How I lost my startup’s first 90k client, and won my freedom

*update* as of March 2011 I continue to work part time as a systems engineer at my old job. And I haven’t given up on hacking side projects and learning more deeply about the web stack and consumer facing app design.

The journey began in late 2008 when I was unsure of what future I would strive for. At that time I knew only that it wasn’t my old day job as a systems engineer. With a great desire to wed my lovely wife, and to remain independent with a roof over my head, I negotiated part time work at my old position a few months later after discovering blogging and the wonders of startups. Sometime in mid 2009 I set about searching for a high value area in the rapidly growing social web space to fuel a new business.

Victus Media 0.1

While I struggled with early php scripting and worked out the simplest of prototypes, I knew I wouldn’t get very far without the aid of a talented hacker. If you tell your story enough times, someone will eventually listen, and fortunately for me that was Tyler Gillies, now the resident hacker for Read Write Web. He was able to construct a framework in Rails that I could contribute to, and build on without any prior Ruby knowledge. It was a great learning experience. I have fond memories of “creepy” migrations with models defined in separate files and loathing git merge conflicts before I had a basic grasp of how it worked*.

Our startup’s biggest client was our day job salaries. Almost none of the development Victus Media did at night, weekends and days off was applicable to our only “paying” customers. We earned that pay through our hours of service^, but there was a huge disconnect in motivation alignment. All the while my primary customer was downsizing along with the financial troubles of the American economy.

I took full advantage of all the resources I could muster

My first inclination for a semantic contextual ad widget could find no takers. Tyler hacked out an alpha fast, and I helped glue some pieces together. The prototype was born at the end of 2009 in only six weeks, but it never caught on. In hindsight, I suspect it was too risky of a move for larger web properties, and inefficient for small bloggers. No one I met wanted to log in to an ad widget so it could offer them relevant content. I did learn more about constructing a marketing pipe. My marketing resources were blog posts, paid ad tests, and a crap ton of comments linking back to our product.

180 degree pivot

We worked furiously to construct an app that would attract users to try and salvage some of our work. While I was able to trick out an interesting user/list browser^, it never caught on after a hail storm of blog posts, paid ad tests, and thousands of comments.

Pivot 2, plus a Torso Twist for Battletech fans

Now we’re working hard to refine garagedollar.com as one instance of an event, location, and interest aware update service. Only folks interested in yard sales or antiques will subscribe, so time, space, and interest will all come together to bring unmatched relevance of information. Take that search!

I didn’t forget to tell you how I lost my 90k client

This story has all lead up to the present. I got laid off by my day job yesterday, although I’m officially employed till end of September (gotta wrap up some work).

My long term goal is to build a healthy web based business, so any help refining my pitch to potential investors or customers is more than welcome. I will also gladly consider any startups or progressive tech companies that are in dire need of a fanatical developer with a deep desire to immerse himself in the web stack from top to bottom.

Notes:
*= linux and meld made the problem evaporate

^= this reminds me, I need to update social image browser to use oauth only, basic auth breaks this month. Now folks have to log in to see it in action, bummer.

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  • http://codingrelic.geekhold.com DGentry

    That is a troubling development. I’ll hazard a guess that it will be a while before garagedollar can pay your living expenses.

    With Angel investors its possible to go from pitch to funded in a few weeks… but unlikely. I assume you’ll be actively looking for a job, along with seeking investors?

  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

    That’s right Denny and how I wrapped up the post. I need to extend the plank a few more feet over the ocean :)

  • Ted

    No disrespect … but did you lose your day job because you spent all of your time not working on your day job but instead this project?

  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

    That’s a reasonable question, but no. My part time work there was sim/modeling focused, often without any external connectivity. The entire industry is downsizing and I was part time, so an easy choice.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com tacanderson

    After reading this post I feel like condolences and congratulations are in order. I preached for years going into the downturn that the best backup plan was a startup idea. I’m glad you had the foresight to start early. While things are probably stressful, imagine how bad things would be if you were just now starting off? You’d have 2 years of lessons to learn.

    Again congrats, best of luck and let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.

  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

    Oh yeah Tac, I’d be hosed :) !
    My sextant is set, my sails are up and just now catching the breeze before the storm. Where’s the queen of spain when I need her?

  • Jared McKiernan

    Congratulations Mark-
    Seems like this came at a good time, you’ve made so much progress, but without diving in full-time with the “gotta pay bills” urgency it would have been difficult to break through the plateau into having a product which generates revenue.

  • http://steamcatapult.com/ Dave Pinsen

    Good luck in the next phase, Mark, though I wouldn’t say your employer was a client of your start-up if your start-up (not you, as an employee) didn’t do any work for it. It was more of a financial backer of your entrepreneurial ventures.

    Now you are like Cortez, after he burned his ships. Time to conquer Mexico.

    Looking forward to meeting you at the cheeseburger summit.

  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

    Thanks Jared. My wife and I are a little worried about the layoff, so we have mixed feelings. If I can’t pick up
    - income (startup job!)
    - revenue(customers!)
    - funding(angels!)
    It may have serious family consequences (i.e. no kids until I do).

    It’s a hard feeling to describe. Priorities are rapidly changing.

    I know I have to upkeep some of the sample work we’ve done at Victus Media for potential backers, or as a reference (twitter’s api is changing so it’ll break in the next couple of weeks).

    Bigger startup jobs that look challenging and exciting are pretty much out of the picture as their hiring cycles take too long and have too many barriers to try and optimize the quality of their engineers. I don’t have that kind of time.

  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

    Good point, they’re really a client for a different type of work.

    The differences between me and Cortez, he burned the ships (I’m a realist I’d have hidden a small ship up the coast as a contingency), and the entire continent is blazing before me (economy is unhinged).

  • http://steamcatapult.com/ Dave Pinsen

    Also, Cortez had a technological advantage over his adversaries, along with the
    accidental equivalent of aMissionaria Protectiva.You have neither.

    ________________________________

  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel