17 Entrepreneurial lessons: Keep innovation and stick to it

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"Sohu It News" August 2 News, foreign media recently on the start-up company's failure and recovery made an inventory, selected 17 typical cases, for people who are interested in entrepreneurship to provide from the company's financial to the personal feelings of entrepreneurs to the public relations crisis and other aspects of experience and lessons.

1, WPMU DEV

WPMU Dev is a has won the jackpot of the WordPress plug-in development company, has launched for WordPress, multisite, BuddyPress and other content publishing platform of several excellent plug-ins.

The lesson of failure

WPMU Dev Company CEO James Farmer:

If it's a lesson of failure, I think it's the stupidest thing I've ever done to share shares with another founder at the start of a startup (I now think he could have accepted 30%, even 25%). I did it because I thought it was "the right thing".

What is the result of this? 4 years later, I paid 75,000 of dollars in lawyers and accounting fees, for six consecutive months under pressure and sleepless; I still owe a debt, and it will be almost 9 years before I pay it back. Nevertheless, I am happy now ... I now have all the stakes, and if I have to gamble, I will put all bets on myself and not others.

If there is a next time ... Oh, next time I'll be the villain.

Follow-up development

Now, WPMU Dev is one of the most traffic-related WordPress sites. Although no one invested, and despite the initial changes, James still made the company profitable, his website currently has 29 employees, the number of registered users nearly 100,000 people.

2, Retail me Not

Retail me not is one of the most popular discount coupon sites. Customers can find coupon codes on this site that can be used on mainstream e-commerce sites.

The lesson of failure

Retail me not co-founder Guy King:

At a critical time in our start-up operations, I accidentally inserted the wrong code into all the pages and blocked Google's inclusion of the site. Luckily, we found the problem in a day, and on that day, the website traffic dropped sharply; Fortunately, the problem was solved quickly.

In those one or two sleepless nights, we prayed and waited for Google's great God to help us get our traffic back to its previous level. Luckily, the site traffic has returned to normal in less than a week, but I still remember it.

Follow-up development

Guy lets his site recover quickly from a technical disaster and succeeds in making a profit exit. 2010, Retail Me was acquired by Whale media when the monthly number of independent visitors exceeded 14 million and revenue reached 30 million dollars a year.

3, Carrental

Carrental is an Australian start-up company that allows users to compare rental companies with their services, and can make online bookings and offline payments without the user needing to spend more.

The lesson of failure

Carrental founder Chris Bailey:

We want to build a comparison system for car rental companies. We see a lot of people making big bucks on websites they don't do well and we feel we can do better.

We found a development team that was half as low as the other companies. The designs they produced were of high quality but were four months behind schedule, and the whole project was scheduled to be completed in six weeks. Then they start writing code for the site.

At the time, I asked them what development environment they were using, they chose rails, and we didn't raise objections. For the first month, they spent most of their time writing content management systems. It's strange. The next six months are even more bizarre, with either writing code until four o'clock in the morning, or doing nothing for a few weeks.

In the end, our website was successfully online, 12 months later than expected, countless problems, and we eventually paid more than their so-called "fixed" price is 125% higher. They broke the price of the reservation very early and began to charge by the hour.

We ended up with a bug-filled web site that spent a whole year debugging improvements, and we switched the development environment from rails to PHP.

Follow-up development

The members of the Carrental were rewarded in the end. The site has started earning money, repaying the costs of "adventure", which has taught them a lot.

4, Buffer

Buffer is a social media application that allows you to distribute content that you want to share in social media. For example, if you want to share 20 articles on social media that you find interesting, you can use buffer to distribute them at different times of the day to avoid the feeling of spam.

Buffer Union founder Leo Widrich:

We launched a DDoS attack on ourselves. This experience may have only buffer, we made a huge mistake, almost murdered the buffer. That day we suddenly found that the server speed became extremely slow, the site has a variety of problems, completely useless. We wanted to find out the source of the huge flow that suddenly occurred and was very angry. We think it was a DDoS attack that scared all of us. Finally, it was our own attack that attacked us.

We have previously introduced a browser plug-in, users can use this plug-in to share the article to add to the buffer. This plugin has the ability to display the number of items to be sent, this number is updated in real time, all the browser plug-ins installed by users will also send a request to update the data, resulting in amazing traffic.

We shut down this feature and escaped our own DDoS attacks.

Follow-up development

Buffer has recently gained 400,000 of billions of dollars from top investors and is absorbing new users at an alarming rate. #p # subtitle #e#

5. PWA

On the PWA (productive web Apps) Web site, you can search, categorize, and compare in hundreds of excellent web applications interactively.

The lesson of failure

PWA founder Scott Purcell:

I accidentally plunged into the gold rush of startups. This is my first pioneering attempt, I once thought that the website can be built in a day, can get millions of clicks, every day can earn a good tens of thousands of, I also want to hire a person for my website, and I can enjoy life. I was so stupid.

We didn't do a good job at first, and ended up spending a lot of money on bad ads. We've spent hours trying to choose the color of the banner at the top of the site, focusing on the little details that don't really make any difference. And in our first deal, because we marked the wrong price on the website, we gave each other 40 percent.

Follow-up development

"Creating such a startup from scratch is the most challenging and enjoyable thing for me," Scott said. As a matter of fact, I enjoy the hard work and the lessons learned during this time. ”

6, trunk.ly

Trunk.ly This site keeps track of all the links you share on social networking sites and can save them for later review and search.

The lesson of failure

Trunk.ly co-founder and CEO Tim Bull:

It is not difficult to find Trunk.ly's lowest valley. We had spent three months negotiating contracts with a VC, and had flown to negotiate face-to-face with them in the hope of reaching a deal. This not only cost us hundreds of thousands of of dollars, but also took up the energy we were supposed to spend on our work.

We built a strong advisory team, the VCs picked us and then gave us up. When you reach the bottom of the valley, you will feel a real relief. We feel that our situation is not going to be any worse, and then it must be a bottoming out. Things should start to develop in a good way. That's how things are going.

The most important lesson we learned is that leaving is not always the worst choice. At a time when we feel we have no choice, although we already feel that something is wrong, we still continue to negotiate in the wind. Sometimes, the cost of looking back is so high that you have to keep going.

Follow-up development

Trunk.ly was acquired by AVOs company in 2011, and AVOs also owns the newly-launched website Delicious.com, which took only a few months to win a successful takeover from a failed financing.

7, Flowtown

Flowtown is a social media marketing platform designed to help companies turn cold contacts into interactive customers.

The lesson of failure

Flowtown co-founder Dan Martell:

After financing 750,000 dollars, we decided to start expanding our business. For several months, our subscribers and revenues were growing by 30%, until one day it stopped.

The fuse is an article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal that accuses Facebook of disclosing user privacy data and that some agencies are profiting from selling users ' information to advertising companies.

We did not resell user data and that article did not mention us, but Facebook began to crack down on the user data industry, which stalled our services.

The next few days were very difficult, and we immediately began to cut spending by 60%. This means some tough decisions about employee entitlements and corporate spending, but we know we have to act quickly. Then we started to look at what customers wanted, and we had the passion to do it.

After three transitions, we finally decided to enter the gift marketing industry.

Follow-up development

From the initial business model burst to the profit exit, Flowtown succeeded, and was eventually acquired by Demanforce Company in 2011.

8, Feld Technologies

Feld Technologies was originally a software consulting firm created by Brad Feld and is currently the Foundry Group's VC division.

The lesson of failure

Feld Technologies co-founder Brad Feld:

When our company was a software consulting firm, we found that the company that helped us install the network system was too bad and decided to set up our own Small Network installation team. Some customers gave us the entire installation process, so we started doing some hardware business. The hardware business has a profit margin of about 20%, so we think it's a good deal, especially if it's time to charge.

People like to work with us – our new business is either casual or just talking. Later, we started serving some VC companies in Boston, and they introduced us to some of the biotech companies they invested in. In the early 1990, the biotech industry red-hot, which often made huge sums of money and invested wildly in laboratory equipment, which naturally included a large number of hardware businesses.

Take Hugh Belian (Hyperion) company as an example, I can't remember any information about them except that they are headquartered on Route No. 495 and they bought a lot of hardware from us. Their payment to us was phased, and suddenly one day we realized that they owed about 75,000 dollars, and there was no movement for more than 60 days. For the next one months, I kept calling them, only to get a blank check.

I distinctly remember the dilemma-I was lying in an apartment with Amy and I couldn't sleep at midnight. Amy can feel my brain spinning and ask me what the problem is. I told her that I was worried that Feld technologies could not pay because the company owed 75,000 dollars. Then I burst into the bathroom and threw up.

To explain that the problem was not just that 75,000 dollars, we and the company's contract 80% is hardware, and we have paid the hardware vendors, so our actual loss is 125,000 dollars. At that time, the overall size of Feld technologies was about 1.5 million dollars, and 125,000 dollars was a huge sum for us.

After that sleepless night, I drove to the company--I sat in the lobby motionless, until the CFO agreed to meet, and I refused to leave his office until he handed me the check. A few months later, they were bankrupt.

Follow-up development

Feld Technologies was subsequently acquired by the Ameridata company, Brad, the CTO at the new company, who is now a successful venture capitalist in the foundry group. #p # subtitle #e#

9, Mmmule

Mmmule is a social tourism website designed to connect locals who need certain items with tourists who can bring them. Tourists are rewarded with a fun travel experience.

The lesson of failure

Mmmule co-founder Avis Mulhall:

Our worst failure was a near-death experience. Shortly after I arrived in Sydney, I was in the process of starting a mmmule, I was seriously ill, and almost killed. I have been in the hospital for four months, three major surgeries, and still need to fight the localized enteritis (also known as Crohn's disease, Crohn ' s disease).

At the time, to some extent, we really felt that Mmmule might have come to the end and everything looked so gloomy. But still, I have a firm belief that you can also call it fanaticism or stupidity-"we can do business in any case".

It was Mmmule who helped me come over. If it weren't for the things I believed deeply, my path to recovery might be a lot harder. I have a real passion for what I do, and I believe we can do something big, especially if there are angelmule.

Follow-up development

Although Avis was seriously ill, Mmmule's success still thrilled the founders. "We don't even have a soft start plan, all we do is press the button, post on Twitter and Facebook, and wait!" Mulhall said. "We soon saw responses from around the world, and within the first 24 hours of the site's launch, we had 1600 independent visitors, 100 new members, 50 request posts, and even the first successful delivery." ”

10, Twilio

Using the API provided by Twilio, you can build voice calls, VoIP, and SMS applications in standard Web languages.

The lesson of failure

Twilio co-founder and CEO Jeff Lawson:

We started the Twilio in the fall of 08, and we were also doing seed financing. We've found a leading VC company that's willing to lead, and we've made plans for the investors ' meeting.

After the meeting, we felt that everything was going well. When we pulled out our phones, we found that Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy protection. Our financing time is too bad! The VCs gave up all the deals because they had no money.

There is some concern about the fact that we have not been able to get seed financing. But after the founder's heart-to-heart talk, we decided that we didn't need the money, just to keep doing what we've been doing for nine months. We work hard without pay, successfully put the product online, so that consumers get benefits. After we had such a profitable product, it took us less than one months to complete seed financing and have been growing since then. All this proves that if you focus on the product and the consumer, everything else will happen naturally.

Follow-up development

Twilio recently completed its C-round financing, with 17 million of dollars invested from VCs such as Union Square Ventures. Their business is still expanding, with more than 100,000 developers using their services as of June 2012.

11, Smartbear

Smartbear is the first commercially available tool for code review.

The lesson of failure

Smartbear founder and CEO Jason Cohen:

Most people ignore emotional failure when they talk about failure.

I felt like a liar every day, peddling flashy tools and dressing myself up as an expert in a non-existent industry (my software is the first commercially available code review tool). Every second I feel is deceiving the world.

I told the client that my tool still makes the code review take half the time, is that true? or did you just repeat the Lie 1000 times? I introduced the "Best strategy" for code reviews to my clients, but what qualifications do I have to teach someone to censor code? I help people arrange the purchase, but how can I manage so much money for my financial affairs?

Am I too young? Is this tool too bad? Am I too inexperienced? Do I need to read an MBA or a marketing class?

Objectively speaking afterwards, these are my emotional problems. This tool does solve the time and effort, which is accepted by the customer. When I doubted my "code review expert" title, I did accumulate more experience than anyone else, through collaboration with more teams in more environments. Sales are not as mysterious and difficult to grasp as I imagined.

Follow-up development

Jason sold his company in 2007 and co-founded a new company called Wpengine.

12, Fivesecondtest

Fivesecondtest can help you optimize page layout and attract user action by analyzing the most prominent elements of the design draft.

The lesson of failure

Fivesecondtest co-founder Alan Downie:

I ran this little usability venture with another founder. The fivesecondtest principle is to give visitors 5 seconds to observe a design manuscript and then let him think about what he sees by remembering.

The service is still running and in good condition, but it was almost dead. We initially launched the business in a free way and achieved good user stickiness. So we decided to refactor it as a paid product, and it immediately began to generate revenue for us. Both of us were doing client consulting work, and the success of the application seemed to be a shortcut to getting us out of the abyss.

But the income it brings is not enough for us to live on, so we need to see growth, and we think the site needs to be refactored again. We want customers to see more value, more value also means more features! Everyone knows that the more money you spend, the more features you have.

At that time we were very naïve and spent months creating a new version of Fivesecondtest. On the basis of the 5-second memory test, we have added questions and answers, feedback and other functions. We will be on the new website online, waiting to make a lot of money. The plan is good, in the ointment, everyone hates the new website.

Yes, everyone. Some long-time clients yell at us because we make the tools he needs to work change. There are even people who say that if we do not restore the site to its original state, they will build similar sites and compete with me. The number of users has fallen to the bottom, and experts say our approach is a complete joke. We did the stupid thing that killed the goose.

After we got out of the turbulence, we started refactoring the site again. This time, we recovered the classic 5-second Test and added two new apps. When we were finished, we found that our once loyal customers had been drained. The application is still alive and operational, but the painful experience of refactoring three of times a year almost kills it. What I've learned is-never try to do anything before asking for a customer's opinion.

Follow-up development

Alan, together with another founder, Matt, has created a new app called Bugherd that can help web designers find bugs with simple clicks. Bugherd has now obtained funding from investment institutions such as 500Startups and Starfish Ventures. #p # subtitle #e#

13, Banjo

Banjo can remind you when your friend is near. In addition, it can help you find other people's attention to the picture, status updates, and you have a common interest in people.

The lesson of failure

Banjo founder and CEO Damien Patten:

Now the banjo is very different from the beginning of the release. The initial banjo was built on geographic location and information systems. Each user is impressed by the technology and speed of its operation. This product is very interesting, can attract many big company's engineer to serve. We were supposed to release the product at the SXSW conference in 2011, but we decided to continue to "watch".

The end result shows that this is the most correct decision I made in the process of building banjo. We soon found that, despite our innovative technology, we still had to face the problem of starting from scratch. I know that if we publish apps that get a lot of attention from the media and the industry, users will say the same thing when they see many other apps: "It would be cool if more people used it." ”

We spent several months in the design and development of banjo, and even received seed financing. We know that we have the ability to achieve great success in the short term, but we are here for the long term development. Therefore, in order not to let oneself fail halfway, our choice is to give up completely.

We chose to start over, and it took only 6 weeks to develop a new product, which is the banjo you see now.

Follow-up development

Damien said: "A year after banjo released, we already have 2 million users, our technology is the leading in this field." Although it is too early to talk about the future, we are certain that the choice from scratch was right. Our bottom line is that entrepreneurs should not be afraid of failure or error. Some of the most fascinating innovations have been born. ”

14, Geeklist

Geeklist is a place where geeks (geek) share their creations, and they can share collaborators ' information on their websites and connect with successful companies and communities.

The lesson of failure

Create relieved Christian Sanz:

Before I started geeklist, I told all my friends, friends, and even people I stumbled across in cafes and gyms about the idea. In short, it is a space for developers and geeks to share, they can earn points through what they create, and this platform can also help them connect with the business.

Of course, most of my developer friends like the idea, but there are also questions about whether someone actually registers and shares information. I ended up ignoring these ideas and sticking to the project. I asked my friend Reuben Katz to work with me, and we wrote a simple plan, and then we plunged into the shark pool with too much confidence.

Geeklist is not developing well.

For more than three months, many people (including those who made Angel Investments) refused to pay attention to it, and I felt like I was in a tunnel with no end in sight. I did not abandon the project, but also decided to suspend the development of a larger new version. I devote all my energy to the development of brisk projects, focusing on things that can spread like a virus. I added the ability to add user names, create personal information, and focus on other users. Not long ago, the new version has been online. This time it succeeded, and in a few weeks, the number of users grew from zero to 10,000.

Follow-up development

Geeklist finally successfully completed the 1 million dollar seed financing, including those who refused to pay attention to the first version of Geeklist.

15, Producteev

Producteev can seamlessly manage your to-do list on different devices and manage tasks and projects in a concise way.

The lesson of failure

Producteev founder and CEO Ilan Abehassera:

The story of Producteev, like many other startups, has gone through a rollercoaster of development. However, we were confronted with a real roadblock.

I founded this company in 2008 and released the first beta version in early 2009. That year, we got the media propaganda, a lot of people are trying our service. By the end of 2009, the number of users in the beta has reached 15000, but few people are actually using it. This product has no user stickiness.

At that time, we ran out of money. We had 4 employees, no clients, almost no active users, and I had defaulted on my two-month salary. Most of the first investors suggested that I close the company and find something else to do. But that's not what I want. I know, we are close to success. But in order to launch a second version, we need to finance and hire engineers.

Although there is no hope, I decided to start looking for a round of financing opportunities. After I introduced the product at an event in New York, a stranger told me he could "introduce me to a VC who would like my product."

Follow-up development

Two months after the end of activities in New York, Producteev successfully completed a round of financing in February 2010. Their team expanded from 4 to 8 and released a second edition in July 2010.

16, Apptopia

Apptopia is the first open market in the field of mobile application mergers and acquisitions.

The lesson of failure

Apptopia co-founder Jonathan Kay:

I'll never forget 2012 years of Valentine's Day, but the reason is not what you think. At that time, my entrepreneurial journey has gone through three or four months, I feel has come to the end. I used to have a good marketing position on the grasshopper.com, and then I decided to leave the establishment of Apptopia. We want to build the first mobile application mergers and acquisitions market. We want to help application developers implement Instagram-like acquisitions (of course, much smaller, almost 1000 to 200000 dollars).

On Valentine's Day, I visited Apple with my partner. We talked to so many people and ended up getting the same results, and we only accepted it silently. We sat in the boardroom and realised that we might never be able to do a deal on iOS apps. The--60% market has vanished without even a real start.

But what happened? We didn't choose to give up. More importantly, we never thought of giving up on each other. On that day, we both went home early, venting our anger and sadness, and then we walked confidently into the next day. We are ready to be entrepreneurs and to solve style. Not only did we put together the solution to the problem with Apple, but we launched our service in a few months and received extensive attention.

I want to tell other entrepreneurs: Don't be naïve. There are all kinds of nasty things you'll encounter in your business. Also, sadness and anger are normal emotions. But remember not to give up, do not give up your partner. Spend a day clearing the whole situation and try to do it. Maintain innovation and solve problems. This is the difference between the real rich, the real winners and those who are envy.

Follow-up development

Apptopia the first three months of the line, the total turnover has exceeded 200,000 dollars. They are about to complete a round of sizeable seed financing, which is growing at a high rate.

17, Fetchnotes

Fetchnotes is a mobile note tool that is ideal for your busy lifestyle.

The lesson of failure

Fetchnotes co-founder Chase Lee:

At that time, another founder, Alex, and I were ready to send mail to all the users. We've just migrated to a new system, and Alex forgot to manually add line breaks in the mail, so the mail was sent directly as a whole group of text.

I think it's nothing, but Alex feels bad and thinks we should send the mail again. But the first thing we do is Test line breaks on the local server. Then we wrote a test message with a newline character and went out.

Unfortunately, we send the mail with a remote server and send the object to all of our users. Unfortunately, the message is "This TM is just a test."

We've been frantically adding online customer service and email counseling, and spent the whole night replying to users ' emails. The result is good, 99% of people think this is quite grounded, user interaction increased by twice times.

Follow-up development

Through interaction with individual users, and in a few days after the disclosure of related issues, fetchnotes to the public relations disaster turned into a crisis for the machine, won the user's favorite and the affirmation of the media. (Na Yan)