May 26, 2007, at 01:19 AM
Articles /

MyArtix

A few month ago I wrote a full article inspired by Paul Graham's book Hackers and Painters and more specifically his Artix experience ... lost it all in a major hard disk failure doubled with a failed backup procedure! This will be all about learning from failures. --Eugene

Disclaimer

I have a lot of admiration for Paul Graham, not because of his skills (a true blue hacker, I have read, and a member of the LISP hall of fame) nor his achievements (Yahoo Store, Y Combinator) nor his money (selling to Yahoo rarely leaves you penniless). When I read PG it feels like something I could have written myself, most of the time we think alike and narcisism is a sound base for admiration to grow from :P.

Artix

In his book (or in one of the many essay published on his website, it is in Why smart people have bad ideas), PG mentions his first venture into the startup world. Artix was meant to be an online platform for art galleries. He loved painting and knew how to get things done with a computer (he still do by the way) and he did. Did art galleries need him? Have you ever read anything about Artix?

In my words, the lesson he learnt from the experience (the failure) is that you've got to know what you are after. Striking it rich (really very rich) or doing something you really love. Managing one goal is hard enough, pursuing both is a recipe for disaster.

He also quotes his father at one point in the book telling him Where there is muck there is brass!. Going for the hard and boring stuff increases one chances of scoring the gold.

Man did I wish I read all this before (not sure it would have changed anything but ...)!

BoardKulture

My first go at starting up an online business was {BK}.

Genesis

After leaving Australia in June 99, I went on a 6 months surfing trip (Australia, Indonesia, Europe). Ended up penniless so applied for a job with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) which I got into pretty easily.

The worst time of my life, boring with a capital B, full of people full of themself, noone I could look up to thinking that's where I want to be etc. It is probably too harsh a judgment in retrospect.

The truth is, my heart and soul were still in the surf (still are :P). So I wanted to do something that would allow me to be in the surf when I wanted to (when it is on, you can't press a button for Huey to send swell your way).

Concept

Why not create an online webzine about surfing, snowboarding and skateboarding, which would be community driven, using and translating articles from the best magazines in the world (I thought/think the French press was dull compared to the Australian publications) ... all about passion. Where is the money? Who cares?

Revenue

Of course, we failed to generate sufficient revenue stream. I managed to get some cash in writing articles about surf comps in Europe and shooting some video (which I sold to one of my competitor: Agoride).

I got to hang with all the right people and surf a lot. I met many fascinating people but more self absorbed individuals who ... oh well no point dwelling on it. I had tons of fun but I failed miserably.

Way out

I ended up working for the main player in that field in France (Riding Zone), who had been bought by France Telecom.

It was a way to turn the {BK} crash into something positive but after a few months there I realized it would not get me anywhere, plus I disagreed completely with the way they were handling the business.

I left to work in IT and banking (better money :P). A few month later Riding Zone was closed down by Wanadoo, I wasn't so wrong about the way they were handling the business ;).

XSBar

My second online venture is XSBar. A toolbar for IE that's making browsing through sequences of pictures stored on the internet, a breeze!

Genesis

IT in the banking world got me a 6 months contract with SGAM after which I had every intention to go back to Australia for some time if not forever. I did what I was assigned to do in the space of 2 months and had nothing else to do (combination of misunderstandings and legitimate fund-manager paranoia (the assistant fund manager who got me the job wanted his position or at least equivalent)). Sitting in front of a computer all day doing nothing is not my cup of tea, I have got too much imagination for that!

Concept

I thought about creating a tool that would make looking at sequences of pictures stored on the web easier by getting rid of the constraints put in place by webmasters. Basically most images one sees in web pages are stored somewhere on a server and accessible with a web browser. Why not short-circuit the web pages and go straight to the source of information and browse through the sequences easily. A toolbar for IE called XSBar!

After the {BK} failure I had my eyes on the cash box. I wanted to sell the tool. Not being sure how it would go I figured I had to have alternatives so decided that, in order to leave my options open, I would store the URL of all the images viewed using the toolbar (respecting users privacy obviously). I had the gut feeling it would mostly be used for porn which I though would be some form of treat.

Experience

Selling Add-Ons is hard

A day or two after the official release of XSBar v 1.0 I sold a toolbar. It took 6 months to score a second sale. By then I knew the way to make money with it was not selling toolbars (add-ons don't sell that well) but I tried it all: limiting usage, adding visual annoyances etc.

So I decided to try to cash in on the thousands of URL of porn pictures I had collected. I stepped in another world. My first and only IRL contact with the online porn business was at a webmaster cocktail organized by CarpeDiem, hyper professional, nothing sleazy, strictly business.

I quickly realized that noone gave a damn about my toolbar, even if the technical feat impressed them (I was one of the first in the online porn world to have one ... but I was not coming from that world at all).

Promoting porn is easy

One way to make money is by promoting producers or content buyers services online and getting a share of what is bought through that channel.

I reorganized the XSBar website to offer a first class porn gallery browser, sorted by them to target efficiently the ads I would display to promote porn programs. And it worked but ...

... looking at thousand of porn pictures everyday is no fun and the money is not that great unless you are running hundreds of site, or are a content producer / broadcaster (I had a couple of virtual conversation with couples doing the dirty online who were making surprisingly decent cash out of it, but I couldn't see myself doing it nor talking my wife into doing it either).

Letting it die

I decided to stop all programs and let XSBar die ... but the thing is stubborn. After nearly 2 years of total inactivity the user base is still growing (limited but growing) and my database of URLs is expanding (although many older ones are probably not valid anymore). Maybe one day I will revive it!

There is no way out ;)

actiphot

My third and latest failure is actiphot, a trial at blending sport passion (cf. {BK}) and images (cf. XSBar). Why not take pictures of people practicing/playing and sell them to them online? Let's develop a platform for sport photographers to sell pictures to quidams. I even bought a camera and took pictures myself to get the ball rolling (I enjoyed it and even think I am not bad at it).

This time again I had my eyes on the cash box but ...

Photographers are a pretty independent crew (and you need a lot of them to make money with a distribution platform) and not very adventurous (you've got to be to put your work online for distribution).

People are usually happy with a low res watermarked picture of themself they got for free on the internet, unless it is a great shot (which doesn't happen that often).

I dedicated a lot of time developing a cool platform which I managed to sell twice for other use (that's a success). I had to prove photographers that there was a way to make money using actiphot but failed to sell any of the pictures I took myself mostly because I sucked at letting people know I had a good shot of them when I did :(

What's next

Have I given up ... you bet I didn't. I don't know yet what will come next nor if it will be a success but there is no way I will stop trying!

Aquabumps is kind of {BK} meets actiphot at the hyper local level, as far as I know Eugene (yeah that's his name too) is pretty successful.

I believe in hyper local services!

After writing this piece, I created WhereNext and took a first step in that direction with IEforge, not quite the right step but I am learning by trials and errors.