I tried the same with a social networking site (Like Reddit/HN) about a year ago. When I asked users to pay even $1 to try it, no one was interested in doing so.
Wow, reading through that, and looking at Utropic, it's amazing how similar our projects were. We had many of the same aims, ambitions, problems, and results.
I think your analysis of the situation (No Co-Founder, Not fully invested) was true for both of us, but I also, particularly after reading your ioFeed post.. We're creating technical solutions to problems.
That's not enough. Saying "I can improve on Facebook" doesn't take into account the huge network effect, and it doesn't solve the problem of getting people onto your site.
It's a good reminder that the tech isn't enough by itself.
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I tried the same with a social networking site (Like Reddit/HN) about a year ago. When I asked users to pay even $1 to try it, no one was interested in doing so.
http://e1ven.com/2010/09/15/lonava-com-retrospective/
Heh ... I tried to do almost exactly what you tried to do, with similar results:
http://coding.pressbin.com/50/10-web-start-ups-all-mine--and...
Check out the blurbs on Truyoo, Utopic, and ioFeed.
Wow, reading through that, and looking at Utropic, it's amazing how similar our projects were. We had many of the same aims, ambitions, problems, and results.
I think your analysis of the situation (No Co-Founder, Not fully invested) was true for both of us, but I also, particularly after reading your ioFeed post.. We're creating technical solutions to problems.
That's not enough. Saying "I can improve on Facebook" doesn't take into account the huge network effect, and it doesn't solve the problem of getting people onto your site.
It's a good reminder that the tech isn't enough by itself.
ended up working extremely well for metafilter, though
What was the incentive for them to pay?