What is Digg?40 Comments
- PAJK, on 10/12/2007, -3/+25How about the ACTUAL lessons learned from Kiko? http://jkanstyle.com/2006/08/17/actual-lessons-from-kiko/
- deodand, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13
"However, one of our hires turned out to be a huge mistake: he basically spun his wheels, didn’t complete anything, and left for months at a time without word."
If you let people simply wander off for months without a word, you are as big a failure as a manager as your calendar is as a "product." If I was one of your "investors" I would be suing you for gross negligence and incompetence.
Then again, anyone who invested in such an asinine idea in the first place deserves to lose all their money. People already have calendars on their computers, on their portal pages, on their phones. They do not need some crappy website bookmark no one ever heard of.
Good riddance to a bad idea. - rrwhite, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10It would have been more insightful if it was actually based on insights from us, the Kiko team, on why things didn't work out. But it does have some quality points about what not to do even if they don't exactly apply to our situation.
- ziggystardust, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8All speculation. No facts. I agree with rrwhite. I want to hear from Kiko not someone speculating and blaming Google. If that were true then there are 1000 sites that should just give up according to this article.
- sublime, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I just tried the demo and I have to say that I like it more than Google Calendar.
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Thing is, the online calendar market is pretty much saturated (google calendar, 30 boxes, -- hell, Yahoo calendar has hundreds of thousands of users, and it's not even AJAX-based). A failed company in a saturated market isn't worth much.
- rrwhite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3We didn't have a very good one obviously or we wouldnt' we doing this :)
That's why the auction is all about the software and the "visibility" of that software, meaning that there is still an opportunity to generate a solid business model with Kiko. We just don't know what that is (which is why it's 50k and not 5 million).
sigh, I guess I need to chime in with not only my eulogy (done) but my post-mortem on the whole situation. That way you guys have 2/3rd's of the Kiko team to tear apart :) - sadistical, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7That is your opinion, but the opinion of the author states that Google crushed them. Unfortunately, opinions on Digg really don't matter, just how many Diggs+ you get. Soon this post will be grayed out and hidden.
- montage, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Meh, how were these guys planning on making money? Subscription? Ad based? for a Calendar? No wonder they crashed and burned
- gmillerd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Bummer, that product rocked. The demo was outstanding.
- jknevitt, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5I think the best part in all this is the Item Specifics on the ebay page:
"Condition: Used" - Kogut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Wow. How about describing your BUSINESS MODEL on ebay? I guess they are trying to find another sucker venture capitalist who will invest in a company with no business model. I envy these guys for their risk-taking and their creativity, but I wonder if they have learned anything at all...
- Sartori, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Volume.
:) - sadistical, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Competition. Google knows what they are doing. Kiko does not. They plain out said they didn't know how to hire people, work in the right atmosphere, move a product to market in a timely manner, have organization, etc.
- mikejohnston, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1P.S. When did common sense become the exception and not the rule?
- mikejohnston, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1*just* ... comment would not edit. sorry
- rrwhite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Very accurate point. I'm writing up my post mortem as we speak and I'm covering those two issues.
- chesterjosiah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Dude, that's messed up. Kiko wasn't a bad idea. Having a calendar on the web is actually a really good idea. Millions of people use an online calendar.
Sheesh. - dognose, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"then continue!"
damn this editing timeout. - mikejohnston, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1National recession? WTF are you talking about? The tech industry is growing. How about jsut a bad idea. Hey I have a new Web 2.0 idea, let's build an operating system using Ruby on Rails! Cool for the sake of cool always fails.
- aboyd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm not excusing that, but I will note that it sounds like the company was virtual -- everyone working from home offices. If that's true, then it is possible for a person to get a project, ignore it, delay people who ask about it, and then when the project is due a month later, shrug and say "need more time." Rinse & repeat. Of course, that would normally get you fired, but if it's the first time you've been an employer, it's not so easy. You might second-guess yourself.
I've had many good employees over the years. But the first time I had a bad one, I spent months trying to "fix" -- partly because HR told me I had to! They wanted tons of documentation, and details on how I tried to reform the employee. But also, I myself wasn't sure the employee was bad. Maybe it was the previous manager who made the employee miserable. You know?
It was not until I had to fire my second bad employee that I realized I was being too much of a navel-gazer. There is very little introspection needed with a bad employee. You just fire 'em. I didn't understand that at first. I thought, "I'll ruin this person's career." And "maybe I should try to be a better manager, and see if that helps!" Unfortunately, sometimes you have to learn for yourself that a bad employee will stay bad no matter what you do. Only then do you learn what Justin has learned: hire slow, fire fast. - dognose, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Build incrementally" that should be the lesson for most web based companies. It really shouldn't take much to start your site. If you start making enough money with it to continue, the continue.
They built this huge calendar interface with little traffic coming to it. 40k users a month is not a lot. I generally value small sites at $1 - 10 / user / day. A site getting 1,400 users a day would be worth about $1,400 - $14k. - rrwhite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1My favorite part as well :)
- pinuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0www.duggmirror.com
- rrwhite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0My rebuttal of sorts
http://height1percent.com/articles/2006/08/18/actual-lessons-from-kiko
Rich, Interface Designer Kiko.com - talledega500, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Calendar Creator for Windows. 3.1 Who cares.
- rrwhite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Didn't mean to post this all the way down here, vote the parent down please.
- cprincipe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1They forgot to name reason #1: no revenue stream
It's 1999 all over again! - sadistical, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Yes.
No. My name is Heywood Jablowmei. - rrwhite, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1My rebuttal:
http://height1percent.com/articles/2006/08/18/actual-lessons-from-kiko
Rich
Interface Designer
Kiko.com - merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3@sadistical: ....right,
And is it also ironic if a company that gets crushed by Microsoft uses the Windows operating system?
If you answer yes, I have one more question for you:
Is your first name Alanis? - acsseo, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4This is a great break down of why Kiko, a Web 2.0 calendar service failed. Biggest take away from this for startups is, watch out for Google.
- Pattyo13, on 05/14/2009, -2/+1ever heard of the newspaper? i wonder what they think of digg?
- lamestory, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0seriously. a business around something Outlook/Exchange and about a dozen other OPEN SOURCE [horde] packages do well? Get real.
It's bad when you crash and have to blame it on Google and not an actual condition like the market collapsing or a national recession. - sadistical, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2What was your plan B?
EDIT: Just saw PAJK's post. Going to answer my own question. - PAJK, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3@sadistical: Why? Google is not in the equation here.
- PAJK, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3That comment has gotta be some kinda joke. It's a Web service they're selling, a company. Not a Kiko account, but Kiko ITSELF. It's a goddamn steal.
- sadistical, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2re: http://jkanstyle.com/2006/08/17/actual-lessons-from-kiko/
Ironic that he has a gmail account. - calimoro, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0Useful reasons why a web 2.0 start-up in 2006 may fail.
- enalios, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2wasn't this here yesterday... or am I getting my news sites mixed up?
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