chinmi

url of website: http://www.translapolis.org

direct link to the tour: http://www.translapolis.org/tour

Haha, I know right :)

Coming from someone else it sounds even more ridiculous.. so funny.

Well, yes of course I've learned from this. But it's still scary because like I said, I never knew I could be like that. Who knows what other things I still don't know about me.

January 2009 was the month in which I had my eureka moment too. Unlike you I still dont know whether it's going to work, but I can see my idea failing as well now. This time last year however, I was almost convinced I would be winning a Nobel Prize.

Seriously, I remember having sleepless nights back then, so full of excitement. I remember not wanting to take a plane for vacation, for fear of an accident and not being able to see my idea through. And I remember accidently copy-pasting my idea into Google, and being so mad at myself for having spilled the idea to a possible competitor.

I've always considered myself a very sceptical person, always questioning things and very down to earth... and yet for a long time I was so crazy and obsessed about this idea that I almost dropped out of uni (I have lost a year).

You said that many have probably gone through something similar, I don't know about that but if so, I would love to hear from them too. I enjoyed your post very much! Thanks!  

Thanks for the story, I read it with great interest because I can really relate (like many around these parts I'm sure).

I'm glad to see that you found the energy to see your project through until the end, even if it didn't work out eventually. It probably cost you quite a bit, but that's the name of the game. You can't know until you try (well that's what I keep telling myself these days).

You're right that the combination of friends and work especially is a delicate one, something that I did not foresee either (working on my first big project).

Also I agree with your advice, about needing co-founders that are as engaged as you are. However this is a very hard thing to achieve. Not everyone is as crazy as we are. And communicating a vision is a very hard thing to do as well.

Although it might not seem so for someone with not much prior experience with coding, the simplest thing to do is still to have a go at it alone, at least in a first stage. It's probably easier and less risky than managing a team to execute your crazy idea for you.

Anyway, don't leave us hanging! What is the url of your website?

I like #1 as well. But the hard part about that is the uncertainty.

Am I a visionary or just delirious? :)

maybe www.cucumis.org

What about Dotnetnuke? As one of the biggest and most popular open source asp.net projects out there, I imagine their architecture to be very good.

My money's still on internet

As someone who has only recently taken his first steps in web design, the requirements above seem daunting, hehe

wow, thanks a lot... very interesting stuff that will be a great resource for my own paper on web economics!

I consider myself very introverted, but I think that most of the items on the list you can learn to deal with whether you are extra- or introverted. Most essential though :

-Respect their need for privacy (yeah)

-Let them observe first in new situations (would make me more comfortable)

-Teach them new skills privately rather than in public (i would learn faster)

-Respect their introversion, don't remake them into extraverts (can get annoying sometimes)

-Give them time to think. Don't demand instant answers (OMG YESS!!)

Of course I can only speak for myself..

You think long, hard and often.

As long as you're the least bit creative, after a while (days, weeks,...) your brain will come up with something.

Try deforming an existing word à la Google, try combining two words into one (techcrunch), try using numbers or you can even try and invent a new word.

Squatters can't buy up everything, there are still options.

Then what is this specific meaning that the author fails to understand?

I think it's pretty clear what he means by it.

I don't agree with "5. Charge early, charge often." as being one of the things a startup SHOULD copy from 37Signals. Sure, it has many benefits, but it's just not feasible for websites that heavily rely on 'network effects' or user capital to provide value.

The chicken and egg problem is hard to overcome already, and charging for access early obviously doesn't make sense for these types of websites.

Wow, so I'm guessing scaling is complicated :)

Yeah, I got that. What I meant was that although that makes them useless for my project, I love them for it at the same time.

"Finally, friends don’t count as respondents. By some quirk in the human psyche we would rather see our friends waste their time and money, rather than to tell them the truth!"

I love my useless friends =)

Lots of people have gone before you, but maybe you've got a fresh take on this? I've done quite a lot of research on this subject, hit me up if you want to talk about it!

It wouldn't answer my question either :( I like the logo though!

ngapain sih kamu?

thanks! that makes much sense..

I will also be writing my master dissertation on this subject, so I was glad to find a bibliography at the end of your paper. It’s quite hard to find good reference material on the topic. Thanks again!

At first I thought it was a joke, and I found it pretty funny.

But you're not joking, so now I'm just disturbed.

It’s really nice hearing from failures from time to time. These kinds of stories don’t often get out, but they’re very educational on so many levels.

Especially now when all too many people become so easily enthralled by success stories the likes of Google, Facebook, Youtube, Digg, Twitter, …

It can happen so fast, losing oneself in wishful thinking, losing all reason in the process. I’m speaking from experience, this story really relates to me (although my project isn't as far down the line as yours yet).

If there is something like a Startup Failure Anonymous group, I would like to join it :)

It's quite impossible to predict those numbers, as it depends on so many other factors outside of "it's a social web application!".

For these kinds of things the only thing you can depend on before launch, for better or worse, is your own common sense.

In an industry that tries to be successful by providing value for free, all bets are off and the old rules don't apply anymore.

ASP.Net Web Forms... DotNetNuke... VB.net

HA!

Yup, it is discouraging, but it's one of those things you have to do, otherwise you're just fooling yourself.

You have to ask yourself, why am I being discouraged by this competitor? Usually it's because you're afraid that whatever you had in mind has already been done. And that they're already doing it better than you'll ever can. In that case, you should take your discouragement as a real signal.

Take care of the tougher aspects asap, you'll have to go through them anyway.

On the other hand I think it's really cool hearing from those who haven't yet succeeded as well! Just because it didn't work out doesn't mean that the steps they took were bad. Plus, learning from success is good, but learning from failure (especially when it's not your own) is great as well.

We all know how crazy an entrepreneur with a world changing idea can get (I've been there). Succeed or fail, it's always an interesting story.