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(part II) At that time, Cint AB (privately owned panel admin service. International scope, HQ in Stockholm, SE. www.cint.com), launched Cint Direct Sample (Tod

(part II) At that time, Cint AB (privately owned panel admin service. International scope, HQ in Stockholm, SE. www.cint.com), launched Cint Direct Sample (Today, Cint Link). CDS was an API providing programmatic access to their +5mio vetted(!) respondents in 42 countries. They would take care of re-imbursement and administration of all the respondents, quality-control of the panels in use (mainly making sure that no "professional" respondents were allowed to answer). My end of the of deal was to supply a survey tool and the customers of course. /* Sidenote: Google has since my "launch", opened the doors to http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/home http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/home. I consider this an affirmation of market viability for Openpanels or similar. */ Enter Openpanels.net. An unholy Frankenstein using WordPress as a CMS (Hacker gag reflex #1), and a heavily customized (also imposing the venerable "spaghetti-architecture" upon the code) fork of Limesurvey. I was the glorious Taskmaster, endlessly hiring and firing freelancers until I found someone that actually worked out. For you Hackers, this will seem crazy, but it cost me nearly USD10,000 and 9(!) months to get it running at the current state. But it worked. Just barely. But it worked (still does, technically speaking). And then I ran out of money. The project was self-funded (read: under-funded) because my bloated sense of self-entitlement didn't allow me selling myself or my project to anybody else. So, when I ran out of money, I literally didn't know how to pay my upcoming rent. (cont.)

playeren 14y ago
(part III) But my real mistake - in my own opinion - was not so much being under-funded, as it were my own personal issues. Personal issues that prohibited me from from reaching out to investors. Issues that prohibited me from creating a team that could cover for my many shortcomings as an entrepreneur. An inflated sense of ego, I would never allow myself while working on someone elses dime. A bloated sense of self-entitlement leading to arrogant "Fuck it! We'll do it live!!!" type decisions. I am asshole, tremble in the presence of my lack of introspection. It has been an immensely valuable learning experience, in a very real, pragmatic "this doesn't work; this does" kind of a way, but my most valuable lesson was: I am not an entrepreneur. I do not possess the qualities needed to run a company. Maybe I will someday, but if I don't, I'll survive. I also dreamed about being Captain of a Star Cruiser, and I survived not fulfilling that dream :) I am definitely not done with start-ups, but will focus on a supporting role. I am Beta, tremble in my supportive presence ;) If this post can inspire some of you to share your stories of failure, I would feel some value has come out of it. And long as this post may seem, I haven't really described any specifics of my road to failure, but I'm very happy to field any questions this esteemed community might have. My Failure-app: http://openpanels.net http://openpanels.net Thanks for letting me ramble!

playeren 14y ago

(part III) But my real mistake - in my own opinion - was not so much being under-funded, as it were my own personal issues. Personal issues that prohibited me from from reaching out to investors. Issues that prohibited me from creating a team that could cover for my many shortcomings as an entrepreneur. An inflated sense of ego, I would never allow myself while working on someone elses dime. A bloated sense of self-entitlement leading to arrogant "Fuck it! We'll do it live!!!" type decisions. I am asshole, tremble in the presence of my lack of introspection. It has been an immensely valuable learning experience, in a very real, pragmatic "this doesn't work; this does" kind of a way, but my most valuable lesson was: I am not an entrepreneur. I do not possess the qualities needed to run a company. Maybe I will someday, but if I don't, I'll survive. I also dreamed about being Captain of a Star Cruiser, and I survived not fulfilling that dream :) I am definitely not done with start-ups, but will focus on a supporting role. I am Beta, tremble in my supportive presence ;) If this post can inspire some of you to share your stories of failure, I would feel some value has come out of it. And long as this post may seem, I haven't really described any specifics of my road to failure, but I'm very happy to field any questions this esteemed community might have. My Failure-app: http://openpanels.net http://openpanels.net Thanks for letting me ramble!