Thought I Was Doing Everything Right… But I Did The Most Important Thing Wrong

AAnonymous ·March 12, 2015 ·5 answers

Do people want your planning to build?

That is the first question you have to answer. Talk to the market you’re targetting. Alot. I didn’t, even though I was told to by people who know better than me. And that was plain dumb. I went ahead and built our thingie. And now we’re flatlined. Nobody out in Internet land gives a s**t.

This truth is made far more important when you don’t have enough development or marketing dollars to be flexible and make an impact. We just didn’t have the bandwidth to execute our thingie properly.

I still believe our product is innovative and has a place as an enterprise app, but investors aren’t going to pay attention to a startup with such poor numbers, and there’s no money to iterate.

The brutal truth is dawning despite all our efforts…

5 answers from the community

AAnonymous· Mar 12, 2015

What exactly is the "thingie" that you went ahead and built - what does it do?

AAnonymous· Mar 17, 2015

Sorry! The Thingie is called Moovd. It's a web application that turns the words you input into text animations (basic kinetic typography with CSS3 contextual animations based on the words you enter. That's done via NLP). User adds choice of theme or music. Then we encode the web page and shoot it out to the user as a completed video. We have a free and premium versions and payment is by video rather than monthly sub.

You can check it out at https://app.getmoovd.com. If you email me at si@getmoovd.com, I'll send you some free credits.

My thought was that it would be a great way to make simple, striking videos at low cost. It tested well as video advertising content, but users just didn't want to write. They want someone else to do it for them.

AAnonymous· Mar 20, 2015

Well you have an extreme amount of competitors with more compelling products at the same price point. You shouldn't of asked the target market, you should have looked at the current market.

You might be able to do something with a cheaper price point, but your competitors aren't small and their products are incredibly compelling. I think you just dove into a saturated marketplace with no easily recognizable Unique Value Proposition.

AAnonymous· Mar 13, 2015

So what is it? If you want us (anonymous experts sitting behind a keyboard) to tell you honest feedback, you have to tell about your product/service/idea.

How far did you develop the idea? Just POC? Or the full program with all features?

If it's something technology related you can still try to sell the technology (/and maybe also patent it..) for some $$$.

AAnonymous· Mar 17, 2015

My apologies, anonymous expert :) It's in the wild so I don't know why I didn't. Just feeling my way around SA I guess.

The product is called Moovd. And you can try it out at https://app.getmoovd.com. If you email me at si@getmoovd.com, I'll shoot you some free credits.

It’s a full web application that turns the words you input into text animations (basic kinetic typography with CSS3 contextual animations based on the words you enter. That’s done via NLP). User adds choice of theme or music. Then we encode the web page and shoot it out to the user as a completed video. We have a free and premium versions and payment is by video rather than monthly sub.

My thought was that it would be a great way to make simple, striking videos at low cost. It tested well as video advertising content, but users just didn’t want to write. They want someone else to do it for them.

Any thoughts you have - most welcome.

Thought I Was Doing Everything Right… But I Did The Most Important Thing Wrong

5 answers from the community

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