Comment by unclebucknasty | Hacker News Reader

Comment by unclebucknasty | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for sharing this. You clearly understand well what your core challenges were.

The interesting part is that you probably knew all of this going in. Perhaps you were so enamored with your idea, that you wanted to believe these were not the insurmountable challenges that they were. Reminds me of couples who marry knowing of certain glaring problems, but proceed anyway because they are "in love". Whether they downplay the problems, convince themselves they can overcome them or otherwise, these are frequently the very problems that lead them to failure (divorce).

But, more frequently, we probably just think these challenges will melt away or work themselves out somehow. Maybe that's why these businesses always look so good going in!

This is not to lambast you--quite the opposite actually. I have been there and I am still susceptible. I applaud you for acknowledging your challenges and getting out relatively early.

Good luck to you on your next venture!

We knew exactly what the problems were - we just had a vision for how to overcome them and how things could be different. Every business starts as an idea, with a set of hypothesis to validate (even if you don't realise this at the time).

It was tough to decide to stop - but when you take a step back, look at the data we had, it was the right decision.

That's absolutely true. I think it's very common in the startup world to tackle fairly big problems with known challenges--armed with a set of hypotheses--only to be later stopped out by those same challenges.

But, how much confidence in our hypotheses is enough when it comes to the key "show-stopper" challenges? How clear should we be on the path before moving forward? Speaking from personal experience and observation of others, I would say that we founders tend to be optimistic when assessing these challenges at times. There's a little hope in there.

I suppose a certain degree of that optimism is necessary, else no one would move forward. It's just a bit painful to fail for all of the reasons you knew beforehand.

Because, testing the proposed solutions can be exceedingly difficult and resource-intensive. I've often wondered if there's a better way to test assumptions than just going all-in. I've found the much-lauded MVP approach to solving this doesn't cut it for me or for a lot of models/founders. For models that require things like network effects, brand credibility, and more advanced functionality to even be usable the "MVP" is, effectively, the full product. And, this doesn't even consider the marketing/PR/etc. that must be put behind it.

Given all of that, you actually did well to move on in only 18 months. Congrats on making a tough choice and freeing yourself up for the next opportunity.

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