Comment by akrymski | Hacker News Reader

Comment by akrymski | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

A press mention always leads to a spike in traffic / sign-ups. This shouldn't be surprising. I was one of those people who tried EveryMe when it came out. I simply didn't see what problem it was solving. It was overhyped and not very useful imo. I'm afraid you're repeating the same mistake with Origami.

But a launch is nothing more than a free way to get some traffic. Sure it doesn't guarantee conversions, but you'd be foolish to avoid free marketing for your startup. Instagram’s app reached 1 million downloads in less than 24 hours (and 5 million downloads in just six days). Apple's iPhone launch went pretty well too. Don't blame the press for lack of market fit.

Edit: you've made things harder on yourself by trying to invent a new product category. The iPhone was a better phone. Instagram was better than Facebook at photo-sharing. Are you sure the world needs a social network for families? If you ask people (especially investors) nobody will say its a crap idea because then you're viewed as the guy who doesn't want to share photos with his family. Well I don't. And neither do the girls on Instagram that have thousands of followers.

I've seen a few failed attempts at vertical social networks (soc nets for pets, families, etc) and none have been successful at establishing a new product category. Perhaps it's like "email for families" - there's no point for a completely new identity. Social networking is like email - its a set of tools (photo-sharing, commenting, posts). Instagram improved one of those tools. That's a functional approach. Trying to apply the same tools in a niche just means "messaging for families" to me. I understand families is the biggest use case of EveryMe probably, but WatsApp had the group messaging feature like forever and I've only seen anyone ever use it once. Group messaging never seemed to be a popular product category, and not one of the top things to do on Facebook (unlike photo sharing) so it seems like the market doesn't need a standalone app for that.

Note: I'm a co-founder of Everyme, but no longer with the company.

I'm not even sure where to start here, because your comment deviates wildly from the actual point of the post. It borders on trollish.

"Are you sure the world needs a social network for families?"

Actually, yes. After seeing behavior from hundreds of thousands of Everyme users, and talking to tons of families the evidence seems to indicate that the world does need it. Did I mention that 30,000 people signed up to be notified when a "private social network for your family" launches? I'm not sure how much more confident we could have been in the concept. We used all of the available data to make the right call.

"Well I don't. And neither do the girls on Instagram that have thousands of followers."

You're entitled to your own opinion, but I am certain you don't speak for all of these people.

"WatsApp had the group messaging feature like forever and I've only seen anyone ever use it once"

Anecdotal evidence, at best. WhatsApp has hundreds of millions of users, they keep the feature around because people are using it.

"Group messaging never seemed to be a popular product category, and not one of the top things to do on Facebook (unlike photo sharing) so it seems like the market doesn't need a standalone app for that."

Mark Zuckerberg recently said: "The big stuff that we’re seeing now is sharing with smaller groups". When a founder who has data from 1 billion people says that, you know it's true.

Oliver, to me the post reads as "we've launched with lots of PR but failed to get the traction we were hoping for, so don't bother with PR". It borders on blaming the press for lack of market fit.

I'm not saying the world doesn't need a social network for families or a social network for pets or whatever. I'm just saying I wouldn't use one, and the people I know wouldn't use one, but I'm sure you've done your research and there very well may be people that will. I sincerely wish you best of luck with it. But if I were you I'd be listening to negative feedback just as much as to positive feedback.

Frankly I'm just trying to help. I think EveryMe is a really nicely done app, and I love the fact that you had the balls to do a big launch and get everyone hyped up about the product. Launches are supposed to be big bets with high risk and potentially high reward. I wouldn't want that to disappear. Just because a product didn't resonate with consumers as much as you hoped it would, it doesn't mean the idea of a big launch is bad. I wouldn't want Apple to just release products without "launching" them. Facebook is a counter example, but I think they would have succeeded if they had a big launch as well, their product just didn't need it.

Personally I prefer the idea of EveryMe over Origami, so a bit sad to see you change direction because the launch didn't go as planned. I think there are a lot of iterative things you could still try with EveryMe (eg automatic location based groups). Will be interesting to see what you can do in Origami that you can't already do in EveryMe.

I think his point was different... Big launch can cloud your vision about what would suit the real consumers, so it can be counter productive.

To me that sounds about right: do a big launch only after you are 100% sure you have a valid product. Maybe start as Beta and launch 1.0 only when you have a solid and loyal user base?

You can't ever be 100% sure you have a valid product before launch. Especially with something that needs network effects to work. Just launch it and see if it sticks.

I don't think the vision was clouded by the big launch, only the dream about selling to Facebook for a billion. And when you start a business to flip - it's hard not to flop.

> You can't ever be 100% sure you have a valid product before launch

Beta / quiet launch will give you enough information about the product to be much safer when you make your launch. I agree that 100% is an overstatement though.

I'm sure quite EveryMe was in beta for a while. PG and most others tell you to launch "too early" for a reason. Waiting around until you feel "100% sure" is like Steve Jobs giving out the iPhone to everyone he meets before launch :)

Thanks for the downvotes ;) Its a classical greek tragedy - hubris in action. When you think your launch will be as big as Instagram and Zuckerberg will take you out to lunch next week you're destined to loose faith and self-esteem post launch, even if things aren't actually that bad. And when that happens you start looking for other ideas instead of looking at the launch as just the beginning of something great.

Been there, done that. Not fun. Or launch early, thinking everyone will hate your product, and then you're up for a positive surprise.

They are building a social network for families. So they don't need to have lots of users, just a large part of a few families to have the network effect tested.

The post is about the launch of EveryMe, not the social network for families. EveryMe is a general purpose group messaging platform, and like WhatsApp/Kik/etc probably needs network effects I'd have thought.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com