Comments on: Reflecting on Shizzow

By: Jason Harris

Jason Harris — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:42:01 +0000

Hey Dawn,

Thanks for your insights into early phase growth and proper of small startups.

I am happy Shizzow had a good run and you all have fans that are anxious to support you all in whatever is next!

-Jason

By: Dawn Foster

Dawn Foster — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:23:05 +0000

Thanks for all of the thoughts and comments about Shizzow. It was a fun ride

By: Gary Walter

Gary Walter — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:10:25 +0000

As one who poured five years of my life into a community service startup in Colorado Springs, and in the end turned it over to others, I feel your passion. We had such big dreams – and in the end, it just wasn’t sustainable. It was difficult to let go.

Like you, we had an awesome team – and we will be friends forever. I personally wanted to pull the plug, but wasn’t given that choice. Now the organization limps along – and it’s painful to watch from afar. The one good thing is that I got to move back to my hometown of Portland!

I was an early adopter of Brightkite, and therefore was slow to use Shizzow. Eventually I found it more useful due to my local friends. I’ve been a late adopter of Foursquare, mainly due to the fact they only recently added a bbPhone app (and the fact that Brightkite imploded on their recent UX/UI).

In many ways, you all can be proud – I believe Shizzow had a superior UI. But the folks at Foursquare (and others), figured out how to draw people in. Sometimes, it’s not the superior that survives.

Good job to all of you – thanks for the write up!

By: Don Park

Don Park — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:47:43 +0000

Thanks for the thoughts. I agree with focusing on the user and starting simple with regards to legal structure. One thing that impressed me with the product – even though it took a while to get out and make changes, the site felt complete and polished from the start. I would have dropped the site restriction on cities – focus on a city for promotion but let anyone use the service from anywhere. Foursquare did the same thing and while its gone now, I think its unnecessarily limiting.

By: David Abramowski

David Abramowski — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:45:49 +0000

Congratulations on taking the risk and giving Shizzow 100% of your time and attention. As entrepreneurs we must learn from our adventures which will set us up better for the next one. Thank you for sharing what you learned and hopefully I won’t make these mistakes when I bring my next project forward! Best of luck and hope to see you around soon.

…David