Ask HN: What has been your biggest mistake?

Re:Ask HN: What has been your biggest mistake? by nostrademons on Monday August 04, 2008 @12:07AM (#265977)

1. Not majoring in computer science the first time I quit my physics major. If you like something, don't stay away from it for silly reasons (like thinking that school will make you un-like it).

2. Not knowing the difference between profitability and traction when I was looking at startups to work for. I spent 2 years at a relatively low-growth startup because I thought that its profits meant it was successful, when I could've learned much more at a higher-growth yet unprofitable startup.

3. Letting ideas sit too long. I had the idea for http://www.whatshallidonow.net/ about a week before I started implementing it, but was busy with job apps. In the meantime, http://nowdothis.com/ launched, and now they have all the momentum.

4. Spending too much time on super-ambitious projects and ignoring the low-hanging fruit.

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Re:Ask HN: What has been your biggest mistake? by mynameishere on Monday August 04, 2008 @12:00PM (#266387)

In the meantime, http://nowdothis.com/ launched, and now they have all the momentum.

Wow, momentum for what? A textbox that echoes. Woot. They've got the echoing textbox racket nailed down.

Shit, I'll just bookmark this comment link and use ynews as a to-do list.

Nowdothis:

1. Buy gun.

2. Shoot self for not releasing my todo list app soon enough.

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Re:Ask HN: What has been your biggest mistake? by maxklein on Monday August 04, 2008 @02:01AM (#266049)

You do realise that nowdothis has a better gui than yours, right? Given the two services, I'd pick theirs.

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Re:Ask HN: What has been your biggest mistake? by 13ren on Monday August 04, 2008 @06:28AM (#266162)

they've got amazing simplicity, and done client-side so instant response (remembers you with cookies, but seems to be no server storage). But you have to do the tasks in strict order, and you have to finish it before moving on (you can't just "make progress").

whatshallidonow changes the order. it has a "made progress" button. it would be nice if it had a button "skip - I don't want to do this one right now!". (tho you can achieve that effect by reloading, ctrl-r).

finally, the dothisnow guy gave a shoutout to our guy nostrademons here (and also to yetanothersimilarsite) http://nowdothis.tumblr.com/post/44066616/synchronicity

now they have all the momentum.

"Your greatest competitor is non-usage."

That quote is not just encouraging, it's also literally true (unless your market is >50% saturated). Plus, no two products are ever identical (whatshallidonow is a slightly different idea), and no two users are either: some like yours. However, I agree there are benefits to being first, #1, etc (and it's more exciting).

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Re:Ask HN: What has been your biggest mistake? by nostrademons on Monday August 04, 2008 @11:01AM (#266314)

Yeah, those're related problems. Because of the constraints of getting it out fast, NowDoThis ended up simpler, which ends up making it better too.

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Re:Ask HN: What has been your biggest mistake? by 42flicks on Monday August 04, 2008 @05:50AM (#266154)

I like the interface of nowdothis.com - I like the idea too, well done!

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Re:Ask HN: What has been your biggest mistake? by biohacker42 on Monday August 04, 2008 @10:36AM (#266286)

I'd like to reiterate number 2, it was 4 years for me at a low growth, barely profitable startup.

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