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How we restarted our company in two weeks during Y Combinator
- lightyrs 13y agoImpressive turnaround. Great job and thanks for the write-up.
- tgoldberg 13y agoThank you!
- bitJericho 13y agoWhy is your blog in all caps. Too hard to read -_-
- tgoldberg 13y agoOnly the blog title should be in caps. Are you seeing the whole thing in caps?
- sillysaurus3 13y agoIs it supposed to look like this? http://i.imgur.com/mmTX2EW.png http://i.imgur.com/mmTX2EW.png Nah, just kidding. It looks fine for me.
- bitJericho 13y agoAh it's probably then that I am on IE9. The worst of all the browsers... except 8. I read the article now, thank you for sharing :)
- jeroen 13y agoYour h1 is not closed (the closing tag is in the comment). IE is rendering the whole page in red caps. It is throwing a bunch of script errors as well. There are 32 other errors as well: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.eventjoy.com%2Fpost%2F79387694078%2Fhow-we-restarted-our-company-in-two-weeks-during-y&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0 http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.eventjoy...
- Pxtl 13y agoRED ALLCAPS.
- iancarroll 13y agoThanks.
- Pxtl 13y agoOh, thank goodness. I was worried it was some bizarre stylistic fad and not just an unclosed tag.
- hol 13y agoGreat story! Amazing what you can achieve in such a short space of time if you're focused and dedicated.
- tgoldberg 13y agoAgreed. Going through YC helped us remove all distractions. Beyond that, we just consumed a lot of caffeine.
- keithwarren 13y agoI am curious why the focus went to ticketing and registration instead of back office systems, seems ticketing and reg are already solved problems?
- tgoldberg 13y ago1) Existing/new organizers loved the idea of going mobile for their events, but they didn't want to manage another platform. 2) Users were asking us if we could handle ticketing/reg. as well. 3) We now have an opportunity to make mobile engagement seamless for attendees the moment they check into an event. There are other things as well, but these were the top three.
- hpagey 13y agoHow do you plan to prevent event organizer churn? Since each event's data like scheduling, speaker list, sessions change from year to year, there is no real incentive for organizers to keep coming back to your platform.
- tgoldberg 13y agoWith the registration component, we now have a lot more data and value that we can provide to the organizer. Over time we'll give them the right tools to leverage that.
- keithwarren 13y agoDo you think the focus positions you better for new smaller scale events or getting access to larger events? I ask because it seems like the real value in this space would be taking down active.com and high volume high frequency events like 5K races etc.
- tgoldberg 13y agoI'd say both. We're seeing smaller events than we used to get signup. On the flip side, we're seeing large events signup as well. What is interesting is the variety of events we're now seeing (5Ks included). We're talking to users in these new verticals to see how we can better serve their needs.
- b2themax 13y agoThanks a lot. This helps me think I am on the right track with outsourcing the non critical(non dev) aspects of my startup. I was under the false impression before that a startup consisted of doing the all aspects of the work by myself.
- bdcravens 13y agoNice writeup, but what's up with that bottom photo? I'm looking at the redchair in front of the unoccupied MacBook. If I had to work like that, I'd quit so fast I'd create a Superman 1 style reversal of the space time continuum and bump into myself on the way out the door.
- tgoldberg 13y agoWe had three team members working on this and only two good chairs, so we rotated. What you can't see is that we have two couches around the work area.
- bdcravens 13y agoI'm thinking a $100 chair from Office Depot would be a good idea. (I'm an independent working from home, and I recently bought an Aeron, out of my own pocket) I get the whole long hours, bare bones startup incubator thing, but just like we often use MacBooks instead of $249 WalMart specials, seating isn't an area to skimp on! :-) (as for the couch, I think I couldn't do that for long as an alternative - my MBP Retina gets way too hot for that)
- karlhwhite 13y agoHey this is Karl, the other Eventjoy founder. I actually spend a lot of time working on couches, so I was actually pretty happy :) Besides... we didn't have time to fetch another chair
- levosmetalo 13y agoOrder it online, 10min max.oryou are too busy reading hn?
- sithu 13y agoTodd, thanks for sharing your personal experiences. Really nice writeup and interesting details. All the best!
- 13y ago
- pbreit 13y agoI guess eventbrite.com wasn't available...
- namenotrequired 13y agoGreat job on the relaunch and rebranding, and on the blog as well! Thanks for sharing. Just so you know, I had a few minor issues on the blog: - None of the images are visible. - I think a word and period are missing at the end of this line: > Todd, one of the Eventjoy co-founders, began the design for the new web product and necessary updates to our existing
- tgoldberg 13y agoThanks for catching that, turns out I cut off two words :x Images are working fine on our end. What browser?
- namenotrequired 13y agoI use (webkit-based) Epic, but on Firefox and Chrome it's working fine so I guess you don't need to worry! Sorry for the false alarm :)
- uiri 13y agoThey're not showing up for me in Firefox 27 on Mac OS X. If I remove the amazon part of the URL (leaving the domain as cdn.eventjoy.com) and use http instead of https, the image loads. On HTTPS, an Amazon certificate shows up and Amazon is sending some weird redirect XML.
- callmeed 13y ago> we had to announce our name change in an upcoming edition of a local newspaper. Yes, it’s exactly like it sounds. I don't think this is out of the ordinary (in the US). My understanding is that printed fictitious name filings are required in most places when you do business as a name other than your personal name or corporate entity name. If your town has a weekly alt newspaper, it's usually pretty easy to go through them (and usually < $100).
- seancoleman 13y agoIt is very common (I've filed over a dozen articles of organization and incorporation across 3 states) but clearly an archaic, inefficient means of announcing a business name establishment. There are "newspapers" in Arizona dedicated entirely to publishing these announcements. It seems like a racket, becoming a recommended vendor to provide a service for a legal requirement in an obsolete way.
- samstave 13y agoAutomate the setup of all your events! FB, TWITTER, TICKETS! WALLS!!! Enter eventomator.com!!
- samstave 13y agoI was trying to illustrate that eventomator.com was available....
- sthatipamala 13y agoI expected some minor design tweaks but everything changed. Amazing work for 2 weeks. I like how you guys offloaded as much unnecessary work as possible (e.g. blog hosting, Tumblr theme, email template).
- jesusx 13y agothe like and follow buttons in https://www.eventjoy.com/organizing/ https://www.eventjoy.com/organizing/ overlap each other Chrome 33 on Mac OS X
- cclogg 13y ago"the .com was owned by a domain broker in South Korea. Within five minutes we emailed the broker asking for a price. A few hours later we had a price and quickly countered, which ultimately resulted in a low four-figure deal we accepted." -> On an unrelated note, it seems like buying up a bunch of well-named domains 20 years ago would have been a smart thing to do lol (if you just wanted money). But I guess that's like owning real-estate in a way.
- chrsstrm 13y agoJust the other day I emailed the owner of a name I wanted. 17 years registered and it had never been used, the guy wanted 5 figures for it for no other reason than that's the price he paid for it. I countered with a more reasonable offer and didn't hear back from him, so the next day I bought the same name with a different TLD, for $35. I feel like at one point having that coveted .com was a priority for any business that wanted to be taken seriously, but today that just doesn't seem like the case anymore thanks to marketing mediums that use links instead of catchy names. Did I want the .com? Sure. Did I absolutely need it? Not at all. If my venture becomes successful down the road then maybe I'll inquire about the .com again and have more leverage to negotiate, but I'm not losing sleep over it until then.
- meowface 13y ago5 figures? Damn. How many characters was it, if I might ask?
- chrsstrm 13y ago10 characters. It's two words, no spaces or dashes. Nothing trendy. I don't know whether he bought it as an investment or had plans for it, but he's clearly only trying to get out what he put in. I'm willing to bet the initial investment is a huge regret at this point.
- larrys 13y agoWait. Are you saying that he claims he paid a certain amount as the justification for the price he wants for the domain?
- lumpypua 13y agoOut of curiosity, what CMS did you use for your help center? My startup is hitting exactly the point where we're getting common questions and need an FAQ.
- joelrunyon 13y agoIs it me or is every YC company coming out with "joy" as the second part of their name? * ridejoy * homejoy * eventjoy
- jonnybgood 13y agoA startup culture meme. There'll be another hip suffix (or prefix) in due time. Honest question, does this meme provide any actual benefits? Wouldn't it cause confusion of your brand?
- skndr 13y agoIt's a simple solution if you don't want to spend a lot of time on a name. It means you can get back to providing an amazing service or product all that much quicker.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- joelrunyon 13y agoI don't know - I always think it's funny choice of words. I like homejoy a lot actually - but I don't know if they've caused me to feel "joy." That said - nicely done on such a fast turnaround.
- tgoldberg 13y agoThe response to the name has been overwhelmingly positive. We still have a ton of people come up to us just to say how much they love the name. Thanks!
- gfodor 13y agoWorse than this is the use of the word "delight" to describe UI. I cringe every time.
- zosegal 13y agoIt's short, memorable, and evokes positive emotion.
- kimonos 13y agoGreat post! Keep it up!
- AdamFernandez 13y agoI'm just curious about the reason for this, but I notice a lot of startup's (especially from Y Combinator) tagline is 'The easiest/best/fastest way to x'. Should there be more originality here, or has it tested so successfully that it is recommended for everyone? (I am genuinely asking if there is data to support this, and am not being critical of eventjoy)
- larrys 13y agoWhile there could very well be something to back this up it could also be similar to the "Netscape Now" button that was very common back in the mid to late 90's. People doing it in other words because they are merely copying what others do. I think this is probably more common with startups because young people who do startups aren't aware of anything fresh out of school and are certainly more likely to mimic what they see others do. "Oh ok so we get a ping pong table".
- ghc 13y agoNon sequitur, but... Seeing that whiteboard, after constantly feeling ashamed of my whiteboard writing next to that of my team members, I am just overjoyed to see whiteboard writing that looks as messy as mine. In fact it looks exactly like mine, letter shapes and all.
- karlhwhite 13y agoOther Eventjoy founder here... I have no shame about my whiteboard writing. I try not to spend time worrying about my cursive handwriting these days :D