Thank you for this. I don’t claim to understand all of the details of what happened, but feel I got the just of what you’re saying. I’m just so thankful to have been able to part of this experiment. Truly✌🏻
I’m not going to pretend to understand what I just read. I just know that POST of ALL the social media sites I joined and then deleted was the most engaging, knowledgeable, respectful, and supportive community of all. I can understand the growing pains and frustrations of a new start-up. Elon Musk has the money and power to influence those to kill such sites as POST. It doesn’t help his bottom line when people leave his business for another.
Loved what you were doing from the time you let me in, warts and all. I started engaging more on Post than I ever did on Twitter, because people on Twitter attacked each other go no reason other than the “joy of killing something”. Post was different. There are some communities like that on Substack but it is among paid subscribers to an author. I can’t afford to subscribe to everything! The Post community was just NICE in general. I’m going to miss it. I may be able to keep up a bit with some via Discord or other sites but I’m old enough to know “you can’t go home again.” It’s never the same. But, I’m glad we had Post while we did. Thanks.
The decision by Post to launch early, facing a sudden spike in user interest, is a vivid illustration of the critical, high-stakes decisions startups often confront. This scenario perfectly encapsulates the high-risk, high-reward nature of such decisions. Initially, launching prematurely might look like a potential deathblow, given the immediate challenges and risks involved. However, when viewed from a broader perspective, what seemed like a deathblow can actually turn into a setback that offers invaluable lessons and growth opportunities.
I really appreciate your candor in sharing Post’s journey, as it sheds light on the essential agility required in the startup world. It’s enlightening to see how what could initially be perceived as a catastrophic move may, over time, reveal itself as a crucial learning curve. This example not only highlights the need for swift decision-making but also the importance of resilience in facing the outcomes, good or bad. Thanks for providing such a clear and engaging explanation of these dynamics!
WORKS. Not unrelatedly, the first paragraph from the intended PM.
> 3 more paragraphs available. Howdy, thanks again. Post currently has 1) a working cash->points->cash system, 2) a remarkably valuable domain name, and 3) the brain trust of the coders, the rolodex of msm and related, and all who came from twitter due to Elon... which is most of the early adopters in my estimate. "That's plenty" to succeed imo, and I would not divest, as indeed I haven't. My first suggestion would be to keep the domain, add the heading "the place to post news", and ignore any "social" feature that doesn't add lube to the publish + consume "breaking news" business model.
I appreciate some insight into the internal mono/dialogues that I missed, and here's two thoughts: corporations aren't precious babies dying - they are tools that are not working, and I've mourned a few myself.
However my point is that I wrote that paragraph before you posted this and it's mostly on point: the central tool is the working micropayment system. What you have dear Sirs/Ma'ams is: an established currency in an overlooked market of exceedingly motivated consumers. The new tool exists, works, and is provably working. That it is a novel electronic currency only means monetary theory applies, economics, the utility of the goods versus what consumers can afford.
And you still own all that code/IP, and it's up and running right now.
And, as I understand it, the problem is revenue/operating costs.
Which leads to nigh priceless asset #2: the domain. If team drops all other pretenses/overheads and commits to being THE place to "post news" it's: clever af, honest, and a steps into the gap between MSM and Socials1.0 like xitter and facebook.
I will try hard to persuade you - and any investors - that the brand and codebase are in excellent shape, ripe for profitability, and limited mostly by trying to make a "news curation engine" fit into a "social media" prom dress.
I started (as discussed) a "Post.News 2.0 community sketchpad" thread on the Discord server (under "threads-misc" on the channels list), and hope to continue this conversation there!
at the end of the day, we can’t pay a big monthly bill with potential. the only real way for it to continue is for there to be massive growth or a huge revenue spike. 🫠
🤔🧐 Appreciate the explanation - as a (decades ago) techy I understand the dominoes analogy 👍 However, you have left out the MOST IMPORTANT "deathblow" - human nature & the current "instant gratification" aspect of it that has expanded in the last few years. Plus of course the alternative choices that some of those people got drawn into by their friends (e.g. Mastodon etc)
The early users who stayed while you "built the plane" saw the value of the transparency & engagement we got from your team - explaining stuff, incorporating feedback, and most of all ensuring it was a space free from Spam & Trolls. Speaking for myself, also most were excited to be in at the beginning & helping to build the community & the functionality that (for some) made it the ONLY place they went to each day for news & friendships etc. or to share their own work &/or thoughts.
However, the norm in this day & age is to expect INSTANT results & near perfection or else users seek it elsewhere in a never ending quest for the impossible. 🤷 Twitter may have descended into an overnight hell-hole, but up until then it was pretty functional & well developed, especially if you knew how to curate your interests to exclude most of the Trolls, so coming to a 70% developed site that didn't have the familiar functionality (and never would by deliberate design😁) plus also the glitches & bugs that should have been expected but were off-putting to the impatient (& unreasonable!), meant that by the time you were 💯 the impatient types had bailed! But those who were left were all-in & had developed communities within the Post community that we are now grieving for along with your team. 💔
Would those impatient/unreasonable types have been happy with your first iteration of 💯🤔 I doubt it - until there was a complete re-write & transition to the new software, people were grumbling about things that weren't to their liking, and going off to see if they could find "perfection" somewhere else - trouble is even if they didn't, they probably didn't check back into Post to realise how much it had improved & developed 👀🤷
Some in the comments since the notice Post was closing down mentioned the lack of promotion to attract new users... Can't comment on that personally as I don't know if you did or didn't, plus things like being interviewed in tech publications etc to raise awareness. Don't know, don't care now because the journey is over for those of us who came to Post as an essential place to connect with our people - the upside is I will have more time in my day for other things 😜😁
agree almost entirely with you. we launched as a web app which automatically put many twitter users off. tack on the impatience factor and it was never going to be a full 400k grab with what we offered on day 1.
there were a lot of things we couldn't do with the direction we took during our first year, that in hindsight would probably have made enough of a difference to put us in some kind of other univers. but whether or not it would be a successful universe? only the Watcher knows
It's been gone for awhile and I still miss it every day. It was one of the best experiments I ever was a part of and still no place quite like it. It worked so well for the people who were apart of it. Twitter is a disaster and so glad I'd left it even before I found Post. Facebook gets worse every day and finding accurate news is almost impossible. I'm trying Bluesky but I just don't feel it's a fit although better than most. I doubt that I'll spend much time there. There is just nothing like Post anywhere. It was a great thing while it lasted and I hope someday you'll try again. Thankful for Substack
I'm thankful for the opportunity to have been a part of POST since 11/28/22, it was a wonderful, magical, thrilling experience! All the extraordinary work you and the team did to give us a year and a half of incredible camaraderie and civility is greatly appreciated. It's so hard to say goodbye, but it's definitely a happy memory that will never be forgotten.
Thank you for this. I don’t claim to understand all of the details of what happened, but feel I got the just of what you’re saying. I’m just so thankful to have been able to part of this experiment. Truly✌🏻
Thank you Suzanne! It was the an amazing honor to serve our community. Very thankful to have Discord online for our Posties.
Try this one https://discord.gg/8eapNnq6
I’m not going to pretend to understand what I just read. I just know that POST of ALL the social media sites I joined and then deleted was the most engaging, knowledgeable, respectful, and supportive community of all. I can understand the growing pains and frustrations of a new start-up. Elon Musk has the money and power to influence those to kill such sites as POST. It doesn’t help his bottom line when people leave his business for another.
Loved what you were doing from the time you let me in, warts and all. I started engaging more on Post than I ever did on Twitter, because people on Twitter attacked each other go no reason other than the “joy of killing something”. Post was different. There are some communities like that on Substack but it is among paid subscribers to an author. I can’t afford to subscribe to everything! The Post community was just NICE in general. I’m going to miss it. I may be able to keep up a bit with some via Discord or other sites but I’m old enough to know “you can’t go home again.” It’s never the same. But, I’m glad we had Post while we did. Thanks.
appreciate you. the postie spirit will live on.
*for no reason
The decision by Post to launch early, facing a sudden spike in user interest, is a vivid illustration of the critical, high-stakes decisions startups often confront. This scenario perfectly encapsulates the high-risk, high-reward nature of such decisions. Initially, launching prematurely might look like a potential deathblow, given the immediate challenges and risks involved. However, when viewed from a broader perspective, what seemed like a deathblow can actually turn into a setback that offers invaluable lessons and growth opportunities.
I really appreciate your candor in sharing Post’s journey, as it sheds light on the essential agility required in the startup world. It’s enlightening to see how what could initially be perceived as a catastrophic move may, over time, reveal itself as a crucial learning curve. This example not only highlights the need for swift decision-making but also the importance of resilience in facing the outcomes, good or bad. Thanks for providing such a clear and engaging explanation of these dynamics!
> in a DM
Was my original plan, this is better.
> micropayment
WORKS. Not unrelatedly, the first paragraph from the intended PM.
> 3 more paragraphs available. Howdy, thanks again. Post currently has 1) a working cash->points->cash system, 2) a remarkably valuable domain name, and 3) the brain trust of the coders, the rolodex of msm and related, and all who came from twitter due to Elon... which is most of the early adopters in my estimate. "That's plenty" to succeed imo, and I would not divest, as indeed I haven't. My first suggestion would be to keep the domain, add the heading "the place to post news", and ignore any "social" feature that doesn't add lube to the publish + consume "breaking news" business model.
I appreciate some insight into the internal mono/dialogues that I missed, and here's two thoughts: corporations aren't precious babies dying - they are tools that are not working, and I've mourned a few myself.
However my point is that I wrote that paragraph before you posted this and it's mostly on point: the central tool is the working micropayment system. What you have dear Sirs/Ma'ams is: an established currency in an overlooked market of exceedingly motivated consumers. The new tool exists, works, and is provably working. That it is a novel electronic currency only means monetary theory applies, economics, the utility of the goods versus what consumers can afford.
And you still own all that code/IP, and it's up and running right now.
And, as I understand it, the problem is revenue/operating costs.
Which leads to nigh priceless asset #2: the domain. If team drops all other pretenses/overheads and commits to being THE place to "post news" it's: clever af, honest, and a steps into the gap between MSM and Socials1.0 like xitter and facebook.
I will try hard to persuade you - and any investors - that the brand and codebase are in excellent shape, ripe for profitability, and limited mostly by trying to make a "news curation engine" fit into a "social media" prom dress.
I started (as discussed) a "Post.News 2.0 community sketchpad" thread on the Discord server (under "threads-misc" on the channels list), and hope to continue this conversation there!
https://discord.gg/2D5w6bHw
at the end of the day, we can’t pay a big monthly bill with potential. the only real way for it to continue is for there to be massive growth or a huge revenue spike. 🫠
🤔🧐 Appreciate the explanation - as a (decades ago) techy I understand the dominoes analogy 👍 However, you have left out the MOST IMPORTANT "deathblow" - human nature & the current "instant gratification" aspect of it that has expanded in the last few years. Plus of course the alternative choices that some of those people got drawn into by their friends (e.g. Mastodon etc)
The early users who stayed while you "built the plane" saw the value of the transparency & engagement we got from your team - explaining stuff, incorporating feedback, and most of all ensuring it was a space free from Spam & Trolls. Speaking for myself, also most were excited to be in at the beginning & helping to build the community & the functionality that (for some) made it the ONLY place they went to each day for news & friendships etc. or to share their own work &/or thoughts.
However, the norm in this day & age is to expect INSTANT results & near perfection or else users seek it elsewhere in a never ending quest for the impossible. 🤷 Twitter may have descended into an overnight hell-hole, but up until then it was pretty functional & well developed, especially if you knew how to curate your interests to exclude most of the Trolls, so coming to a 70% developed site that didn't have the familiar functionality (and never would by deliberate design😁) plus also the glitches & bugs that should have been expected but were off-putting to the impatient (& unreasonable!), meant that by the time you were 💯 the impatient types had bailed! But those who were left were all-in & had developed communities within the Post community that we are now grieving for along with your team. 💔
Would those impatient/unreasonable types have been happy with your first iteration of 💯🤔 I doubt it - until there was a complete re-write & transition to the new software, people were grumbling about things that weren't to their liking, and going off to see if they could find "perfection" somewhere else - trouble is even if they didn't, they probably didn't check back into Post to realise how much it had improved & developed 👀🤷
Some in the comments since the notice Post was closing down mentioned the lack of promotion to attract new users... Can't comment on that personally as I don't know if you did or didn't, plus things like being interviewed in tech publications etc to raise awareness. Don't know, don't care now because the journey is over for those of us who came to Post as an essential place to connect with our people - the upside is I will have more time in my day for other things 😜😁
agree almost entirely with you. we launched as a web app which automatically put many twitter users off. tack on the impatience factor and it was never going to be a full 400k grab with what we offered on day 1.
there were a lot of things we couldn't do with the direction we took during our first year, that in hindsight would probably have made enough of a difference to put us in some kind of other univers. but whether or not it would be a successful universe? only the Watcher knows
It's been gone for awhile and I still miss it every day. It was one of the best experiments I ever was a part of and still no place quite like it. It worked so well for the people who were apart of it. Twitter is a disaster and so glad I'd left it even before I found Post. Facebook gets worse every day and finding accurate news is almost impossible. I'm trying Bluesky but I just don't feel it's a fit although better than most. I doubt that I'll spend much time there. There is just nothing like Post anywhere. It was a great thing while it lasted and I hope someday you'll try again. Thankful for Substack
I'll be sharing news soon :)
I'm thankful for the opportunity to have been a part of POST since 11/28/22, it was a wonderful, magical, thrilling experience! All the extraordinary work you and the team did to give us a year and a half of incredible camaraderie and civility is greatly appreciated. It's so hard to say goodbye, but it's definitely a happy memory that will never be forgotten.
Thank you, Noel, for trying. Post was the best. Maybe in the future?