Tell HN: How to fail like an idiot

[playeren]

Hi HN!

Now, this is a story all about how my start-up never got flipped or "started-up" in any meaningful way.

Enough with all the success stories - let me share a gory tale of how to systematically fail at developing a concept into a real company.

First off, let me tell you a bit about the product I made. OpenPanels is its name, Consumer surveys were its game. In 2010 I came upon a gap in the market for Consumer Surveys; Only large corporations seemed to be utilizing real randomized and stratified, demographic Market Research as part of their product development cycle. Entrepreneurs were almost non-existent in as customers of Research Agencies, which was strange to me - wouldn't they find MR most useful?

The answer came when trying to buy Market Research myself. It is very expensive, and quite frankly a PITA to purchase. When it comes to getting Market Research through panel surveys, you are basically left with two choices:

* Ye Olde Guard: Nielsen et al. - Have your survey questions ready, call their offices, wait 3-14 days just to get a price quote and a launch date. Pay through your nose, then wait some more.

* NewKidsOnTheBlock: AskYourTargetMarket et al. - Horrible respondent quality, mainly due to dis-honest recruitment tactics ("Win an iPad! Oh and you also have to fill out this survey to enter the lottery"). But pricing at the right mark for entrepreneurs/start-ups.

(part I - cont. in comments)

[playeren]

(part II)

At that time, Cint AB (privately owned panel admin service. International scope, HQ in Stockholm, SE. www.cint.com), launched Cint Direct Sample (Today, Cint Link). CDS was an API providing programmatic access to their +5mio vetted(!) respondents in 42 countries. They would take care of re-imbursement and administration of all the respondents, quality-control of the panels in use (mainly making sure that no "professional" respondents were allowed to answer). My end of the of deal was to supply a survey tool and the customers of course.

/* Sidenote: Google has since my "launch", opened the doors to http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/home. I consider this an affirmation of market viability for Openpanels or similar. */

Enter Openpanels.net. An unholy Frankenstein using WordPress as a CMS (Hacker gag reflex #1), and a heavily customized (also imposing the venerable "spaghetti-architecture" upon the code) fork of Limesurvey. I was the glorious Taskmaster, endlessly hiring and firing freelancers until I found someone that actually worked out. For you Hackers, this will seem crazy, but it cost me nearly USD10,000 and 9(!) months to get it running at the current state. But it worked. Just barely. But it worked (still does, technically speaking). And then I ran out of money.

The project was self-funded (read: under-funded) because my bloated sense of self-entitlement didn't allow me selling myself or my project to anybody else. So, when I ran out of money, I literally didn't know how to pay my upcoming rent.

(cont.)

[playeren]

(part III)

But my real mistake - in my own opinion - was not so much being under-funded, as it were my own personal issues. Personal issues that prohibited me from from reaching out to investors. Issues that prohibited me from creating a team that could cover for my many shortcomings as an entrepreneur. An inflated sense of ego, I would never allow myself while working on someone elses dime. A bloated sense of self-entitlement leading to arrogant "Fuck it! We'll do it live!!!" type decisions. I am asshole, tremble in the presence of my lack of introspection.

It has been an immensely valuable learning experience, in a very real, pragmatic "this doesn't work; this does" kind of a way, but my most valuable lesson was: I am not an entrepreneur. I do not possess the qualities needed to run a company. Maybe I will someday, but if I don't, I'll survive. I also dreamed about being Captain of a Star Cruiser, and I survived not fulfilling that dream :)

I am definitely not done with start-ups, but will focus on a supporting role. I am Beta, tremble in my supportive presence ;)

If this post can inspire some of you to share your stories of failure, I would feel some value has come out of it. And long as this post may seem, I haven't really described any specifics of my road to failure, but I'm very happy to field any questions this esteemed community might have.

My Failure-app: http://openpanels.net

Thanks for letting me ramble!

[markhall]

Thanks for sharing! It sounds like the lessons you learned will provide a much clearer path in the future. Moving forward, how has your perspective changed on 1) ego & 'personal issues' 2) Spending $10K & 9months for validation 3) where the opportunity exists today ?

[playeren]

It really is my cathartic pleasure to share, thanks for reading.

1) That's the biggie, and changing that will probably be part of my life for a long time. Being aware is a big step - but still just a step in a long journey.

2) I've learned basic js and php, so I'll never outsource a version 0.9 again. Funny thing is that before I started on this venture, I was a consultant helping clients to prototype in smaller, cheaper iterations - with great success. It's always easier helping others, than helping oneself, since introspection takes bigger balls.

3) There are so many! But in the realm of Market Research, Openpanels as a product suffers from many flaws, that only became obvious when trying to market them to a real audience. I have a semi-working prototype of what I believe is a much better and simpler approach for penetrating the Market Research segment laying about. If there's interest, I'm happy to share the concept.

[thiagodotfm]

Thanks for sharing.