Comments on: Lessons Learned: Startup Failure Part 1 http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/01/lessons-learned-startup-failure-part-1.html Dealing with software projects in real life Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:07:34 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Pawel Brodzinski http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/01/lessons-learned-startup-failure-part-1.html#comment-2097 Pawel Brodzinski Fri, 06 Mar 2009 11:18:00 +0000 http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/01/lessons-learned-startup-failure-part-1.html#comment-2097 I can't agree on that one. We had a developer, a tester and support engineer, an administrator and product manager. And yes, all of us had managerial functions in our daily jobs, but it wasn't connected in any way in our roles in the startup. If it worked that way downshifting would never work. I can’t agree on that one. We had a developer, a tester and support engineer, an administrator and product manager. And yes, all of us had managerial functions in our daily jobs, but it wasn’t connected in any way in our roles in the startup. If it worked that way downshifting would never work.

]]> By: Joanna Grzywna http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/01/lessons-learned-startup-failure-part-1.html#comment-2096 Joanna Grzywna Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:46:00 +0000 http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/01/lessons-learned-startup-failure-part-1.html#comment-2096 I think that the biggest mistake was the disproportion between the amount of technical people (only one developer) and business-oriented people in your team (all others). <br/><br/>When everyone is a manager, no one is a worker. I think that the biggest mistake was the disproportion between the amount of technical people (only one developer) and business-oriented people in your team (all others).

When everyone is a manager, no one is a worker.

]]> By: Pawel Brodzinski http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/01/lessons-learned-startup-failure-part-1.html#comment-2095 Pawel Brodzinski Thu, 22 Jan 2009 11:29:00 +0000 http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/01/lessons-learned-startup-failure-part-1.html#comment-2095 Overto was an auction aggregator. Since in Poland eBay was rather weak and we have strong local uction platform we thought there soon will be at least two big auction platforms. This would make a place for a service which aggregates information from different platforms to deliver more comprehensive results to users. That's a very brief story of Overto birth.<br/><br/>And about problems - there was a lot of data to gather. There are a few millions new auctions weekly in Poland. We were doing some time-consuming processing on gathered data so there wasn't a big time buffer we could use. With each downtime (the website worked but with no actual data it didn't make much sense to use it anyway) we had to wait until a backlog is cleared. Chances were good that by this time we had another issue to deal with - a bug in the code, on of auction platforms changing structure of their data, simple hardware malfunction or running out of disk space.<br/><br/>Once you enter the firefighting mode it's quite hard to sort things out.<br/><br/>And thanks for warm words about the post. There will be some more soon. Overto was an auction aggregator. Since in Poland eBay was rather weak and we have strong local uction platform we thought there soon will be at least two big auction platforms. This would make a place for a service which aggregates information from different platforms to deliver more comprehensive results to users. That’s a very brief story of Overto birth.

And about problems – there was a lot of data to gather. There are a few millions new auctions weekly in Poland. We were doing some time-consuming processing on gathered data so there wasn’t a big time buffer we could use. With each downtime (the website worked but with no actual data it didn’t make much sense to use it anyway) we had to wait until a backlog is cleared. Chances were good that by this time we had another issue to deal with – a bug in the code, on of auction platforms changing structure of their data, simple hardware malfunction or running out of disk space.

Once you enter the firefighting mode it’s quite hard to sort things out.

And thanks for warm words about the post. There will be some more soon.

]]> By: Paul Marculescu http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/01/lessons-learned-startup-failure-part-1.html#comment-2094 Paul Marculescu Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:36:00 +0000 http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/01/lessons-learned-startup-failure-part-1.html#comment-2094 This kind of posts are true gold for startup entrepreneurs. :)<br/>Thanks for the advices, Pawel.<br/><br/>What kind of service did Overto provide?<br/><br/>You mention that you were spending the majority of your time trying to keep the service running. <br/>What were the causes of so frequent or long downtimes? This kind of posts are true gold for startup entrepreneurs. :)
Thanks for the advices, Pawel.

What kind of service did Overto provide?

You mention that you were spending the majority of your time trying to keep the service running.
What were the causes of so frequent or long downtimes?

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