactly what it's about - understanding the needs of the folks you want to work with and brokering deals that are attractive to them.

openthc 5y ago
> because no one is using this protocol There is a small number which is but yes, that hardly visible. > Why are you on HN asking what you're missing It's a good channel for this type of feedback. > Ask the people who you want to use it.. We've been working in this industry since 2014 and have talked with literally 1000s of cannabis licensees; they know they need this (regulatory obligation); when they have Metrc they hate it; and it doesn't carry the proper data forward; and folks get stuck with teidous manual data entry -- so they feel the pain every day. The customers we have on our hosted solution, one of our big selling points is trying to build the industry together with open specifications. When Washington state had another issue with their cannabis software in late 2017, an industry assocation made efforts to introduce this open specification at that time. Some of our competitors (not in Washington) have even purchased consulting time from us to talk about general system design for cannabis industry software -- it's where we also got some of that feedback for the existing models. So, we are, and have been, and continue to be activily engaged in conversations with industry participants many of whom actively find us to bring their problems to; and we turn those into the virtious cycle customer feedback loop. I know it's common in the "tech space" to have folks put the cart in front of the horse. I think our case does NOT do that; since 2014 a profitable customer driven company; starting the open-source efforts in 2016 in a constant, customer engaged method. It's why our competitors and our competitors clients literally call us for help.
- password4321 5y ago
  > have talked with literally 1000s of cannabis licensees Did you get their contact info? If you kept them informed of all options in the space I'm sure they wouldn't unsubscribe from your thrice-yearly newsletter. If you're not working to build the (online) community you want to see, it won't magically appear by itself. I see you've published roughly 1 blog post a month since May and that's good, but nobody is going to read it unless you're emailing it to them. Obviously you do have to provide real value vs. being considered spam though... the first email should be knock-your-socks-off amazing (again emphasizing: give them value for themselves, not as much pleading your own cause), get several people to review it first. You probably need to get testimonials involved on the website, are you saving businesses money? Edit: You didn't share your most recent blog post on Twitter (500+ followers, nice!), and the most recent post needs more editing ("The permitted values are" ... followed by nothing.) Also, you might want to target a slightly wider audience... I don't know enough to know whether barely interested potential community members on the east coast would know "LCB CCRS" without acronym expansion. It looks like you could really lean into your Twitter. The other social media accounts give the appearance of neglect... if you don't have time, maybe use the others to point to the primary tool? Social media marketing should be scheduled (I guess until there's so much that you wind up trying to appear random), and if it's not going to be scheduled that's probably worth being up front about too. Final Edit, I Promise: I was going to email you a heads-up in case you've moved on from this discussion, but decided it wasn't worth it... so there's an example of usefulness vs. spam vs. content going nowhere. Hope this is helpful if you ever see it.

openthc 5y ago

> because no one is using this protocol There is a small number which is but yes, that hardly visible. > Why are you on HN asking what you're missing It's a good channel for this type of feedback. > Ask the people who you want to use it.. We've been working in this industry since 2014 and have talked with literally 1000s of cannabis licensees; they know they need this (regulatory obligation); when they have Metrc they hate it; and it doesn't carry the proper data forward; and folks get stuck with teidous manual data entry -- so they feel the pain every day. The customers we have on our hosted solution, one of our big selling points is trying to build the industry together with open specifications. When Washington state had another issue with their cannabis software in late 2017, an industry assocation made efforts to introduce this open specification at that time. Some of our competitors (not in Washington) have even purchased consulting time from us to talk about general system design for cannabis industry software -- it's where we also got some of that feedback for the existing models. So, we are, and have been, and continue to be activily engaged in conversations with industry participants many of whom actively find us to bring their problems to; and we turn those into the virtious cycle customer feedback loop. I know it's common in the "tech space" to have folks put the cart in front of the horse. I think our case does NOT do that; since 2014 a profitable customer driven company; starting the open-source efforts in 2016 in a constant, customer engaged method. It's why our competitors and our competitors clients literally call us for help.

password4321 5y ago
> have talked with literally 1000s of cannabis licensees Did you get their contact info? If you kept them informed of all options in the space I'm sure they wouldn't unsubscribe from your thrice-yearly newsletter. If you're not working to build the (online) community you want to see, it won't magically appear by itself. I see you've published roughly 1 blog post a month since May and that's good, but nobody is going to read it unless you're emailing it to them. Obviously you do have to provide real value vs. being considered spam though... the first email should be knock-your-socks-off amazing (again emphasizing: give them value for themselves, not as much pleading your own cause), get several people to review it first. You probably need to get testimonials involved on the website, are you saving businesses money? Edit: You didn't share your most recent blog post on Twitter (500+ followers, nice!), and the most recent post needs more editing ("The permitted values are" ... followed by nothing.) Also, you might want to target a slightly wider audience... I don't know enough to know whether barely interested potential community members on the east coast would know "LCB CCRS" without acronym expansion. It looks like you could really lean into your Twitter. The other social media accounts give the appearance of neglect... if you don't have time, maybe use the others to point to the primary tool? Social media marketing should be scheduled (I guess until there's so much that you wind up trying to appear random), and if it's not going to be scheduled that's probably worth being up front about too. Final Edit, I Promise: I was going to email you a heads-up in case you've moved on from this discussion, but decided it wasn't worth it... so there's an example of usefulness vs. spam vs. content going nowhere. Hope this is helpful if you ever see it.