The Six Phases of Bootstrapping A One-Man Startup
factorthree.com
factorthree.com
He still doesn't really seem to realise he needs to let go now. Move on. It's not a success.
Pity as the guy's obviously got talent. It's one of these things of keep trying as he's obviously almost there. Just with a different business idea. And something that other hackers won't have done 100 times before. And he needs to massively shorten his time to getting a product in front of customers.
I've been guilty of this myself at times and I think the reason why this happens is based in having invested X in a project already. If X is already in it then you're going to do that little bit more to see if you can get it to work that way. So, now it's X+a little bit more, and so on.
The longer you 'hang in there' the harder it gets to throw it out.
So, the conclusion of this is: Do your thinking before you invest significant resources in to a project. Test the waters while you can still walk away. Then find something that gets traction, preferably without you pushing it.
then go all out.
As others have pointed out, being able to give up on an idea that won't fly is part of being an entrepreneur.
You have too much emotional bonding with your project at that stage to see clearly.
The problem is that plenty of people will isolate themselves from criticism and actively reaffirm their connections with people that tell them what they want to hear (if only because they don't want to lose their friendship).
Giving up on ideas that don't fly is probably an integral part of every successful entrepreneur.
Just like successful VCs will turn down almost all of the 'maybes' in order to be able to concentrate on the winners. Why go after the high hanging fruits first ? It simply makes no business sense.
Don't be too dismissive; he is honest, writes well, and at least has the "business sense" to make an honest public resignation to fate. A calculated show of weakness is strength, specially in a commercial entity.
Still, I've been part of a couple of failed projects before I set out on my own and I'm pretty sure that I would have fared a lot worse if not for my prior experience. That saved me a ton of time and money.
I still found plenty of 'original' mistakes to make though :)
Failure analysis is the hallmark of solid engineering, it allows you to go forward instead of being stuck in the same place.
Whether you're looking at an airplane, a business or a piece of software, the same principles will apply.
Of course there is no point in continuously reading about the same modes of failure, especially not if those have already been 'dealt' with.
This person (although intelligent) is not being nearly self-reflective enough in realizing his actual faults... e.g. he didn't release early, he didn't test the market, basically, he turned his business into a "science fair project."
I think the root cause of this bad outcome for him is his failure to truly understand his own limitations and finding a way to get leverage to compensate for it (e.g. hiring a salesman). THIS DOES NOT MEAN that just by getting a co-founder, all of this would have been solved! No! It just means that you need to understand the basics of business!
If you can't do it on your own, you need to outsource the sales my man. Sign up with an affiliate network and let the pyramid schemers take care of it. Offer them something like 50% on all sign ups; you can afford to pay a big finder's fee because a CMS is something that people don't give up quickly once they start using it.
I would strongly urge you NOT to give it up and focus on the sales side of things, you're done coding for now.
I know that I did a poor job of market research from the onset and that there's a long list of things I should have/should not have done to make this work. I do appreciate your opinions.
Spending a few days or weeks on the business model can save months of sacrifice, especially when building a product that is saturated with competition.
Painful, yes. A waste of time, I don't think so.
Although I would never recommend building something without understanding the business model, all is not lost. OP probably learned more valuable lessons (and technology) in that 8 months than he would have in a job or at school. Now is the time to put that education to work. Not doing that would make it a waste of time.
Because of this product venture, I'm currently working on something much more promising because of the lessons I learned on this one.
This has the makings of an excellent local lifestyle business which would be 90% product and 10% service. OP's ace in the hole is himself. I know that small businesses who would use his product would still like to see his smiling face once a month and be able to call him as needed. This is a huge plus!
My advice to OP would be to temporarily forget about the software, the technology, and the jargon. Instead, become a trusted sympathetic advisor to his prospects. Learn about their situations and understand the pain they have but don't even realize. Meet them on their turf and speak their language. And most of all, solve their problems and help their profitability. Nothing else matters.
What I have just described is all the sales and marketing you need to know. You had passion for the product when you had to, now is the time to have passion for your customers.