Why didn't you launch in 2013?

http://justinjackson.ca/why-didnt-you-launch-in-2013/

by mijustin • 13 years ago

27 31 13 years ago

johnmurch• 13 years ago

The 2 things that stuck out for me in 2013 is

1) Carving out time and sticking with it - not rescheduling it for someone else, totally agree you need to lock your self down for making it a priority and finishing an idea

2) Which you mentioned is underestimating the time - 3 weeks was really 3 months for you. For me, I totally do this and work hard semi-launch something, test it and before I know 2 months have passed. Need to iterate faster and go hard.

Great stuff - super excited for 2014 and JFDI :)

mindcrime2• 13 years ago

We actually "launched" as a company[1] way before 2013, but now that I think about it, 2013 was significant for us in that we only really had a product "for sale" this year. We announced[2] LA (Limited Availability) of two of our products in 2013. We had hoped to close our first deal in 2013, but barring a miracle in the next week, that isn't going to happen. But going in 2014, things are looking very encouraging.

So, given that, I'd say that the following points from TFA resonated with me:

Your idea was too big

What we're working on is big, and as a result, it's taken what feels like forever just to get to this point. In hindsight, we might could have decomposed things a bit more, and done more to look for a way to get traction with a subset of the overall vision. And that's an adjustment that we are actually still looking into making. In 2014, we'll probably launch a SaaS version of our Information Discovery Platform, tailed for use as a "sales intelligence" tool, and targeted at sales teams. We've gotten some very positive feedback on this idea from a number of sales teams, so we're pretty excited about that. Had we decided to go this route sooner, we might be a lot better off now. But, hindsight is 20/20.

You didn’t build an audience

We only started really "working" social-media with an eye towards specifically trying to grow our audience, in 2013. I mean, we had a blog and a Twitter account and a Facebook page and the gamut all along... but last year we started taking it seriously. What I have come to realize is that growing an audience is a lot of work, but it is somewhat predictable. There are things, that if you do those things, will result in more Twitter followers, more mailing list signups, etc. We haven't dived full-bore into "growth hacking" but are definitely seeing the importance of these ideas.

The other thing we hope to do in 2014 is more marketing efforts, including: presenting at user-groups and Meetups that relate to what we do, hosting Google Hangout sessions, and/or Twitter "live chats" on topics related to our domain, still more "content marketing" via our blog, and maybe even writing and publishing a book (or two).

You tried doing it alone

Did that for the first year I was working on Fogbeam, but we've grown in fits and starts. IMO, you should invite people to join you when the time is right, and not just to say you "aren't a solo founder". We have three members on the founding team now, and a fourth person we're talking to about joining up to do sales. It's taken time, but we've been patient and looked for good fits.

[1] http://www.fogbeam.com

[2] http://fogbeam.com/news.html#press_release_08282013

shubb• 13 years ago

Can I ask the thinking behind how you name your products?

I had some difficulty understanding what you are selling - a groupware suite with API integration? If all your sub-products make sense used as part of a suite, why not talk about the suite and it's capabilities, rather than a collection of products with strange names?

(hope this is useful feedback, good luck!)

mindcrime2• 13 years ago

Can I ask the thinking behind how you name your products?

Sure, it's all based on our overall branding theory. The company name is "Fogbeam Labs" and the logo is a lighthouse, and our (current) slogan is "Cut through the information fog". So everything is based on ideas around light, illumination, and helping people see what is currently unseen. Given that, Quoddy, Heceta, Neddick and Hatteras are all named after famous lighthouses.

At one time we debated using a model where those names would be more like "internal names" and would be the name of the Open Source project, and then using a different name for the "branded" commercial release. Something like the way Red Hat use "Fedora" for their upstream distro and "RHEL" for their branded release, or "Wildfly" for the upstream JBoss and "JBOSS EAP" for the branded release of that.

But when we sat down to think about doing that, we kept coming back up with scenarios like

"Quoddy" -> "Fogbeam Enterprise Social Whatever"

"Hatteras" -> "Fogbeam Business Event Engine"

and nobody on our team liked "Fogbeam Enterprise Social Whatever" and the ilk.

So we decided just to use the "base" names, and tag "Enterprise" onto the end to discriminate between the underlying OSS project and the commercially supported releases.

"Quoddy" -> "Quoddy Enterprise"

etc.

Is it perfect? Probably not, but we're running with it for now. If it doesn't seem to be working, we may revisit it.

As an aside, I did learn one important lesson during all this... at one time, I was trying to be too cute with using lighthouse related terms, and we had a project named "Screwpile". A little later, one of our advisors pointed out that "it makes sense if you know what screwpile means[1], but nobody does, and if you don't, it just sounds ugly, almost vulgar even". And then I realized just how bad that was. We yanked that and renamed it "Fogcutter" instead. :-)

I had some difficulty understanding what you are selling - a groupware suite with API integration?

I try to shy away from using the term "groupware" because it has existing connotations that don't necessarily apply to what we're doing. I'd probably say a "suite of knowledge management tools" over saying "groupware", but we are kind on the boundaries of the existing terminology to some extent, so we're still iterating on the terminology to use in our messaging.

But basically, we have - in Quoddy - an "enterprise social network" (kinda like Jive or Yammer), but with much better support for integrating with other enterprise applications and knowledge sources, and using semantic integration to fully unite knowledge and information across disparate sources, so we can provide relevant context at the user's fingertips when they are examining any given event, task, or piece of content.

Neddick, on the other hand, is like "Reddit for the Enterprise". It's link sharing, social news, and that sort of thing, but - again - tailored more to be useful as a tool within an organization.

If all your sub-products make sense used as part of a suite, why not talk about the suite and it's capabilities, rather than a collection of products with strange names?

That's another place where we're still exploring what's going to make the most sense. Are people going to want to hear about (and buy) the entire suite, or are significant numbers of people going to want one piece, or the other, but not both? We don't know the answer to that yet, so it's all still in a state of flux. Ideally, as we learn more about how people react to this, the messaging and branding will become more clear.

(hope this is useful feedback, good luck!)

It is, and thanks!

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw-pile_lighthouse

neilk4• 13 years ago

I'm doing everything solo. Not by choice, but I moved to a different city, away from my usual network. Haven't found the right people yet.

Distractions from contracts (inevitable if I want to pay rent)

I'm working with technology that's new to me.

Also, it was a lot harder than I thought. My prototype was banged out in about 72 hours; I assumed the product would be a few months at most.

mijustin8• 13 years ago

Have you started building an audience? (ie. connecting with people that would be users of your product?)

melling2• 13 years ago

Justin, your audience is here. Your products are "shovels for the gold miners", or simply motivation. I've listened to your podcast and mostly enjoy it. However, what you're selling, and what your advice caters to, doesn't really go far enough with people who sell other types of products, other than the "shovel sellers."

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/product-people/id5853909...

Maybe you could dig deeper and go beyond the "motivational" stuff? Of course, I do like a weekly dose of motivation.

neilk4• 13 years ago

For this project, it's hard to do that without actually building a reasonable prototype. I have a technology demo but it requires a lot of explanation. Once people get it, some people do get very excited, but I need a better demo or set of prototypes or sales deck. Working on that for the rest of December.

There are two potential markets, one b2c on mobile, one b2b. I have some interest from b2b already, but selling to them is going to take longer.

My theory for now is to get a little more interest from b2b with my non-interactive prototypes. That will at least give me more confidence to go forward, in case b2c doesn't work out.

corford• 13 years ago

Hey neilk. Just wanted to let you know you're not alone. I could copy everything you've just said word for word and it would line up almost exactly with how 2013's been for me (you're not working on an aviation related thing are you?!).

Good luck with whatever it really is and roll on 2014! :)

ZanderEarth32• 13 years ago

I, both, launched and didn't launch a few a projects in 2013. The main difference between the one that launched versus the few that didn't was I couldn't either validate the idea or concept to myself, even though there might have been a market for it.

brickcap3• 13 years ago

2013 is not over :) . I am still aiming to release my V1 before 31 dec.

mijustin8• 13 years ago

Nice! Do you have a landing page up we could look at?

brickcap3• 13 years ago

Thank you. Here it is

http://www.wrinq.com/

It is not much at all just a description of what wrinq is going to be. But I am making progress every day.

OnyeaboAduba2• 13 years ago

Alot of delays, some of them my fault . This is alot harder than I thought it would be and I knew it would be hard coming into it . Someone told me this would be the hardest thing Ive ever done in my life , which is saying something considering my life. Hope to be up by February of next year. This was a really good post btw alot of helpful info Thanks

mijustin8• 13 years ago

You're welcome.

What was the hardest part for you?

OnyeaboAduba2• 13 years ago

Im learning how to code and contracting a developer to build the product at the same time. This coupled with being a "singlish" founder and all the things that come with that have been the hardest

angersock• 13 years ago

Because we ran out of runway while bootstrapping, and the stress finally took out the founders (in rather dramatic fashion).

It's not all lollipops and blowjobs out there--sometimes you just get dealt a bad hand.

EDIT: Which isn't to say I hadn't tried before and wouldn't try again. It's just very easy in this bubble for people to ignore the visceral truth that starting a company is hard and that success is far from guaranteed.

bsirkia• 13 years ago

It's not too late!! We're students and right now is productivity time :)

Brajeshwar• 13 years ago

JFDI[1] is also the name of and Incubator out of Singapore, run by Meng Weng Wong[2]. Meng is the founder of Pobox.com

1. http://jfdi.asia/

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meng_Weng_Wong

krapp• 13 years ago

Your idea was too big

Way, way more complicated than I anticipated. Also serially getting disgusted and starting everything over every few months hasn't helped. And getting distracted for weeks on end by ancillary projects. And deciding I needed to write my own framework.

hncomment• 13 years ago

Honestly, the answer is internet addiction.

cookiecaper• 13 years ago

Cool article. I'll take his prompt.

So I kinda-sorta launched in 2013. Not the big project I hoped to launch, but an unrelated side project that distracted me from the big project. Should still have serious profit potential, but I made certain assumptions about the support infrastructure that panned out to be incorrect despite early evidence contrariwise. I'm now working to recover from that, and developing more robust stratagems that technically I probably should've handled earlier. It's a bummer because it's going to make things take longer to get off the ground than I would've liked, but we are launched and accepting payments. It's just that no one has chosen to disburse that payment yet. ;)

mijustin8• 13 years ago

OP here. I'd love to see what you launched. Could you post a link?

Why didn't you launch in 2013?

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