{"id":43293,"date":"2023-10-20T15:27:32","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/why-i-decided-to-shut-down-my-award-winning-startups-app-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:27:32","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:27:32","slug":"why-i-decided-to-shut-down-my-award-winning-startups-app-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/why-i-decided-to-shut-down-my-award-winning-startups-app-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I decided to shut down my award-winning startup’s app – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
This week I turned off the life support for Backpack, my three-year experiment into bettering K-12 education through consistent communication between students, parents and teachers.<\/p>\n
You won\u2019t find much on the internet about the app – it only gained substantial traction in the last eight months of its life.<\/p>\n
Backpack received a grant from the University of Sydney Union\u2019s startup incubator, it won the inaugural Lenovo Choice Award for student-led innovation, it was listed on Product Hunt, received media attention locally and internationally, multiple VCs asked me to pitch them and I ultimately raised funding from Telstra’s muru-D.<\/p>\n
The consequences of my decision to shut down are large (at least, for a startup). Backpack was beyond the MVP stage\u200a\u2014\u200ait was already generating revenue from real customers, and stopping now means I am throwing away more than $100,000 of secured contracts and pipeline opportunities.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not to mention the financial and technical debt incurred during the product\u2019s late-stage development and the company\u2019s now-damaged reputation with former customers.<\/p>\n
Backpack didn\u2019t fail because the problem we were chasing was non-existent or because the idea was stupid. There are plenty of parents that have no idea what their sons and daughters are doing at school.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t due to lack of resources or market demand. It wasn\u2019t even because I had lost two founders in two months, bringing the app\u2019s development to a major standstill.<\/p>\n
I pulled the plug on Backpack because I wasn\u2019t doing it for myself anymore.<\/p>\n
I started Backpack as a high school student, building an iPad app that helped me organise my studies. This is a very simple premise; one that can be easily understood by many.<\/p>\n
By the time I entered muru-D, Backpack was no longer the student-led, student-focused app it once was.<\/p>\n
Now I was promising continuous reporting for parents, integration with other tech systems for teachers and automatic notifications for school administrators.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t even know what I was selling anymore.<\/p>\n
My time was being spent developing B2B relationships that I hated working on and trying to deliver value to stakeholders that I share zero empathy with.<\/p>\n
I was trying to please everyone except for the one group that I actually gave two shits about: the students.<\/p>\n
During the first week of muru-D, I was asked the following questions:<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t answer any of them.<\/p>\n
Six weeks later, and after dropping Backpack, I now have a strong understanding of where I want my company to go, and what motivates me on a daily basis.<\/p>\n
My biggest takeaway from Backpack is that, although startups are constantly changing in the search for new customers, you should never build something just because others are asking for it.<\/p>\n
Soon, I\u2019ll reveal my new project to the world. I\u2019m excited to be starting from scratch again on a B2C product that will genuinely impact people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n
Plus, I get to build something for students again.<\/p>\n
This piece was originally published on Medium.<\/em><\/p>\n Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook,<\/em> Twitter,<\/em> LinkedIn<\/em> and<\/em> Soundcloud.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week I turned off the life support for Backpack, my three-year experiment into bettering K-12 education through consistent communication<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43293"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}