Calling it quits? When do you think enough is enough HN? | Hacker News Reader

Calling it quits? When do you think enough is enough HN?

Hey HN. I'm a budding entrepreneur, with a team equally as enthusiastic as me. We're still in college, which makes things a bit different in various regards. Nonetheless, we've been working on a startup for about two and a half years now (www.criticrania.com).

We still like the idea, and think we have executed on the concept decently well. The problem? We have no substantial business plan to entice supporters, and we are experiencing the ever dangerous chicken and egg problem.

We always have more ideas, and we have the time, but when do you know when enough is enough?

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I went to the site and hit the 'random' button in the menu bar. I was surprised that after two and half years that so many popular music albums had only one or perhaps zero reviews. I would suggest that you become more active on your campus and within your social network to get more reviews on the site. If nothing else, you and your team could do all the reviews. I recall Newegg did this in the beginning, but I could not find a link to prove it.

As for a business plan there is always affiliate links to sites that sell the music/movies/etc like trueblueponies suggested, as well as ads. You can always think of a more exciting monetization strategy later, but the first trickle of cash would be enough to keep the interest going even it it may not amount to much.

This is the most reviewed album I found http://www.criticrania.com/content.php?type=music&id=30 Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon. It has only 6 ratings, yet is still a best selling album almost 40 years since it was released. Surely there could be more reviews and comments than that just from your social circle?

Never give up, never surrender. Never fool yourself either - if between you and your friends you can't write a dozen reviews[1] (or many more) for every album/book/whatever you like then maybe you don't have what it takes to make that site a success. There are always other ideas if this one doesn't work, just give it a fair shot.

1. maybe put links to reviews on other sites like Amazon, with an affiliate link. I am sure you could find many reviews of everything around the internet to link to, or to quote with attribution.

If you've been working on this for 2.5 years, with little traction, I think that's more than enough. Noone is expecting Facebook-like success of course, but after 2.5 years, you should have at least a good thousand regular users a day (do you?)

I think the first rule is you need to build something people want. Focus first and foremost on that. It sounds easy, even too simple, but people make the mistake of doing the opposite.

For you, I don't know what people are getting of value from signing up for your site. They get to express themselves, but they can do that anywhere they go. How are you providing value to people? Why should they invest more than 5 mins in your site? In today's world, ppl have their fingers ready to click the back button. You need to come up with a compelling reason for them to stay.

You should love what you do. Idealistic, I know. But if you don't get up in the morning and don't feel a certain level of gut certainty that you like doing this, regardless of success, than re-evaluate.

The passion for what you do will lead to success. On that there is no question. How you define success is very much in the air. But if you're doing what you love, it really doesn't matter, does it?

Keep in mind that at the end of the day you are more valuable than the idea. You're still in college, it's early in the game. You can create new ideas, change the world in ways you haven't even thought of yet.

oops, double negative.

See and therein lies the problem! I love working on the idea (Far more than I like doing school, that's for sure). It's practically my baby. But of course I like my idea...

But you raise very good points. I am quite stuck on this one, as you can see.

"You can create new ideas, change the world in ways you haven't even thought of yet." - What if this one isn't it. When do I move on? Haha

Why must your first business idea be some sexy grandiose social network that requires perhaps millions of users to reach the critical mass required for it to generate one iota of value?

When did you wake up and say "oh I NEED a social network just for media?". Find something people NEED that doesn't require all this ancillary bullshit to be useful and sell it. Then when you can finally put the money problem aside you can dive into your big social network idea, if you even care to at that point.

It's great that you started early. If you really (and i mean really) like your idea and still feel that this is going to be great, then you seriously go with it.

Spend some time to write a business plan and try with all you've got to pitch it. Success or failure that is a worthwhile learning experience.

Thanks jnorthrop.

I guess I should have added more detail. We've written out a full business plan, it's just very weak (knowingly). We've pitched a few different times and just finished up a Business Plan competition at our school.

It was a fantastic experience and we learned an absolute ton (a lot of it being how much we did wrong from the start, but still very valuable). It's just so hard to tell the difference between "quitting" and spending your time more wisely, i.e. on a new idea.

Are you validating any of these ideas with even 10x random strangers of your target demo? I mean with potential users vs pitching the plans to schools or potential investors.

5x different ideas x10 targets = 50x engagements, not out of the realm of an intensive time-suck. Could eventually lead to an alternate plan point of focus.

Never give up. You should use affiliate links to sell the products that are getting reviewed.

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