Why my startup failed
Hey IH, it's been a minute. I used to be quite active on here a few years ago, now I am back with lots of wisdom and scars.
Too Many Features
I built an online video editing tool and that was a problem. A video editor has an endless set of features, and when I entered this space I thought I could win by building the most features.
The problem with this was I got trapped in an endless spiral of technical debt and since I was running it solo I had no time to market. So the whole time I was literally under a rock solving a problem that I didn't even validate.
What I should have done was talk to users first by writing down a few persona types and where I could find them. Either on Instagram, Linkedin, or even places in real life. Then aggressively trying to get their attention to start a conversation, which follows a conversational strategy that gets unbiased data i.e mom test.
Lack Of Clarity
I knew the video market was hot, I knew I wanted to build a challenging product. I knew there was something here, but I was not clear on the market. I could see it everyday while scrolling social media, but I didn't understand the market like I thought I did.
Simply by observing is not enough, it's important to actually talk to users of the market you are targeting and to figure out the core problem they are facing. Then from there you should focus only on them and one feature, ideally doing it manually in the early days to solve the problem.
You will learn so much more this way, especially by doing it manually, you will see all the details that go into it in a fraction of the time it would take to code everything ahead of time.
Not Obsessing Over The Right Things
The only thing you should obsess over in the early days is product market fit I wrote an article on my thoughts about PMF and why its so important here (https://www.michaelaubry.com/articles/product-market-fit-is-a-grind).
I was obsessed over proving myself I could build a video editor that I went down an engineering rabbit hole, and I am extremely proud of myself that I could build such a thing. However, it was the wrong thing to be obsessed about.
I don't have regrets, I am glad it happened, as it was a good lesson. It also made me become a 10x engineer. Now I have an unfair advantage when it comes to engineering, and I am glad I am waking up to the spell of coding.
In my opinion engineering is an unfair advantage as long as you rewire your brain to obsess over the right things i.e PMF
Final Thoughts
This is a brief summary of why Motionbox failed, I could go on for hours and hours and happy to chat with anyone who wants to avoid the mistakes I've made.
We're taking the product and pivoting to a video sales tool, currently taking a step back from engineering and talking to users. We're focused on creating the customers desired outcome first (manually and slowly adding basic scripts) before building any software.
Google Whisk - Generate images using images as prompts, not text prompts
After 19,314 lines of code, i'm shutting down my project
Need feedback for my product.
We are live on Product Hunt
Don't be a Jerk. Use this Tip Calculator.
Thanks for sharing. Not easy to introspect and share where we went wrong.
I went through a similar phase and decided to shutdown my company and return the funding we had picked up.
Since then, I started going through good resources on product management, and that has helped my overall business strategy. I feel I'm taking a more feasible approach to developing products now.
How much did you burn before returning
I returned 62% of the funds I had picked up. So ~38% burned in 12 months. This includes all the compsec & legal fees we had to pay.
Have you thought about going Open Source?
Good idea, I might consider
If there's anything I've learned from dabbling in multiple disciplines, it's that being human-centered is the first thing to be in all aspects of work and is the key to increasing odds of success. Talk. To. People. First. I don't care what it is, from building software to marketing to making a course, if you aren't talking to who it's for (or don't know who it's for), it fails before it even begins. Thanks for sharing!
As an engineer I myself have gone down the engineering rabbit hole SO many times. And the sole reason I believe was lack of clarity. Having too many features is also a symptom of lack of clarity IMO. That said, I think what more important is that you figured out what you did wrong. Best of luck on your pivot!
Thank you for sharing. Because I was thinking about a similar project of mine, but I wasn't too sure. And now I have made an important decision for myself.
The whole section on Too Many Features is honest and helpful. I'm in the planning stages of a product and I am constantly telling myself I need to focus on core functionality only, but in the same thought thinking of a cool feature that I think would be really helpful.
Launch with solid core functionality and talk to users to really get direction on what to solve/work on next.
Thanks for sharing!
That's true, bro. We're building products for users, they know what they actully want!
@motionbox Thank you for sharing! I have noticed a common problem that causes the failure of products that most developers spend the majority of their time on development, and the same goes for marketing professionals.
Just like a car cannot function with only one wheel, to make any product successful, we need individuals who are experts in their respective fields. Marketing professionals will market the product, while developers will develop it.
We have also followed this approach, and although we have failed in some projects, we have learned from our mistakes. Failure is the path to success, and we wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
You may want to check out our current product, Churnfree, which is a tool for businesses to retain customers and grow their business. We hope you will love this product.
Thanks for sharing.... I was doing the same mistake about marketing so I thought of joining build in public movement on Twitter and I think within a year my stats will improve. I wish I had started it 6 months back.
Hi Michael, thanks for sharing. Sorry it didn't lead to the desired outcome. But as you said becoming a 10x engineer is such a valuable founder skill to have. Added you on Linkedin
Great thoughts.
Thanks for this insightful compilation.
Thanks for sharing interesting information
I simply think that the product should focus on a group of customers who need to solve a specific problem.
After that, develop the solutions well as well as upgrade the features for the better.
Avoid perfecting it and launching it to market and then with a bunch of features that don't work for everyone.
The amount of features (and the time it takes to develop) often delays the Time 2 Market. I read this article once in a while to remind me on keeping things stupid simple:
https://twasink.net/2004/03/30/dtsttcpw-what-does-it-mean/?utm_source=pocket_saves
Super helpful -- feel like I'm running into similar issues myself.
Took a look at your blog, I'm really digging your website design/layout! Out of curiosity, what did you use to make it? Would you recommend sub stack for a newsletter?
Yeah same concept, faster is better, dont get hung up on tech if you can avoid it... I love having control of the code, so I couldnt resist. I did use a tailwind, next.js starter kit with a theme to make it faster. My rule is you can code it, but it cannot take more than 1-2 days
One can argue that your product had a pmf (video editing is commodity hence has pmf by def) your problem was low retention rather than pmf
I’m trying to research this in a podcast https://gainandretain.tech
Well, Veed.io was my main competitor, and going against them directly was too hard. So I needed to use collaboration as a differentiator and collaborative video editors are not validated yet. Frame.io is validated for Adobe users who are pros
The Rabbit Hole and sometimes called scope creep, obsessing with the wrong thing is real, my project got delayed and delayed and delayed because of this. I had to take a break, go back on my notes and focus, i mean really focus this time around, still getting scope creep from time to time, but I totally agree 100% features are so cool! More features, add this features, BUT now I learned my lesson to stick, really stick with on what Im solving, my core functionalities! Features are cool nice to haves, I just have to constantly remind myself!
As someone who edits videos 2 to 3 times a week to publish in different platforms, I can say that there is a lot of opportunities in this sector to particular resources. Like reporpusing content from one social media to others or by speeding up editing time
Thanks for sharing! We so often see posts that talk about the "winnings", but not so much about where things have gone the other way. Appreciate it as we learn more when things don't work vis-a-vis when things work. It also helps in looking past the "survivorship bias"
Love this post, it's always great to reflect on the steps you've taken, see what worked, what did not work, and pave a way forward.
Don't see your startup as a failure, but a lesson that will help you build the next business that follows.
It's only a failure when you decide to turn away and accept mediocrity.
Wow thats a lot of wisdom thanks for sharing
Thanks I hope it helps you avoid some mistakes. Are you a coder?
Yes I am, I built www.automealplanner.com
I love that one testimonial on your homepage. You know the one. Lol
Nice, doing revenue?
No not yet we just released the MVP some days ago but we have about 200 emails subscribers we will see if they like it. Btw if you visited the site and have any comments it can be helpful
Why does it immediately jump towards the comment section anytime I click on a post?
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