8 ms·

Great questions! Basically I was working on a link shortener. However in addition to a link shortener that took you to another page, I wanted users to be able

by koch 3y ago

Great questions! Basically I was working on a link shortener. However in addition to a link shortener that took you to another page, I wanted users to be able to create a mini website that could host apps. Like you could create a small page that had photos of your business and a menu/ordering app and an "IM with staff" app etc. The fancy generator was kind of an added bonus, I always thought the QR codes I'd see around were so dull and unidentifiable! There was very little in traditional QR codes themselves to make them "human-scannable", so to speak. A QR codes is essentially a sign; it should have some information in it that you, a person, can parse. A little logo in the middle is weak at best. It failed because I didn't sell it. I needed to sell it. I needed to talk to people. I needed to like cold call people, restaurant owners without websites. Annnnd I always came up with an excuse not to. As far as next plans, I'm working on something else these days - https://markwhen.com https://markwhen.com

davidktr 3y ago
>markwhen you are building crazy cool stuff
- koch 3y ago
  Thank you!
siculars 3y ago
First, you did something. Nothing can take that away from you. So be proud of what you did. Next, you learned a valuable lesson that will come with you into your next projects. Learning to "sell" is absolutely critical for so much of life - not just tech startups. Finally, this is not the end. There will be more ideas and more opportunity. You're already on to the next thing. Keep moving forward. It's not how long or short the game is, or how quickly you move. It's how long you stay in the game. Keep playing the game.
beezlewax 3y ago
If it failed because you didnt sell it then maybe sales isnt your strong point? Find a salescperson to work with seems an obvious solution to this problem
rjha 3y ago
markwhen.com can be useful for people who are looking to generate Gnatt charts and do not want to wrestle with excel. There can be many such use cases like a quick plot, a quick pivot table, a quick Gnatt chart, A fancy looking table for pre-sales guys & proposal writers to render them as part of the proposal. You should aim this tool at people making lot of proposal PPT.
bombcar 3y ago
This sounds interesting and if you're really "giving up" on the idea, perhaps you could "open source" everything. People could take it and make a "restaurant website in a box" that could deploy directly to GitHub pages, even.
- dylan604 3y ago
  hasn't UberEats, DoorDash and their ilk already done all of this all while being super helpful to the point the restaurants were totally unawares it had been done?
  - bombcar 3y ago
    They’ve helped in some cases but in others it’s entirely confusing (or nonexistent).
  - paledot 3y ago
    Restaurant owners around here seem acutely aware that they're grabbing 30% of their revenue and actively routing customers away from the restauranteurs' own sites. Yes, there is room for competition.
    - rapnie 3y ago
      I've noticed the same in the Netherlands anecdotally.. delivery services hated with a vengeance, yet restaurant owners convicted to using them nonetheless. (There was also a TV documentary some time ago, but about The Fork, and how Amsterdam restaurants resented them).
      - LtdJorge 3y ago
        All restaurants hate TheFork. Same with Booking (which is from NL, coincidentally) and similar sites. There's no way to compete with them, and by being an aggregator, they have massive benefits in discoverability. Customers are just going to open their page to search, instead of using their search engine, so you have to be on their site, but they are filthy pirates.
luuuzeta 3y ago
> https://markwhen.com https://markwhen.com Wow this is also awesome! Some programmers are truly creative people haha
- koch 3y ago
  Thank you!
Rastonbury 3y ago
It's a hard sale, restaurant owners are fickle and cheap, not the easiest to sell to
- mikeweiss 3y ago
  For a good reason... Profit margins at most restaurants are razor thin.
qingcharles 3y ago
Looks great. I'll be keeping an eye on it.
sho 3y ago
> It failed because I didn't sell it. I needed to sell it. I needed to talk to people. I needed to like cold call people [..] Annnnd I always came up with an excuse not to I can identify so hard with this it hurts...
yieldcrv 3y ago
build it and they wont come
gpspake 3y ago
If you can nail the timeline thing, I'd pay. I think about this all the time and it seems like something that should exist. I'd kind of like to use it to look at life events like "what week was I on vacation when I was a kid." Google Photos is great for this but I'd like to add my own entries.
- koch 3y ago
  I have similar thoughts, which is why I'm working on it!
rkuodys 3y ago
https://markwhen.com https://markwhen.com - very cool. however, If I could share with you, I would see the value in following case: if I could connect my calendar(s) to it and see what is going on and overlay it with the data here in comment. Use case is both - for retrospective and for planning (for example if you're preparing the meeting and don't want to share content just yet, or jotting something for time in-between meeting what to do, etc)
myguestacc 3y ago
markwhen.com looks neat! What tech did you use to make the editor?
- koch 3y ago
  Codemirror & vue. Chances are if you're using a code editor in a web app it's either Microsoft's Monaco [0] or CodeMirror [1], which is maintained by Marijn Haverbeke [0] https://github.com/microsoft/monaco-editor https://github.com/microsoft/monaco-editor [1] https://codemirror.net/ https://codemirror.net/
squokko 3y ago
Not even cold call. Cold pitch. Find restaurants with shite websites. Build them better ones. Walk in and show the QR code to the owner. Say you've built a better website for the restaurant. Have him scan it and see his restaurant much better presented, on his own phone. Say the first 3 months are free and then $200 a month.
progx 3y ago
"I needed to talk to people. I needed to like cold call people, restaurant owners without websites. Annnnd I always came up with an excuse not to." If this is something you absolutely not wanna do, then not do it! Look for somebody who can sell, but almost impossible to find somebody. Better built something, that you don't have to sell at the way you don't like. Speaking from own experience. This will be hard enough, but cold calls are nealry impossible for a one man show, especially with a low price product.

by koch 3y ago

davidktr 3y ago

>markwhen you are building crazy cool stuff

koch 3y ago
Thank you!

siculars 3y ago

First, you did something. Nothing can take that away from you. So be proud of what you did. Next, you learned a valuable lesson that will come with you into your next projects. Learning to "sell" is absolutely critical for so much of life - not just tech startups. Finally, this is not the end. There will be more ideas and more opportunity. You're already on to the next thing. Keep moving forward. It's not how long or short the game is, or how quickly you move. It's how long you stay in the game. Keep playing the game.

beezlewax 3y ago

If it failed because you didnt sell it then maybe sales isnt your strong point? Find a salescperson to work with seems an obvious solution to this problem

rjha 3y ago

markwhen.com can be useful for people who are looking to generate Gnatt charts and do not want to wrestle with excel. There can be many such use cases like a quick plot, a quick pivot table, a quick Gnatt chart, A fancy looking table for pre-sales guys & proposal writers to render them as part of the proposal. You should aim this tool at people making lot of proposal PPT.

bombcar 3y ago

This sounds interesting and if you're really "giving up" on the idea, perhaps you could "open source" everything. People could take it and make a "restaurant website in a box" that could deploy directly to GitHub pages, even.

dylan604 3y ago
hasn't UberEats, DoorDash and their ilk already done all of this all while being super helpful to the point the restaurants were totally unawares it had been done?
- bombcar 3y ago
  They’ve helped in some cases but in others it’s entirely confusing (or nonexistent).
- paledot 3y ago
  Restaurant owners around here seem acutely aware that they're grabbing 30% of their revenue and actively routing customers away from the restauranteurs' own sites. Yes, there is room for competition.
  - rapnie 3y ago
    I've noticed the same in the Netherlands anecdotally.. delivery services hated with a vengeance, yet restaurant owners convicted to using them nonetheless. (There was also a TV documentary some time ago, but about The Fork, and how Amsterdam restaurants resented them).
    - LtdJorge 3y ago
      All restaurants hate TheFork. Same with Booking (which is from NL, coincidentally) and similar sites. There's no way to compete with them, and by being an aggregator, they have massive benefits in discoverability. Customers are just going to open their page to search, instead of using their search engine, so you have to be on their site, but they are filthy pirates.

luuuzeta 3y ago

> https://markwhen.com https://markwhen.com Wow this is also awesome! Some programmers are truly creative people haha

koch 3y ago
Thank you!

Rastonbury 3y ago

It's a hard sale, restaurant owners are fickle and cheap, not the easiest to sell to

mikeweiss 3y ago
For a good reason... Profit margins at most restaurants are razor thin.

qingcharles 3y ago

Looks great. I'll be keeping an eye on it.

sho 3y ago

> It failed because I didn't sell it. I needed to sell it. I needed to talk to people. I needed to like cold call people [..] Annnnd I always came up with an excuse not to I can identify so hard with this it hurts...

yieldcrv 3y ago

build it and they wont come

gpspake 3y ago

If you can nail the timeline thing, I'd pay. I think about this all the time and it seems like something that should exist. I'd kind of like to use it to look at life events like "what week was I on vacation when I was a kid." Google Photos is great for this but I'd like to add my own entries.

koch 3y ago
I have similar thoughts, which is why I'm working on it!

rkuodys 3y ago

https://markwhen.com https://markwhen.com - very cool. however, If I could share with you, I would see the value in following case: if I could connect my calendar(s) to it and see what is going on and overlay it with the data here in comment. Use case is both - for retrospective and for planning (for example if you're preparing the meeting and don't want to share content just yet, or jotting something for time in-between meeting what to do, etc)

myguestacc 3y ago

markwhen.com looks neat! What tech did you use to make the editor?

koch 3y ago
Codemirror & vue. Chances are if you're using a code editor in a web app it's either Microsoft's Monaco [0] or CodeMirror [1], which is maintained by Marijn Haverbeke [0] https://github.com/microsoft/monaco-editor https://github.com/microsoft/monaco-editor [1] https://codemirror.net/ https://codemirror.net/

squokko 3y ago

Not even cold call. Cold pitch. Find restaurants with shite websites. Build them better ones. Walk in and show the QR code to the owner. Say you've built a better website for the restaurant. Have him scan it and see his restaurant much better presented, on his own phone. Say the first 3 months are free and then $200 a month.

progx 3y ago

"I needed to talk to people. I needed to like cold call people, restaurant owners without websites. Annnnd I always came up with an excuse not to." If this is something you absolutely not wanna do, then not do it! Look for somebody who can sell, but almost impossible to find somebody. Better built something, that you don't have to sell at the way you don't like. Speaking from own experience. This will be hard enough, but cold calls are nealry impossible for a one man show, especially with a low price product.