I am a web programmer / designer. I work at a startup, and I have attempted several (failed) website projects. I will offer an “inside view” from my own experience.
My main failed website was a cool idea. Everyone said it was cool. Everyone said they would use it. So I spent months building the functionality. Then I started working on the design and UI. As a newbie to design, the web design and UI sucked. The site was useable, but nobody cared except a couple friends. The Facebook page got around 5-10 likes. I realized that the design sucked and it would take a rewrite to improve it, but I couldn’t justify the time expenditure.
I tried a more content-oriented site as another project. My graphic/web design skills were better, so I was no longer embarrassed to send the site around to people I knew. Most of my friends read anything I posted on the site, but I couldn’t very far outside my friend circle in audience. Ran out of energy to promote the site to a wider audience. Final metrics: 70 likes for the FB page, a few Twitter followers, 100 hits a day from Google (mostly bounces), and a few cents from affiliate links (and this was not because someone bought one of the products from my site… it’s because they happened to buy a washcloth and I somehow got affiliate credit for that).
In the end, these projects weren’t total failures. I picked up some great skills, and they were good for my resume or showing friends. Could I have pushed them further with more effort? Yes, but I couldn’t justify that investment. Similarly, seeking funding would have been silly because even though the ideas were cool, any investor would have (correctly) perceived that I didn’t have the experience/skills to execute. For instance, I didn’t know much about marketing or design. Even if an investor threw money at me, I wouldn’t even know how to get good value out of hires. An investor would probably prefer investing in a team who already has made at least some progress in nailing down the design and marketing.
Theoretically, I could have sought co-founders to do some of the work (e.g. designers, writers, other developers), but why should someone talented want to work with me on a project that wasn’t their own vision, where I didn’t have great skills at execution, and when I didn’t have the budget to hire them? Personally, I wouldn’t want equity in someone’s solo project that’s really not very far along, unless some of these are true: (a) I know this person’s ability to execute beyond demo-level, (b) there are other talented people involved, (c) I’ve had input from the start. Even if the idea sounds good on paper.
Like you, I absorbed lots of optimistic messages about startups, and “minimal viable products.” Though some other friends told me that “execution” of an idea is necessary: a good idea is not sufficient.
I failed in the early stages of execution. My first project failed (mainly) because of the execution of the design and UI. Those turned out to be pretty hard. Design is a serious business. For me, it took a learning curve of 6-12 months to create anything that wasn’t ghastly and broken-looking.
My second project (mainly) failed because I couldn’t promote it and create content in a time efficient way. Writing content was time-consuming. Then posting it places was also time-consuming. Yet it I didn’t promote the site, then I didn’t have motivation to create content, and if I didn’t have content, then I had nothing to share. The lack of motivation was not a lack of willpower, it was me correctly observing that I didn’t have any remotely time-efficient way of converting my time into users.
In the end, I realized that for the projects to be successful, I not only needed good ideas, but I needed high-level execution. But professional-level execution in the area of graphic design, web design, writing, and marketing is serious business. There were simply not enough hours in a day for me to learn all of those disciplines at a pro-level. This was not a problem that I could have solved with a little more willpower or time.
If it was so easy for for full stack / backend web programmers to throw up brilliant minimum viable products and create million dollar companies, then this would happen all the time and there would be no need for professional designers and marketing people to exist. But those people do exist. That is evidence that those disciplines are serious business.
There are people on Dribbble who spend all day making colored buttons. Users will want to click on their colored designer buttons, not on the ugly buttons designed by backend developers. There are people who spend all day writing copy and agonizing over wording and getting it just right. The average web programmer simply doesn’t have the background or taste to evaluate design and writing unless they invest some time into learning those disciplines, which is hard when the backend has bugs that need fixing (just like the average designer or writer would be lost if they tried to make a web service).
Yes, a small team of talented people can wear multiple hats. But to get other people (either co-founders or investors) interested, they have to believe the project has some chance of success, not just success at sounding cool.
My conclusion is that people other than close friends do not give a shit about demo-level website functionality, unless the idea immensely out-of-this-world amazing. It takes design (graphics, UI), and marketing (copywriting, messaging, social media, promotion, etc...) to get people to give a shit.
In addition to a good idea, you need to show proof of execution/production/connections to get people to join your team. Then your team collectively must hit another critical mass of execution/production/connections to get funding (assuming, of course, that the tech/functionality is great). Why would a talented designer or marketer want to join the team unless the other parts of the production/execution are going well? A good idea is NOT enough.
My experience here is consistent with the “outside view” being correct: that many startups will fail or never get off the ground. Despite being a talented and motivated person, and despite making some demos of cool ideas, I ran face-first into a wall, and that wall was execution, production, and marketing. I decided to pull the plug on those projects instead of trying to rope co-founders and investors into projects that were unlikely to succeed. My projects weren’t at the execution/production level to attract the right sort of people to improve the execution/production.
Nowadays, I work at an early-stage startup. I get to work on a team with other talented people. And I’m learning about the other sides of business, tech, marketing, design, and media where I lacked experience. I’m also making connections with people who could potentially advise me if I tried to start my own thing in the future. This is a much better use of my skills than trying to build a business myself.
I am a web programmer / designer. I work at a startup, and I have attempted several (failed) website projects. I will offer an “inside view” from my own experience.
My main failed website was a cool idea. Everyone said it was cool. Everyone said they would use it. So I spent months building the functionality. Then I started working on the design and UI. As a newbie to design, the web design and UI sucked. The site was useable, but nobody cared except a couple friends. The Facebook page got around 5-10 likes. I realized that the design sucked and it would take a rewrite to improve it, but I couldn’t justify the time expenditure.
I tried a more content-oriented site as another project. My graphic/web design skills were better, so I was no longer embarrassed to send the site around to people I knew. Most of my friends read anything I posted on the site, but I couldn’t very far outside my friend circle in audience. Ran out of energy to promote the site to a wider audience. Final metrics: 70 likes for the FB page, a few Twitter followers, 100 hits a day from Google (mostly bounces), and a few cents from affiliate links (and this was not because someone bought one of the products from my site… it’s because they happened to buy a washcloth and I somehow got affiliate credit for that).
In the end, these projects weren’t total failures. I picked up some great skills, and they were good for my resume or showing friends. Could I have pushed them further with more effort? Yes, but I couldn’t justify that investment. Similarly, seeking funding would have been silly because even though the ideas were cool, any investor would have (correctly) perceived that I didn’t have the experience/skills to execute. For instance, I didn’t know much about marketing or design. Even if an investor threw money at me, I wouldn’t even know how to get good value out of hires. An investor would probably prefer investing in a team who already has made at least some progress in nailing down the design and marketing.
Theoretically, I could have sought co-founders to do some of the work (e.g. designers, writers, other developers), but why should someone talented want to work with me on a project that wasn’t their own vision, where I didn’t have great skills at execution, and when I didn’t have the budget to hire them? Personally, I wouldn’t want equity in someone’s solo project that’s really not very far along, unless some of these are true: (a) I know this person’s ability to execute beyond demo-level, (b) there are other talented people involved, (c) I’ve had input from the start. Even if the idea sounds good on paper.
Like you, I absorbed lots of optimistic messages about startups, and “minimal viable products.” Though some other friends told me that “execution” of an idea is necessary: a good idea is not sufficient.
I failed in the early stages of execution. My first project failed (mainly) because of the execution of the design and UI. Those turned out to be pretty hard. Design is a serious business. For me, it took a learning curve of 6-12 months to create anything that wasn’t ghastly and broken-looking.
My second project (mainly) failed because I couldn’t promote it and create content in a time efficient way. Writing content was time-consuming. Then posting it places was also time-consuming. Yet it I didn’t promote the site, then I didn’t have motivation to create content, and if I didn’t have content, then I had nothing to share. The lack of motivation was not a lack of willpower, it was me correctly observing that I didn’t have any remotely time-efficient way of converting my time into users.
In the end, I realized that for the projects to be successful, I not only needed good ideas, but I needed high-level execution. But professional-level execution in the area of graphic design, web design, writing, and marketing is serious business. There were simply not enough hours in a day for me to learn all of those disciplines at a pro-level. This was not a problem that I could have solved with a little more willpower or time.
If it was so easy for for full stack / backend web programmers to throw up brilliant minimum viable products and create million dollar companies, then this would happen all the time and there would be no need for professional designers and marketing people to exist. But those people do exist. That is evidence that those disciplines are serious business.
There are people on Dribbble who spend all day making colored buttons. Users will want to click on their colored designer buttons, not on the ugly buttons designed by backend developers. There are people who spend all day writing copy and agonizing over wording and getting it just right. The average web programmer simply doesn’t have the background or taste to evaluate design and writing unless they invest some time into learning those disciplines, which is hard when the backend has bugs that need fixing (just like the average designer or writer would be lost if they tried to make a web service).
Yes, a small team of talented people can wear multiple hats. But to get other people (either co-founders or investors) interested, they have to believe the project has some chance of success, not just success at sounding cool.
My conclusion is that people other than close friends do not give a shit about demo-level website functionality, unless the idea immensely out-of-this-world amazing. It takes design (graphics, UI), and marketing (copywriting, messaging, social media, promotion, etc...) to get people to give a shit.
In addition to a good idea, you need to show proof of execution/production/connections to get people to join your team. Then your team collectively must hit another critical mass of execution/production/connections to get funding (assuming, of course, that the tech/functionality is great). Why would a talented designer or marketer want to join the team unless the other parts of the production/execution are going well? A good idea is NOT enough.
My experience here is consistent with the “outside view” being correct: that many startups will fail or never get off the ground. Despite being a talented and motivated person, and despite making some demos of cool ideas, I ran face-first into a wall, and that wall was execution, production, and marketing. I decided to pull the plug on those projects instead of trying to rope co-founders and investors into projects that were unlikely to succeed. My projects weren’t at the execution/production level to attract the right sort of people to improve the execution/production.
Nowadays, I work at an early-stage startup. I get to work on a team with other talented people. And I’m learning about the other sides of business, tech, marketing, design, and media where I lacked experience. I’m also making connections with people who could potentially advise me if I tried to start my own thing in the future. This is a much better use of my skills than trying to build a business myself.