5 ms·

I'll come out with a contrarian point of view: I think you're wasting your time and certainly your money. To have invested your life savings into this app whic

I'll come out with a contrarian point of view: I think you're wasting your time and certainly your money. To have invested your life savings into this app which, uh, is really hard to determine what it does seems silly to me - especially since you have a family to care for. Slack Meets GitHub Issues? Doesn't Slack already meet GitHub issues in that it integrates with GitHub fine? The fact that you need a very long blog post to explain exactly what this does should be a warning sign that it's unfocused and released too late. "It can help you manage everything from todo items to chat messages to blog posts to photos to fully-fledged projects, photo albums and even mini social networks! Really, the type of content you create is completely up to you." That sounds like a nightmare to me, now I have to invest a lot of time to figure out exactly how this thing works? Start small, focused, make one small thing that does one thing well. Release it quickly, try to get a few people using it (hopefully paying for it) and gather some of their feedback. Find out how they're using it and what their pain points are. Grow from there. I know you said opportunities where you live are few and far between, and you clearly have the skills, why can't you build a production ready application at an established company? Finally, I'm being overly critical because I've been in a similar situation before - you spend months building something, release it, and argh! why aren't people coming? It's frustrating, I know, but your skills are better put to use elsewhere.

leereeves 12y ago
I agree, and disagree. What this product would be useful for isn't explained well, and I'm not sure even the OP knows. But there's clearly something compelling here based on the attention we've all given it.
- minimaxir 12y ago
  > But there's clearly something compelling here based on the attention we've all given it. It should be noted that the original title contained an "I quit my job" affectation, which may have biased the original upvotes for the submission. (which is why the affectation was removed) If the submission was simply a link to the service instead of a story, I would imagine the results would be much different.
- austenallred 12y ago
  I'm not sure that conclusion necessarily follows here. This wasn't just a link to a product, but a story, starting with, "I quit my job and sacrificed a lot to get here." Something being is interesting or worth talking about doesn't necessarily mean that thing is valuable (or a good idea for a company). An upvote doesn't necessarily mean, "I like this," but rather, "this is interesting" (or whatever other metric one uses when determining whether to upvote). I upvoted the OP because I thought it was interesting that someone had quit their job and sacrificed so much to work on something. I didn't look farther than the Medium post because I feel like Slack already has this angle covered. Or it could be that I'm just not the right audience or I don't get it.
mydpy 12y ago
I agree with your assessment. I don't think this product has the type of competitive advantage needed in this highly saturated communications market. I think you can use this to lead to better things. Iterate on the product, get some feedback, and attack it again. In the meantime, blog throughout the process. Get your voice out. If you generate interest about your product before you release it, you can generate more momentum when you launch. Good luck!
- varunjuice 12y ago
  Right on. Somebody should've told Mark about the saturated social media market, or Larry about the saturated search market. There are so many communication tools, surely its a solved problem right. Ask a knowledge worker today about their favorite communication tool, and you will end up with a dozen answers in about a week's time. Definitely a sign that the problem is solved. There are a dozen solutions after all. :)
  - Lewisham 12y ago
    This is needlessly reductive and misses the point: the issue isn't saturation, the issue is that OP hasn't identified the USP of the product. Zuck knew full well that the USP of The Facebook was helping students get laid (or at least, find out more about that pretty boy/girl in your class). Larry knew full well that the USP of Google was that PageRank helped identify better quality web sites. OP doesn't really know what the product is himself, so cannot begin to differentiate.
    - varunjuice 12y ago
      I'm latching, probably unfairly, to the comment about "market saturation". I give OP +1 for conviction, and -1 for lack of validation.
deleted 12y ago
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- deleted 12y ago
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gadders 12y ago
#middlebrow_dismissal
- S4M 12y ago
  Please don't mistake harsh but constructive criticism for middlebrow dismissal.
  - nilkn 12y ago
    I don't think the top-level comment even criticized the app, though. The impression I have is that he has not tried it and doesn't even know what it is. If anything, the only thing he criticized is the landing page. (And that's certainly valid criticism, but it's not a strong basis for telling someone they just wasted their time and money. A marketing problem can be fixed.)
  - gadders 12y ago
    overly harsh criticism.
dfurlong 12y ago
Hi there, your assessment is very critical and I was wondering whether you would so kind as to assess a project I am working on. www.cograph.co Thank you!
nkohari 12y ago
You spent 15 minutes looking at the beta version of a product, and you've made the decision that the creator is wasting their time? Have you considered that, having thought about it for months, they might understand the problem domain significantly better than you? What if the product actually has tremendous value, but suffers from a marketing problem? That's a pretty easy problem to fix. Rather than using your severely limited understanding to encourage the creator to throw the baby out with the bathwater, you should focus on tangible, solvable problems, or just keep your mouth shut.
- jasonm23 12y ago
  Wow, great advice there "just keep your mouth shut". For anyone who has actually invested a large amount of time in a dead idea, the above poster is right on the money. I think you should take you own advice and talk only about things you know intimately. Lest your sentimentality gets the better of you, when actually trying to address a problem that could suck OP's life down the proverbial toilet.
  - nilkn 12y ago
    > For anyone who has actually invested a large amount of time in a dead idea, the above poster is right on the money. I think the issue here is that the above poster has probably not done his due diligence to actually verify the premise of this statement (that the idea is a dead one). I could be wrong on that, but I see almost nothing in the post that refers to anything about his experience actually using the app. For what it's worth, I'm trying to use it right now but I think the site is getting slammed by HN, so I can't actually use it. Therefore, I'm not going to tell the OP that he just wasted all his time and money.
    - nkohari 12y ago
      > I think the issue here is that the above poster has probably not done his due diligence to actually verify the premise of this statement (that the idea is a dead one). Correct, and further, I don't think a passive bystander can make that judgement. The opinion of any one person is irrelevant. If the idea is bad, the market will reject it.
tschellenbach 12y ago
Don't let people tell you your ideas won't work!
- jasonm23 12y ago
  Don't be too ready to listen to people's words of encouragement, unless they're telling you: Shut up and take my money!!!
dbg31415 12y ago
"Did he say he wasn't in SF? Let's all yell at him and tell him that he sucks and his idea sucks. SF is the only place anyone who knows how to code / market / launch products lives and everyone else everywhere is dumb." - Paraphrased 95% of the users on this site lately
dmazin 12y ago
Whoa, a contrarian point of view on HN?
zackliscio 12y ago
For what it's worth, releasing something and finding little or no adoption of the product is often where the interesting learning begins. I can't tell you whether or not it's worth pursuing, but I know that in my own experience it was. Our team spent almost a year building and launching a product that we ultimately shut down. We could have stopped and gone back to our day jobs, but the silver lining is that the core technology became the foundation for our current (seemingly unrelated) company. While the now-forgotten product we launched was a failure, pushing past that resulted in a product that has been far more successful (funding, product-market fit, etc). There's no guarantee you'll pivot into success, but there's zero chance you will succeed if you stop iterating.
- spullara 12y ago
  This is actually the description of how Slack came to be.

leereeves 12y ago

I agree, and disagree. What this product would be useful for isn't explained well, and I'm not sure even the OP knows. But there's clearly something compelling here based on the attention we've all given it.

minimaxir 12y ago
> But there's clearly something compelling here based on the attention we've all given it. It should be noted that the original title contained an "I quit my job" affectation, which may have biased the original upvotes for the submission. (which is why the affectation was removed) If the submission was simply a link to the service instead of a story, I would imagine the results would be much different.
austenallred 12y ago
I'm not sure that conclusion necessarily follows here. This wasn't just a link to a product, but a story, starting with, "I quit my job and sacrificed a lot to get here." Something being is interesting or worth talking about doesn't necessarily mean that thing is valuable (or a good idea for a company). An upvote doesn't necessarily mean, "I like this," but rather, "this is interesting" (or whatever other metric one uses when determining whether to upvote). I upvoted the OP because I thought it was interesting that someone had quit their job and sacrificed so much to work on something. I didn't look farther than the Medium post because I feel like Slack already has this angle covered. Or it could be that I'm just not the right audience or I don't get it.

mydpy 12y ago

I agree with your assessment. I don't think this product has the type of competitive advantage needed in this highly saturated communications market. I think you can use this to lead to better things. Iterate on the product, get some feedback, and attack it again. In the meantime, blog throughout the process. Get your voice out. If you generate interest about your product before you release it, you can generate more momentum when you launch. Good luck!

varunjuice 12y ago
Right on. Somebody should've told Mark about the saturated social media market, or Larry about the saturated search market. There are so many communication tools, surely its a solved problem right. Ask a knowledge worker today about their favorite communication tool, and you will end up with a dozen answers in about a week's time. Definitely a sign that the problem is solved. There are a dozen solutions after all. :)
- Lewisham 12y ago
  This is needlessly reductive and misses the point: the issue isn't saturation, the issue is that OP hasn't identified the USP of the product. Zuck knew full well that the USP of The Facebook was helping students get laid (or at least, find out more about that pretty boy/girl in your class). Larry knew full well that the USP of Google was that PageRank helped identify better quality web sites. OP doesn't really know what the product is himself, so cannot begin to differentiate.
  - varunjuice 12y ago
    I'm latching, probably unfairly, to the comment about "market saturation". I give OP +1 for conviction, and -1 for lack of validation.

deleted 12y ago

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deleted 12y ago
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gadders 12y ago

#middlebrow_dismissal

S4M 12y ago
Please don't mistake harsh but constructive criticism for middlebrow dismissal.
- nilkn 12y ago
  I don't think the top-level comment even criticized the app, though. The impression I have is that he has not tried it and doesn't even know what it is. If anything, the only thing he criticized is the landing page. (And that's certainly valid criticism, but it's not a strong basis for telling someone they just wasted their time and money. A marketing problem can be fixed.)
- gadders 12y ago
  overly harsh criticism.

dfurlong 12y ago

Hi there, your assessment is very critical and I was wondering whether you would so kind as to assess a project I am working on. www.cograph.co Thank you!

nkohari 12y ago

You spent 15 minutes looking at the beta version of a product, and you've made the decision that the creator is wasting their time? Have you considered that, having thought about it for months, they might understand the problem domain significantly better than you? What if the product actually has tremendous value, but suffers from a marketing problem? That's a pretty easy problem to fix. Rather than using your severely limited understanding to encourage the creator to throw the baby out with the bathwater, you should focus on tangible, solvable problems, or just keep your mouth shut.

jasonm23 12y ago
Wow, great advice there "just keep your mouth shut". For anyone who has actually invested a large amount of time in a dead idea, the above poster is right on the money. I think you should take you own advice and talk only about things you know intimately. Lest your sentimentality gets the better of you, when actually trying to address a problem that could suck OP's life down the proverbial toilet.
- nilkn 12y ago
  > For anyone who has actually invested a large amount of time in a dead idea, the above poster is right on the money. I think the issue here is that the above poster has probably not done his due diligence to actually verify the premise of this statement (that the idea is a dead one). I could be wrong on that, but I see almost nothing in the post that refers to anything about his experience actually using the app. For what it's worth, I'm trying to use it right now but I think the site is getting slammed by HN, so I can't actually use it. Therefore, I'm not going to tell the OP that he just wasted all his time and money.
  - nkohari 12y ago
    > I think the issue here is that the above poster has probably not done his due diligence to actually verify the premise of this statement (that the idea is a dead one). Correct, and further, I don't think a passive bystander can make that judgement. The opinion of any one person is irrelevant. If the idea is bad, the market will reject it.

tschellenbach 12y ago

Don't let people tell you your ideas won't work!

jasonm23 12y ago
Don't be too ready to listen to people's words of encouragement, unless they're telling you: Shut up and take my money!!!

dbg31415 12y ago

"Did he say he wasn't in SF? Let's all yell at him and tell him that he sucks and his idea sucks. SF is the only place anyone who knows how to code / market / launch products lives and everyone else everywhere is dumb." - Paraphrased 95% of the users on this site lately

dmazin 12y ago

Whoa, a contrarian point of view on HN?

zackliscio 12y ago

For what it's worth, releasing something and finding little or no adoption of the product is often where the interesting learning begins. I can't tell you whether or not it's worth pursuing, but I know that in my own experience it was. Our team spent almost a year building and launching a product that we ultimately shut down. We could have stopped and gone back to our day jobs, but the silver lining is that the core technology became the foundation for our current (seemingly unrelated) company. While the now-forgotten product we launched was a failure, pushing past that resulted in a product that has been far more successful (funding, product-market fit, etc). There's no guarantee you'll pivot into success, but there's zero chance you will succeed if you stop iterating.

spullara 12y ago
This is actually the description of how Slack came to be.