My previous startup was a marketplace for custom email addresses called at.market.
Every day I would open sublime, write code for a few hours, and then close it. From that, I got thousands of website visitors, tens of signups per day, reviewed by prominent tech publications, invited to speak at a conference, an interview with the thiel fellowship. In fact, someone from Chinese YC reached out to me to invest in my “startup” and I’m talking with them tomorrow, even though I no longer actively work on it, which is what inspired me to write this post. They say they want to potentially invest in my company, the company that’s losing tens of thousands of dollars per year and has a broken business model.
Apart from a producthunt launch, I did zero marketing or sales whatsoever. I never even talked to users. Because I got signups every day without fail without doing any marketing or sales, I fell into the trap of thinking that if I could just make the product better, I would get more signups and eventually paying users. That never happened. They came, but they didn’t come fast enough, or with any buying intent.
The business fundamentals were (and are) completely broken. I had over a thousand domain names at one point, and still hold over 500. Not just dot coms, but expensive ones like .ba or .cm. The company is losing tens of thousands of dollars a year. I feel like I flushed 3 years of my life and tens of thousands of dollars down the drain.
I built a B2C company that charges a couple of dollars a month, that doesn't really solve a real problem. Looking back, what I built resembled more of an art project than a viable business. Something that makes people go "wow" but doesn't make them open their wallet.
Personally, I see other software developers making the same mistake. In fact, the higher calibre of software developer they are, the more in demand they are in the job market, the more they're susceptible to this. I think it's because their basic needs are met and if they fail, they can get another high paying software development job. It never personally sunk in for me that I'd need to make enough money to support myself until near the end.
My favourite example of this is when I was invited to a hackathon in LA, where I met 2 stanford masters students. They were building an app to book you an uber when you landed at the airport, so that it'd be waiting for you when you got past airport security. It stands out to me as the most ridiculous idea that I've ever heard. I wanted to work with them, but they wanted me to sign an NDA, so I didn't.
Just wanted to share. Don't roast me too hard, I'm still getting over it.