I have observed that "keeping up with Jonases" may play a role here. My cousin that could easily afford it has bought it for some reason, then he's brother has bought it just because he had it - and the thing is, he could not easily afford it - and not even in the sense of why would you pay so much for a phone but could not easily afford an expense like that in general and he's bought it anyway just because he's brother had it.
I personally would not want to carry an even bigger phone in the pocket. I have an old S7 for 5 years now and I'm not looking forward to an upgrade because even the new non-foldable Samsungs are much bulkier (and probably nowhere near as durable - the phone is tougher than a brick - fell like 10 times on the hardest surfaces with no protection and only got a few scratches on the screen that are not visible when using the phone). By the way, anyone got recommendations for a new replacement?
> Instead of sweating competition, you can keep capturing more of your market quietly
Would you recommend this strategy to a non-niche / broad category B2C product? It would feel instinctive to just get it out there and leverage every opportunity there is to market it, within the budget.
I'm in similar situation, 26 y/o. I have worked on a product for 3 years after high school (I attended university briefly twice and dropped out), that time I was lucky to be funded by my parents. At 22 (2018) I pulled the plug on it after failing to get initial traction (although looking back there were many mistakes and I keep thinking, what if I did that different and that different etc.). Following that I got into freelancing and lived a normal life for 2 years, I moved out of my parents'.
Then 2 years later the pandemic happened - I moved back to my parents' since there was nothing to do in the city anyway. I picked up where I left off with that previous product idea and even consider trying it again. I only started because I thought I would be ready to re-launch it by the end of the year, but that did not work out. I actually started rewriting the product from scratch and with that I came upon a related, but a different idea which I think it could actually have a shot.
Again, underestimating the effort, I spent the entire 2021 working on it 30h/week, living cheap at my parents' only to get a very crude prototype and brutal realization in 2022 that I need at least some good 3,000h more, if not 4,000 to launch it. I decided I need to make some space for my life, but first I've had to change my job / freelancing gig, which worked ok to self-fund myself living low, but does not make sense at all for earning decent salary (decent for the industry) and making some savings to possibly bootstrap future efforts. I took as much work as I could for the first half of this year, so now I can work full-time for a few months on an open source project to boost my resume, then looking to get a full time job in 2023 and I'm out.
As for the product I was working on, I did not write it off completely, I still consider I could have a shot to launch it without major life sacrifices (at least for the most part), but it depends on how much money I would make at the new job (I live in a relatively low cost of living area, aiming to get a job at a richer country), but the launch date would be somewhere in 2026, it just feels like too much - I'm afraid the market may shrink severely in the next 5 - 10 years. I have a new more-long term idea which I think is timeless and does not depend on a particular market as much as that one, so my plan as of now is to work the day job for 5 - 6 years, gather as much savings possible, enjoy life a bit more and then quit and hit hard on that other idea (if it's still relevant). Meanwhile I consider developing a small open source project to fill the void of not owning something, I still plan to do some work in that time and keep sharp.
Having said that, I think it's a big dilemma in general because in the 20s we want to have time to enjoy life, but the 20s are also like the most likely time window when one can plant the seeds to gain financial independence for life. I imagine it will be much harder later, as responsibilities grow, maybe some health problems, maybe having a kid unexpectedly, energy decline. I realize that me saying "I will take a 6 year break" may have the second order consequence of never doing actually doing it. That's why I said I still want to do plenty of work and maybe work on an open source project, to not fall out of the game completely. Nevertheless, I can't neglect some things in my personal life either. I can't help but think that I flushed a big chunk of my 20s in the toilet and I need to fix it asap.
I don't know what was between him and his daughter but it's hard to comprehend how busy one can get. A guy in his position, I'm not surprised he would not have time for kids.
I remember it too. I think it's not purely the case you described in your first comment. We are talking bootstrapping here but they have poured 10M into it of their own money, which is not a bad funding round at all? The competing product was another startup, not a big co.
Also, they not only destroyed them on marketing, but the founder himself admitted that he noticed their product just got better over time plus they had core issues with their own product (no cross platform apps from the start, bugs, they had to rewrite all their clients) - so the competing offering was not sub-par, at least not in the long term and it turned out that the original product had issues before the competing product even arrived.
I'm curious though, are there any examples of a big corp cloning a small product and driving it out of existence? Or similar VC-backed vs. no VC-backed startups.
Someone once said "Startups don't die, they commit suicide".
I was working on a small bootstrapped product for some 3 years. I had great opportunity at the time, because I was still young and living with my parents and I didn't have to work for money at the time. I got some pushback after launch, but I was tired of the sacrifice and started freelancing and moved out to live on my own. I never formally declared that I quit, I just thought that I would do it in my off time. I had little imagination that this would practically meant that I'm quitting because I was not getting anything done with that approach. 2 years later, I decided to get back to it again. I started laying low, go back to living with my parents (this time I did earn money though), but I unlocked some 40h/week for my product experiments. After some 6 months of experimenting with the old idea and realizing of how horrible the code was, deciding to rewrite it from scratch, I came upon a related, but different idea that I have found actually to be useful myself and I saw just how superior it was to the previous idea and how it solved pretty much every problem with the old product. I also made many mistakes with the old product launch, that was just due to being too inexperienced (being too greedy with the price, not marketing to enough people - and of course, giving up way too quick).
I'm still working on the new product. Not sure if it will succeed in any way but I do not want to lose momentum. I'm learning tons. While working on the current idea, I have 2 new ideas for bigger products. I guess if it fails I will try the VC route with something new. BUT do I wish I could go back in time to the time when I stopped, I would be 2 years ahead and likely launching the new product now.
My story is of someone who did not succeed yet. If I persist and not die too soon (like literally die), my story will fall under "survivorship bias".
I personally would not want to carry an even bigger phone in the pocket. I have an old S7 for 5 years now and I'm not looking forward to an upgrade because even the new non-foldable Samsungs are much bulkier (and probably nowhere near as durable - the phone is tougher than a brick - fell like 10 times on the hardest surfaces with no protection and only got a few scratches on the screen that are not visible when using the phone). By the way, anyone got recommendations for a new replacement?