Ask HN: Where do startups crawl off to die? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Where do startups crawl off to die?

6 pointsterminal8 comments

After a careful analysis of opportunities in fast-growing business areas, a few months ago I spotted a promising market gap. I developed a B2B SaaS, including a single-page app and a web API. The code works like a charm, it is easy to deploy, easy to scale, the user interface is fast and slick and it satisfies a real business need. I have some very experienced and successful businesspeople in the team helping me out for equity only and I keep on getting encouragements and compliments for the good idea and the great implementation. Unfortunately, I'm paying the toll of the long days and nights spent working. I'm tired, stressed, demoralized and depressed. On top of that, the B2B sale cycle is much longer than expected: I have the first clients in test phase, but still no revenues. My only wish is to get a 8-to-5 job and forget about starting up companies. Now, how should I proceed? Should I sell my code? How can I do that in the best way? I'd like at least to recoup some of the time and money I spent in the development. Any suggestion?

You might consider complementing revenues by selling services until the long slow SAAS Ramp[1] will get better.

* One of the best usage of your business partners might be taking over navigation of the sales cycle -if they're sold on the valueprop, they probably know where it can be sold successfully. If they can't sell it, that's a strong datapoint you need to consider re: viability.

* If the market gap is real, you might want to consider selling consulting solutions to that gap specifically to gain additional understanding to the market.

* As a fallback, you might be able to sell consulting/contracting on other fields until sales gets significantly better

[1] http://businessofsoftware.org/2013/02/gail-goodman-constant-...

Unless it's either a huge complex app, a very CS heavy app or has some fundamental innovation you'll have huge trouble selling that code. Can you hit up some people that are interested in this space? Unless you can make that kind of an ad-hoc sale you'll be really lucky to get anything over 5-10k. Open-sourcing is always one way to go about it. If you're determined going the 8-5 job route then maybe you're just better off trying to leverage this project/experience to get a great job? And also if you already made up your mind about quitting then why not post it on HN here? That's one of the few potential places where someone might be interested in buying that.

The code contains proprietary algorithms that perform critical operations in a much shorter time than the competition. Before starting coding I did my homework and focused on those features that would have given me the best edge against competitors.

Typically larger startups are sold as an acquire for peanuts and their failure is spun as a success. Often the employees get better jobs than they had, so they're not out on the street. If you have any contacts at larger companies, use them now.

What are those successful business ppl doing to help? Giving you money? Ask them to help even more by giving you enough money to hire an extra person that can run the startup for a month or 2 until you destress.

They're contributing in work, mainly sales and business development. Unfortunately I'm the only one who knows the whole codebase and it's not trivial to find someone to whom I can hand it over. I know other well-funded startups having the same kind of problems with finding skilled personnel.

If what you say about the product is true, I'd strongly suggest you hold out just a bit longer than you want to. You may put yourself in a situation where other people get rich off of your labor, and you get nothing because you bailed (again, assuming the product is that good).

It sounds like you have a sales problem. Find someone really good at sales and try to get them to join the effort. Sales cures all, and it'll give you the 9 to 5 income, and slightly more regular hours, that I'm guessing you'd like to see coming in. With sales you can delegate some more of the labor that's crushing you.

Also, if your product is stellar, you can probably raise serious venture capital and accomplish the same thing until you get sales up.

It's often said that people tend to give up right before they get to the finish line. I happen to agree with that. Being a successful entrepreneur usually involves being able to endure pain that other people can't or won't, making it possible to stay in the fight long enough to succeed.

The task is to balance this equation: hang on longer than you feel like you can, but not so long that you do permanent damage (monetary, mental, physical, relationship, whatever type) you can't recover from. Getting that right gives you the best shot at success and limits the risk of regret.

If you're really, really, really certain your heart isn't in it, then bail in a way that perhaps enables you to retain a stake in the venture long term, and try to leave it in good hands.

I think sales are being approached in a good way, especially by my partners. I started contacting prospective clients by myself and got about 15% to 20% fast and positive responses to cold-emailing, which I'm told is a very good figure. But having those "hot" leads test my SaaS and finally go live is taking ages. Considering my pricing and according to some statistics I found online, my clients should make a decision within 2-3 weeks, whereas the times are now in the range of 3-4 months and getting longer.

As PG suggests in one of his essays, I'm "digging a hole that's narrow and deep". I'm targeting a few thousands companies worldwide. The business area they're in is fast-growing and fast-changing and I suspect that they might be wary of adopting innovative solutions because they don't have clear ideas about where their own business is heading. Some don't even seem to have clear ideas about the prices of their own services and products (I tested this hypothesis by offering a simple, free tool to help them model their costs, and the feedback has been clear and positive).

I wouldn't say there's a risk of regret: I'll certainly regret it. Presently, apart from my mental exhaustion, I'm in pretty good shape, both physically and financially, but I need to set limits and draw lines. One of my main worries is that I cannot figure out what's not working, why I cannot get more clients on board and why it's taking so much time for them to go live. I developed the app at blazing speed and now the sales are going so slowly that it looks like nothing is moving and I find that unbearable. Maybe I'm just missing some entrepreneurial skills? I wish I knew which ones. Right now, I would just like to get rid of the whole thing, as irrational as it may seem.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com