We are shutting down Talkshow on December 1
In this postmortem from 2016, @coloneltcb candidly breaks down the dissolution of their startup, examining the fatal assumptions, misallocated resources, and market dynamics that led to its shutdown.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Early signals were often rationalized away instead of prompting an immediate pivot in distribution or pricing.
The psychological toll of running out of capital compounds operational friction in a solo or small team setup.
Key Antidote: Validate paying willingness before committing months to building sophisticated product features.
Community Debate Themes:
Community discussions on HN centered on identifying product-market fit early, avoiding vanity metrics, and the emotional recovery process after shutting down.
CATEGORY Postmortems & Failures →
HISTORICAL ERA Cloud & Mobile Era (2014–2019)
COMMUNITY SCORE 4 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 3 comments
People talk about how no one's downloading apps anymore, but I think it has more to do with events like this.
It's become easier to build apps nowadays, so the creators have less patience, they move on very easily. I'm guilty of this too. When something's not working out well, you start thinking "i could be spending my time working on something else that will do well. It will only take a couple of weeks, why am I wasting my time?"
From a user's point of view, they've been burned too many times to trust that their favorite app will stick around next year, so they invest less in the app, which is a downward spiral.
But the thing is these are all illusion. Today's fad is gone tomorrow. So you better work on something you believe in, instead of building "a messaging app with a twist" just because messaging apps are hot nowadays. Or building a "bot platform" because bots are hot. Or building an "AI stuff using Tensorflow" because everyone says they're the next big thing. They are not. If you trace back towards where all the hype originated, most of them are from some VCs or media pundits who are "looking for the next big thing", which is the worst possible direction you can start from.
Original announcement 6 months ago, for those wondering what this is about: https://medium.com/talkshow/talkshow-is-texting-in-public-c063b591596e ↗
I hope their new project is in the same space. Talkshow felt close but not quite at a great product/market fit.