How My Start-Up Failed

Re:How My Start-Up Failed by menloparkbum on Sunday September 14, 2008 @12:25PM (#303849)

This is harder than you would think. I took a year off from programming to help a friend market and sell actual physical stuff.

Often times a product that gets well received when you have a few samples made doesn't sell at all. Something you think kinda sucks and is just a 'filler' product in your line up turns out to be the most popular, and you run out of stock. Something sells well, you can get more made, so you order 500 more units, and then all of the sudden the product is not cool and nobody wants it anymore.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How My Start-Up Failed by nostrademons on Sunday September 14, 2008 @12:56PM (#303869)

Oh, I know. My erstwhile startup seemed like a hot area when we began it a year and a half ago, and people in our target market said "Thank God" when I said what I was building. Now, nobody seems to care, and none of our competitors took off either.

I'm saying that even under his best assumptions about the market, his product was not profitable. He ended up getting customers after all, but even under generous volume and gross margins, it couldn't cover overhead.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How My Start-Up Failed by eru on Monday September 15, 2008 @04:48AM (#304447)

Perhaps he should have tried sell the key chains for 5$.

[ Parent | on HN ]