First, thanks for sharing. It's really hard to talk about past failures and yet so valuable. I learned more from your story than reading 20 "How to Succeed" articles.
Second, I just want to share one thing I've learned. There's a lot of pyschology mumbo jumbo in your analysis but all that really matters is the numbers. How many pageviews/users/sales/conversions did you have? Etc.
One thing I've learned about Internet startups is that you absolutely cannot force them. The market dictates your success plain and simple. It sounds like you guys weren't listening to the market; you were not paying enough attention to the numbers. That's really the only thing you should pay attention to. A month into my startup last year, one of the co-founders said to me and the other partner:
Him: "Guys, I've discovered a pattern in our traffic."
Me: "Well, what is it?"
Him: "Every week it decreases."
Me: (Proceed to ignore the importance of this simple statement and pursue the idea for 5 more months, believing that because we had a good team and we thought the idea was good we could succeed, which was too bad because from month 1 the market was giving us PRICELESS advice--we should have been working on a different idea)
Every other mistake was irrelevant because the only thing that matters is the numbers.
Second, I just want to share one thing I've learned. There's a lot of pyschology mumbo jumbo in your analysis but all that really matters is the numbers. How many pageviews/users/sales/conversions did you have? Etc.
One thing I've learned about Internet startups is that you absolutely cannot force them. The market dictates your success plain and simple. It sounds like you guys weren't listening to the market; you were not paying enough attention to the numbers. That's really the only thing you should pay attention to. A month into my startup last year, one of the co-founders said to me and the other partner:
Him: "Guys, I've discovered a pattern in our traffic." Me: "Well, what is it?" Him: "Every week it decreases." Me: (Proceed to ignore the importance of this simple statement and pursue the idea for 5 more months, believing that because we had a good team and we thought the idea was good we could succeed, which was too bad because from month 1 the market was giving us PRICELESS advice--we should have been working on a different idea)
Every other mistake was irrelevant because the only thing that matters is the numbers.