Re:How My Start-Up Failed
by mechanical_fish on Sunday September 14, 2008 @12:14PM
(#303841)
You are both right. That's why this is such a great story. It's a learning experience at every level!
My own take is that the poor guy's fundamental error was that he jumped the gun on outsourcing. He should have built the first hundred prototypes by hand on his kitchen table, with parts scrounged from one hobby store or another, then sold them himself. It sounds like he basically ended up doing that anyway, but if he'd done so in the first place he'd have invested less up front, gotten feedback faster, and gotten an intuitive sense of his market and the sort of product they'd prefer. Premature optimization!
The other, even more fundamental error was going into the novelty business in the first place.
My own take is that the poor guy's fundamental error was that he jumped the gun on outsourcing. He should have built the first hundred prototypes by hand on his kitchen table, with parts scrounged from one hobby store or another, then sold them himself. It sounds like he basically ended up doing that anyway, but if he'd done so in the first place he'd have invested less up front, gotten feedback faster, and gotten an intuitive sense of his market and the sort of product they'd prefer. Premature optimization!
The other, even more fundamental error was going into the novelty business in the first place.