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> When I read your assessment of their previous strategy "doing free UX enhancements for commercial companies" while the person is against commerce, I do not wa

> When I read your assessment of their previous strategy "doing free UX enhancements for commercial companies" while the person is against commerce, I do not walk away with a sense that they have reconciled for themselves what is worth going after [...] > Instead they should call it what it is - a failure - and learn from it. I'm going to be really blunt here, it sounds a lot less like your critique is that the author isn't clear about their goals or that the author doesn't know how to evaluate themselves -- and more like your critique is that the author's evaluation of themselves and their goals doesn't match yours. Running any project with 800 users for 2 years as a hobbyist can be reasonably called a success. This reads a lot like how VC people will come into Mom and Pop shops and say, "this business is a failure, they just have years of loyal customers in a niche, what a disgrace! They obviously haven't thought enough about their product focus."

andsoitis 3y ago
> Running any project with 800 users for 2 years as a hobbyist can be reasonably called a success. That's not success, and certainly not a "big success" which is the author's self-reflection. Unless the author's goal was to run something for 2 years, accumulate 800 users, and then shutting it down. > This reads a lot like how VC people will come into Mom and Pop shops and say I think they set out to make a big impact. That means growth, but doesn't imply commercial success.
- danShumway 3y ago
  > That's not success, and certainly not a "big success" which is the author's self-reflection. Again, the author is not obligated in any way to align themselves to your definition of success. And them disagreeing with your definition of success is not the same thing as them being confused or not having thought enough about what they want. It might just mean they disagree with you. > I think they set out to make a big impact. That means growth No, not necessarily. Growth can be a component of impact, but they are not synonymous, and many highly impactful projects never see a lot of attention or direct growth -- they enable other projects to succeed or fix some of the many diverse pain points that subsets of users for those projects have.

andsoitis 3y ago

> Running any project with 800 users for 2 years as a hobbyist can be reasonably called a success. That's not success, and certainly not a "big success" which is the author's self-reflection. Unless the author's goal was to run something for 2 years, accumulate 800 users, and then shutting it down. > This reads a lot like how VC people will come into Mom and Pop shops and say I think they set out to make a big impact. That means growth, but doesn't imply commercial success.

danShumway 3y ago
> That's not success, and certainly not a "big success" which is the author's self-reflection. Again, the author is not obligated in any way to align themselves to your definition of success. And them disagreeing with your definition of success is not the same thing as them being confused or not having thought enough about what they want. It might just mean they disagree with you. > I think they set out to make a big impact. That means growth No, not necessarily. Growth can be a component of impact, but they are not synonymous, and many highly impactful projects never see a lot of attention or direct growth -- they enable other projects to succeed or fix some of the many diverse pain points that subsets of users for those projects have.