Why did your startup fail?
I recently stopped production on a failed startup and feel I learned SOOOO much from the experience. What was the tipping point for you to shut your startup down?
1) Free to consumers.
2) Paid plans for business to get access to leads generated by the above consumers entering their data.
The problem was that I did all my upfront market validation with the first group, which jumped all over my product with comments like "I could totally use that!" and "wow what a great idea!" type feedback.
I built the product for the consumers first and launched a private beta. Then when I turned to build the other side of it for the businesses, I found most of them didn't see the need for it, and it would take a high touch sales process to get them onboard. At least until the product became a household name and had millions of users.
I quickly realized that I had run into what I've since deemed "the Groupon Problem". The only way to make the business work would be to pour in tons of capital to hit really high user numbers while paying for a high touch sales process.
I had envisioned being able to run the whole thing as a bootstrapped business. When I realized it couldn't possibly work that way, I scrapped it.
I learned a ton though, and now I'm just waiting for another great idea to really execute on.
My startup failed because we did not seek customer validation until our product was already built (after months of development). And at that point we realized we had built a product that nobody wanted. From now on I will not start building a product unless I already have customers who want/need it!
Our product relied heavily on the technology behind (it needed to be fully coded before being functional). So how do you all think we should go about validating a market using an MVP without having the product coded out?
Wrong product/market fit.
Overshot sales estimates.
Realized that I did not enjoy serving the market.
Co-founder issues.I never took in co-founders, gave it a try, realized I work best alone. Issues were of productivity. I'm very productive, they were not.
Not enough funding.
Issues are spread out between a handful of projects.
I know a month and a half isn't long at all, and maybe these things just take time, but it's just a bit discouraging when not one person signs up for a paid plan.
you can't dictate needs to the market
Our biggest problem was that. Immature market because: a) very few people uses their eID cards, b) there were technological knowledge involved in the process.
We did a great job on taking down all the barriers but the OS ecosystem right now is a mess with the digital signatures.
We really felt like Credit Card Companies when they launched, no one used CC in the past until they become a major need.
When the government worry about stimulating the use of eID as it should be expected, is when we will see the market grow and know what people need about eID. But do the adobe thing is just a piece of cake and even using it on 1000 documents, all will be pure crap before a judge of the European Union or any country, I assume, outside the United States.
My startup failed because our team (who worked in the music industry, but were not musicians) assumed we knew our audience (who were musicians) and made our development decisions based off that assumption. If we put a "minimal viable product" out to our audience sooner we would have been able to pivot heavily and possibly create a product they would want to use. Also never work in the music space! Ever!! :)
If people do pay for music, it is predominantly streaming servies where they get all the music they want and pay one company.
Don't get me wrong, there will be startups that thrive in the music industry in the years to come, but they won't be selling music. They will be the companies that begin to think way outside the box and revolutionize the commerce in the space (however that may be).