With Traction But Out Of Cash, 4chan Founder Kills Off Canvas/DrawQuest

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/21/when-goods-not-good-enough/

by ssclafani • 13 years ago

136 44 13 years ago

robbiet480• 13 years ago

Sorry to hear this moot

kevando2• 13 years ago

I always thought Moot (as the founder of 4chan) was equipped to build a product far different than something tame like Canvas. It's never good when something fails, but I hope he gets in touch with his weird side and relishes the fact he created one of the most bizarre places on the internet.

GhotiFish2• 13 years ago

You're right.

Moot needs to start exploiting his strength (heading the most unruly demographic on the internet). His name really does mean something to the users of 4chan, and that's a pretty big demographic.

That demographic could make his next project infamous. infamous is still famous.

krisgee• 13 years ago

eh, I don't know. I remember when he first announced Canvas and most of 4chan simply responded "so what?" moot does mean something to most 4chan users but mostly just because they get to post in a moot thread I'm not sure you can really capitalize on that userbase, at least not in a monetizable way.

krapp• 13 years ago

That's his strength, but in terms of monetizing, it could also be a weakness. That demographic isn't really known for its willingness to pay for things, or to be led around by the nose by anyone.

benologist2• 13 years ago

Is that a strength? It didn't end up meaning much for Rose and Digg which was perhaps even bigger at its peak, or ThePirateBay who unsuccessfully tried to build a legitimate offshoot many times.

gmu3• 13 years ago

Just an fyi, moot is always written with a lowercase

noobface• 13 years ago

A good example of how the most successful, and innovative people can still fail. Sobering.

zeidrich• 13 years ago

It helps to think that a person is not their ideas. An idea might be very successful and innovative. It might catch on and do very well. It means little to the person who realized the idea, except that they were the one to have it and make something happen with it.

It is kind of encouraging. It lets you remember that it's not that these people are magical forces that the best ideas come to. It's more that there are some people who, when the right idea comes to them, can make the most of it. That anyone might have a great idea, they just have to be able to work with it.

DrawQuest wasn't a great idea. He did it anyways. You don't always know what is going to be the best idea until you try it. If someone were to propose 4chan, without foreknowledge of how it would turn out I would expect it to be a flop. If Chris thought the same way, he might have never bothered writing it. Taking those risks means you don't lose $3.6 million making DrawQuest, but it also means you don't make 4chan.

JonnieCache• 13 years ago

He's not that innovative. He cloned 2chan. Just sayin.

The real achievement is not blinking in the face of the craziness he unleashed.

bluefinity• 13 years ago

4chan was based off Futaba Channel (2chan.net), which was in turn a based off 2channel (2ch.net).

So it's not like there wasn't a precedent.

If you check the footer on 4chan, you'll see it links back to Futaba Channel. I seem to remember Futaba linking back to 2channel as well at some point, but it doesn't look like it does now.

chimeracoder• 13 years ago

In moot's own words: http://chrishateswriting.com/post/74083032842/today-my-start...

I'm really sad to see this, because I saw myself that DrawQuest was gaining traction.

That said, I really appreciate what Everpix did, and I'm glad that moot seems to value that transparency as well.

Failure is a really important part of the startup process - it happens over 90% of the time - and yet it accounts for less than 10% of the dialogue.

When startups and founders share post-mortem data like Everpix did, it's an incredible gift to the community. A startup may failed, but let it not have died in vain.

I know moot reads HN, so hopefully he sees this. Thanks for giving back to the community.

mcphilip• 13 years ago

From the linked article:

One thing I’ll be doing more of is writing about my experience. Partially because it’s therapeutic, but also because if there’s a silver lining in all of this (and there is), it’s that I can help educate others about a path fraught with hardship, but rewarding nonetheless.

I look forward to read more from moot. I find his down to earth style really engaging and I have great respect for how he's carried himself managing the (in)famous 4chan sites.

gcb02• 13 years ago

managing
4chan

pick one.

frownie• 13 years ago

Let me laugh. If they'd be successful, how open would they have been about the way they make it a success ? Call me cynic, but saying "it's do educate" seem quite pretentious to me. Show me how to win, not how not to loose.

angersock• 13 years ago

Cool product, but apparently rendered moot.

akbar501• 13 years ago

From moot's blog post, "Building any business is hard".

This statement could not be more true. I've had the fortune of founding a successful company. And yet, I still find that building new revenue streams is a royal pain. Building a business requires a herculean effort, and even then most fail.

First time founders often make the mistake of iterating various potential revenue streams. But the reality is you'll be lucky to create one substantial revenue stream.

"but you also fail your investors"

Not that this should make moot feel any better, but failing when it's your own money is no better. You'll spend time thinking about all of the stuff you could have bought that would have been a better use of that cash.

danielrhodes2• 13 years ago

The MAU for DrawQuest in relation to their total registered users is pretty good, as long as all those users were not acquired in the last month.

Their DAU/MAU (how many monthly actives come back daily) falls short of a highly engaging application. It is at ~6%. If that number were much higher, I think they would be singing a different tune.

mvkel2• 13 years ago

This is focusing on the wrong metric.

What if you had 100 uniques / month with a DAU/MAU of 50%? Insanely successful retention, right? Except it's only 100 uniques! The more important number is the "top of the funnel," which is the ultimate driver of sustainability.

stfu• 13 years ago

Interesting discussion. Is there some data / guidelines / description available how the funnel at different sites compare?

danielrhodes2• 13 years ago

DAU/MAU measures engagement (i.e. how sticky/habit forming an app is). Retention is similar, but different.

If your point is that you can't draw conclusions from statistically insignificant data, then yes I agree with you. DAU/MAU does not work well when you have only a few visitors. Either way, it looks like the app in question had enough data to draw some conclusions.

catshirt• 13 years ago

what is the point in optimizing the top of the funnel if no one is going to stick around?

aren't retention, engagement, and acquisition equally important? you optimize whichever is your bottleneck.

notastartup• 13 years ago

I think building an app around a demographic that does not have a credit card or spending money might have been challenging from the start, it looks like a very fun app but at the end of the day, people put down their money because they think you are going to make money off the userbase. This is why I feel valuations centered around future profits is bound for major market correction.

calbear81• 13 years ago

I think the app attracts the same target demographic as games that have a casual drawing component to them so I don't know if I would say the demographic doesn't have spending power.

If Drawquest was focused on in-app purchases and didn't find enough traction, I think they should have considered sponsored contests and sell those sponsorships to agencies representing larger brands. Imagine if Nike had a post "Design our new shoe" and gave out a prize for the most upvoted variation or "How would you change the Honda Civic?" and used it as a market research tool.

These are the types of branded opportunities that get some marketers salivating and knowing how to engage their agencies and participate in the RFP process is critical. I hope they explored these options.

tibbon• 13 years ago

Chris is a really smart guy, and while this hasn't worked out as well as hoped I look forward to seeing whatever he does in the future which I feel certain will be bright.

If you're seeing this Chris, and need anything at all (aside from a few Mil of investment, which I just don't personally have), hit me up and let me know.

gphilip• 13 years ago

"To have audible" is startup speak for ... what?

"proving you’re worth the valuation of a Series B upround requires incredible metrics that are tough to reach if you have audible late in the game."

zwily• 13 years ago

I think he meant they pivoted... Probably meant to say "call an audible" like in football.

lauradhamilton• 13 years ago

For those not familiar with American football, an audible is when the team with the ball changes the play at the last second based on what they see the defenders doing.

phaus• 13 years ago

DrawQuest got some traction, but found that selling paint brushes in a drawing app is a lot harder than selling extra lives in Candy Crush.

Selling brushes in a drawing app makes it seem like you aren't taking your customers seriously. I know it worked for Paper, but they aren't going to get any of my money any time soon. I've purchased several IOS and Android drawing programs, and several significantly more expensive programs for PC. I wont, however, purchase a productivity program with in-app purchases. Just tell me how much money you want for your program and I'll buy it. Companies should quit coming up with idiotic monetization strategies designed for the sole purpose of tricking customers out of larger amounts of money.

colinplamondon• 13 years ago

That discounts the fact that in-app purchases works phenomenally for many, many companies. You may personally not like it, but the fact that IAP drives billions of dollars a year in revenue probably makes it non-idiotic for companies deciding how to monetize.

No one cares about getting your money. They care about the rate at which new users convert. Some segment of any new group of users will be violently and religiously against IAP. That's fine.

Some segment of users will also be violently and religiously against a credit card form, because they think software should be form. That's also fine. That segment just isn't going to have very much overlap with the segment of people that pay you money for services.

Ryel• 13 years ago

How many employees total?

StuieK• 13 years ago

”People trivialize pivoting but it’s truly a hail mary, and it’s rare that people can pull this off.”

That's not what pivoting is..I think the real reason nobody really respects "lean" in this community is that all the concepts have been completely misinterpreted.

cpncrunch• 13 years ago

Seems like his main mistake was raising $3.6M before getting any traction. Remember Color? Really, it shouldn't cost 3.6M to build a relatively simple ipad app.

0.5M MAU is a pretty decent user base, and would bring in a few thousand bucks a month in advertising. The problem is that once you've raised $3.6M you really need to have a plan for earning big bucks, and that never seemed likely with this app.

The other mistake is making it ipad-only. It would make more sense to have an html5 version.

Just out of curiosity: how much are the AWS server costs? You should be able to run this site for $50/month, but my gut tells me they might be paying a lot more.

midas007• 13 years ago

Find a buyer that can monetize. Killing something with traction is just throwing potential money, and future credibility, away.

abhi3188• 13 years ago

A moment of silence..someone's dream just died..wish you the best of luck for your next venture

With Traction But Out Of Cash, 4chan Founder Kills Off Canvas/DrawQuest

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