There's an interesting story hiding between the lines in the post.
The first two ventures, polishmywriting and kindling, seems to me to be great ideas - yet the author failed even though he had a working product. The third product made it because of good press. It seems like talent and hard work has gone into making these products, and the first two shouldn't have failed outright. What went wrong?
In one word: Sales. This is an often overlooked component of doing a tech-startup. founders spend their time making a great product and rely on the techcrunch effect (or the slashdot effect, word of mouth, call it what you want) to sell the product. Unless you're really lucky, or have an extraordinarily good product this approach won't make you money. The article is a great example of someone making a product, and then giving up when noone comes to the website to buy it. Selling it is at least as much work as creating it. Pick up the phone and call potential customers, go to tradeshows, stop people in the street, sell to all the people you meet in your local bar. It works.
Note - I'm not in anyway trying to degrade the author (or anyone else). It's an easy mistake to make, especially if selling isn't really your thing. I've made this mistake myself.
You're dead on. One day I'll write about how I kept hitting my head against the wall, figured it out, and made $$$ then I'll write an innovators guide to selling. You'll know about it because I'll be that good by then. I'm not there yet.
The first two ventures, polishmywriting and kindling, seems to me to be great ideas - yet the author failed even though he had a working product. The third product made it because of good press. It seems like talent and hard work has gone into making these products, and the first two shouldn't have failed outright. What went wrong?
In one word: Sales. This is an often overlooked component of doing a tech-startup. founders spend their time making a great product and rely on the techcrunch effect (or the slashdot effect, word of mouth, call it what you want) to sell the product. Unless you're really lucky, or have an extraordinarily good product this approach won't make you money. The article is a great example of someone making a product, and then giving up when noone comes to the website to buy it. Selling it is at least as much work as creating it. Pick up the phone and call potential customers, go to tradeshows, stop people in the street, sell to all the people you meet in your local bar. It works.
Note - I'm not in anyway trying to degrade the author (or anyone else). It's an easy mistake to make, especially if selling isn't really your thing. I've made this mistake myself.