Closing the dream
When I was seventeen, I wrote a small program on Applesoft BASIC that helped me memorize words in Spanish. When I went to college, I rewrote it, developing a new version for Mac, which added support for Japanese. In the last year of college, I wrote two more versions - one for a graduation project, and another one for a course in which the basic foundations of five ancient languages were studied (I just adored the professor, although he was a bit eccentric). I began to learn French, and of course once again rewrote my application. It turns out funny: every time I started learning a new language, I first spent a lot of time rewriting my application to increase vocabulary - instead of devoting this time to the languages themselves!
When I left game dev ten years ago, I had some free time that I decided to spend on studying web development - and for this purpose I used my old project again. All his previous versions were intended only for my personal use, someone else simply could not use it. Therefore, this time I decided to do everything differently and release the “for people” version; by doing so, I finally wanted to start with my constant rewriting of the application from scratch.
I was not going to turn the development of a single application into a company - it happened by itself. Yes, I included in my plans these three weeks of “rest” after leaving my last job, but everything further was not in my plans. All my knowledge for a decade and a half embodied in a product for which no one was going to pay. Think for yourself, who in our day wants to pay for cards with pictures and text? Of course, maybe a couple of people will be there, but this is not even enough for instant noodles. Thus, I had only one way out - armed with a marker, go back to the board, and make the product that will be of interest to the market.
The following idea came to my mind. The teachers; they could receive the application for free, and their students had to pay - and everyone would benefit from it! The teachers do the homework, the students are cramming the words, and I get the money. And yet, the teachers themselves didn’t look for me, so I had to make quite a few “cold” calls. One hundred calls to talk with ten people and hold one personal presentation, and often in another state. I put on a suit, got into the car and drove to show my web application. I made stands at presentations from the ACTFL, IALLT, and even at a meeting of military linguists. In those days, my parents saw me more than ever, because their home was located near a large number of different colleges. I was content with cheap motels, and slowly but surely collected a list of customers. There were not so many of them - more precisely, they were never enough. Harvard, Yale, Brown, and a few other top places were also among my clients, but I never managed to get into the “bull's eye” - to get a school of a state with ten thousand students.
')
I did integrate with PayPal and Authorize.net; I spent a lot of my time inputting data - after all, I promised the teachers that I would enter all their dictionaries into the system and record audio for all words, and I’ll manage to do it before the fall semester begins - and as a result, the whole summer fell out of my life completely. At the last minute, bad news came from Princeton, where the Spanish teachers refused my services - and this made me take a different look at how much people really appreciated my efforts. Nevertheless, everyone else went with me to the end, and eventually became one of the best clients - although, with very few exceptions, one language class was not enough to get a whole school.
Service grew slowly, but this process was going too, too slowly. My savings came to an end, I stopped meeting girls, I ate some instant soups and peanut butter sandwiches, borrowed money from my parents, lost weight and suffered from insomnia for a month and a half.
In 2006, I began negotiations with a potential buyer of the service, but because of the snowstorm we had to cancel an important meeting. Suddenly, at the same time, my last boss, who was interested in my project, got in touch. Therefore, you guessed it, I preferred to go the second way.
We found a business angel, attracted more people to the project and tried to give everything in full. I will not go into details, I will say simply - we made terrible mistakes and did not achieve good luck. After two and a half years of attempts, our money ran out, and there was an economic crisis in the world. I had no choice but to get a job.
I continued to be engaged in a site - and what should I do, close it? He brought some money - a little, but at least enough to pay for himself. By that time, I was already married, but we still didn’t have children, so I had enough time for the site after work. I continued to engage in my service; the teachers who used it became my friends — now for me they were no longer mere users — they were real people I had known for years. They had no alternatives, and what would they do without me? I didn’t want to feel like a producer on television, forced to close a cool series just because it didn’t bring proper profits. But what about the fans? What answer would I have met their letters?
And then my father died. An alarm clock rang in my head that should have worked much earlier. I decided to close the site, but first give everyone the opportunity to learn about this event. The closure was postponed until the end of the year, I put an alert on the site and tried my best to ignore the letters in which I was begged not to do so. And at the last minute, I still changed my mind. And what if everything could be completely wrong? What if the site brought more money? I raised the price for students and started collecting fees from teachers (which I didn’t want to do). Maybe I could somehow give the project a chance for commercial success? The teachers breathed with relief - they were happy, because they paid for all the districts of the schools. However, my solution brought only new problems. Permanent checks, credit cards, orders, the temporary inclusion of accounts in anticipation of the arrival of checks - it ate more and more of my time. And then I had a second child.
When you have children, you can afford to have exactly one hobby. Any attempt to take on more will result in ineffective self-deception and a waste of its time. Cooking healthy food is a hobby. Self-development is a hobby. Website support is a hobby. Blog articles are a hobby. Work at home is a hobby. If you want to do something well, then expect to do only one thing after the children go to bed. And all - no waste of time.
The time has come, and I set a new date. 30 June. I still linger on its closure, but only because I had to export the created dictionaries, and I still haven't gotten to it. And time is already ticking.
I would like my story to become both a confession and an apology to everyone, and a warning. Am I glad to be involved in this project? Yes, I am glad that I tried, and I am grateful to all the new knowledge about building a business. If I could turn back time, would I get involved in it again? Not. Perhaps I would have started another startup - but this project took too much of my time and brought a very painful experience. My love for the product itself could not help it become successful, but it saved me from its failure much earlier. My project was dying for a very long time - after all, I began to look for the current work, which I mentioned above, exactly five years ago - and today I don’t feel anything but light pain. Too much time has passed since the beloved chick grew up and flew out of the nest.
That's it, closing is on the threshold. The site will work for another month or two so that the teachers have time to download their materials from it, after which it will sink into oblivion. There are many other things that I would like to do when I have more time. Get in shape. Translate ド グ ラ マ グ ラ. Write a couple of applications for the iPhone and Android.
But first of all, I need to get up and go wash the plate.
Wordchamp
When I left game dev ten years ago, I had some free time that I decided to spend on studying web development - and for this purpose I used my old project again. All his previous versions were intended only for my personal use, someone else simply could not use it. Therefore, this time I decided to do everything differently and release the “for people” version; by doing so, I finally wanted to start with my constant rewriting of the application from scratch.
I was not going to turn the development of a single application into a company - it happened by itself. Yes, I included in my plans these three weeks of “rest” after leaving my last job, but everything further was not in my plans. All my knowledge for a decade and a half embodied in a product for which no one was going to pay. Think for yourself, who in our day wants to pay for cards with pictures and text? Of course, maybe a couple of people will be there, but this is not even enough for instant noodles. Thus, I had only one way out - armed with a marker, go back to the board, and make the product that will be of interest to the market.
The following idea came to my mind. The teachers; they could receive the application for free, and their students had to pay - and everyone would benefit from it! The teachers do the homework, the students are cramming the words, and I get the money. And yet, the teachers themselves didn’t look for me, so I had to make quite a few “cold” calls. One hundred calls to talk with ten people and hold one personal presentation, and often in another state. I put on a suit, got into the car and drove to show my web application. I made stands at presentations from the ACTFL, IALLT, and even at a meeting of military linguists. In those days, my parents saw me more than ever, because their home was located near a large number of different colleges. I was content with cheap motels, and slowly but surely collected a list of customers. There were not so many of them - more precisely, they were never enough. Harvard, Yale, Brown, and a few other top places were also among my clients, but I never managed to get into the “bull's eye” - to get a school of a state with ten thousand students.
')
I did integrate with PayPal and Authorize.net; I spent a lot of my time inputting data - after all, I promised the teachers that I would enter all their dictionaries into the system and record audio for all words, and I’ll manage to do it before the fall semester begins - and as a result, the whole summer fell out of my life completely. At the last minute, bad news came from Princeton, where the Spanish teachers refused my services - and this made me take a different look at how much people really appreciated my efforts. Nevertheless, everyone else went with me to the end, and eventually became one of the best clients - although, with very few exceptions, one language class was not enough to get a whole school.
Service grew slowly, but this process was going too, too slowly. My savings came to an end, I stopped meeting girls, I ate some instant soups and peanut butter sandwiches, borrowed money from my parents, lost weight and suffered from insomnia for a month and a half.
In 2006, I began negotiations with a potential buyer of the service, but because of the snowstorm we had to cancel an important meeting. Suddenly, at the same time, my last boss, who was interested in my project, got in touch. Therefore, you guessed it, I preferred to go the second way.
We found a business angel, attracted more people to the project and tried to give everything in full. I will not go into details, I will say simply - we made terrible mistakes and did not achieve good luck. After two and a half years of attempts, our money ran out, and there was an economic crisis in the world. I had no choice but to get a job.
I continued to be engaged in a site - and what should I do, close it? He brought some money - a little, but at least enough to pay for himself. By that time, I was already married, but we still didn’t have children, so I had enough time for the site after work. I continued to engage in my service; the teachers who used it became my friends — now for me they were no longer mere users — they were real people I had known for years. They had no alternatives, and what would they do without me? I didn’t want to feel like a producer on television, forced to close a cool series just because it didn’t bring proper profits. But what about the fans? What answer would I have met their letters?
And then my father died. An alarm clock rang in my head that should have worked much earlier. I decided to close the site, but first give everyone the opportunity to learn about this event. The closure was postponed until the end of the year, I put an alert on the site and tried my best to ignore the letters in which I was begged not to do so. And at the last minute, I still changed my mind. And what if everything could be completely wrong? What if the site brought more money? I raised the price for students and started collecting fees from teachers (which I didn’t want to do). Maybe I could somehow give the project a chance for commercial success? The teachers breathed with relief - they were happy, because they paid for all the districts of the schools. However, my solution brought only new problems. Permanent checks, credit cards, orders, the temporary inclusion of accounts in anticipation of the arrival of checks - it ate more and more of my time. And then I had a second child.
When you have children, you can afford to have exactly one hobby. Any attempt to take on more will result in ineffective self-deception and a waste of its time. Cooking healthy food is a hobby. Self-development is a hobby. Website support is a hobby. Blog articles are a hobby. Work at home is a hobby. If you want to do something well, then expect to do only one thing after the children go to bed. And all - no waste of time.
The time has come, and I set a new date. 30 June. I still linger on its closure, but only because I had to export the created dictionaries, and I still haven't gotten to it. And time is already ticking.
I would like my story to become both a confession and an apology to everyone, and a warning. Am I glad to be involved in this project? Yes, I am glad that I tried, and I am grateful to all the new knowledge about building a business. If I could turn back time, would I get involved in it again? Not. Perhaps I would have started another startup - but this project took too much of my time and brought a very painful experience. My love for the product itself could not help it become successful, but it saved me from its failure much earlier. My project was dying for a very long time - after all, I began to look for the current work, which I mentioned above, exactly five years ago - and today I don’t feel anything but light pain. Too much time has passed since the beloved chick grew up and flew out of the nest.
That's it, closing is on the threshold. The site will work for another month or two so that the teachers have time to download their materials from it, after which it will sink into oblivion. There are many other things that I would like to do when I have more time. Get in shape. Translate ド グ ラ マ グ ラ. Write a couple of applications for the iPhone and Android.
But first of all, I need to get up and go wash the plate.
Wordchamp
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/189404/
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