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Apr 28, 2008

Hard work. · by David Donald

A few weeks ago in the shower, I had a harebrained idea for a startup. The startup would be a website that helps you remember the name of the song stuck in your head.

Later that day, over the course of a 30 minute chat with Rafi, we both came to the conclusion that the idea had a bad business model (the part about making money), and decided to immediately shut down operations and liquidate the assets. Fail fast!

But before we did that, we had done some preliminary market research to find potential competitors. One of these competitors was WatZatSong.

Fast forward to today, and I notice that a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend on LinkedIn is an employee at WatZatSong. I quickly shared this new development with Rafi. This conversation ensued:

Rafi: This coincidence reminds me of Curb Your Enthusiasm for some reason. Now one of us would say something really rude to him about his site.

Me: Then later have to attempt to take it back

Rafi: Right, because we need something from him or Jamie. “No, we love the interface. I didn’t say it was garish, I said it was vibrant and charming!”

Me: Then a second later, assuming he is out of earshot, “God, I HATE that name!”

Me: OK, that name does seriously bother me. It’s like something that a character in a 1920s newspaper comic would say. And then say 23 skiddoo!

After which I felt compelled to demonstrate.

Katzenjammer Kids


So the end result of my momentary entrepreneurial fervor turned out to be a hastily edited scan of an early 20th century comic strip, obliquely dissing a company that would only become a competitor if I ever got the gumption to build a real product.

Being an entrepreneur is hard work, folks.

Comments for "Hard work."

  1. waking up is hard to do


    — sankofa    Apr 29, 08:14 AM   

  2. What if you created a website that offers up hundreds of other interesting websites broken up by genre and potential commerce? You could have reviewers and banner ads rented out to Fortune 500s.


    — Jay B    Apr 29, 03:43 PM   

  3. Better yet, what if I created a website that sells pet accessories and supplies direct to consumers!


    — David    Apr 29, 07:40 PM   

  4. Thanks for your enthusiasm: we are convinced to have a great project and the company is developing well.
    Try it!


    — Phil Jeudy    Apr 29, 09:07 PM   

  5. This post isn’t non-white enough (some might say).


    — dante severe    May 4, 12:18 PM   

  6. This reminds me of our ventures in online porn, where we made millions.

    ...of dumb lazy mistakes.


    — Thirtyseven    May 17, 07:30 PM