DISQUS

Boris Kraft · 1 year ago

Nate, I appreciate your decision and as we discussed earlier this week, knowing you as I do, I fully support it. Ever since we first met you couldn't really explain why what you do make sense from a market perspective; turns out you realized it did not. I am glad you did and excited to see you move on. You took the best and skipped the worst, which is slowly bleeding to death.

Best of luck, keep trying, keep learning. Thats what its all about.
- Boris

Jon Thornton · 1 year ago

Nate,

Sorry to hear about BricaBox. Been going through the same thing with ParkWhiz and I know it's not fun. Like everyone else has said, the experience of running a startup, *especially* a failed one, is invaluable. It will make your next venture that much better.

KristaNeher · 1 year ago

Nate

Sad to hear about BricaBox, I'm sure this was a tough decision.

Thanks again for being the Cincinnati ambassador to New York!!! Let us know the next time you're in town.

All the best!

- Krista

innonate · 1 year ago

Thanks Krista! Keep rocking Cincinnati! I miss it right about now.

kareemk · 1 year ago

Best of luck in your future adventures. Go get 'em.

Mel Kirk · 1 year ago

Hey Nate,

Such sad news about BricaBox - I loved it!!! I know that you'll go from strength to strength in future projects and I'm excited to see what you come up with next.

Really look forward to reading future blog posts about what contributed to your decision - after all that's how we learn the most right?

Anyway, good luck with everything and well done for having the courage to make what must have been a really tough decision.

Mel :)

cera · 1 year ago

Nate,

I've enjoyed talking with you and reading your blog/tweets/etc, and I am truly sorry to hear about "your baby". For me, the startup world is like being in school again ... only better because the failure is real. I'm sure you learned a lot from this experience, and I look forward to seeing what you do next. Best of luck, -Chris

Walt Ribeiro · 1 year ago

Nate - all my best to you man. It was great talking to you at Mashbash, and yes - you'll learn from all these things. Stay well.

internetcases · 1 year ago

Nate I have a good feeling that the best days are still ahead. Pretty clear you're making a terrific effort to gather information about this situation (I take issue with your word "failure") and that effort to evaluate will certainly pay off.

Marshall Kirkpatrick · 1 year ago

thanks for sharing these thoughts on the experience. i look forward to seeing what you do next!

GabeRivera · 1 year ago

Whoa, innonate's on Techmeme again! Good luck in whatever comes next. And save me a Bricabox mug, if you have one.

innonate · 1 year ago

Check off time #2!

Thanks Gabe. I may have to make mugs especially for you!

michaelgalpert · 1 year ago

cant wait for innonate 2.0!

I heard it has something to do with location based facebook apps...
can you confirm or deny this rumor senor nate?

Lee Semel · 1 year ago

Hey Nate, sorry to hear you're shutting it down. I'm sure you'll do well with whatever you decide to do next!

Tianlun Chen · 1 year ago

Nate:
Though I haven't used BricaBox before, I wish you the best luck!
Experience and hardtime are the tickets to success.
I haven't got the tickets yet, and congratulation to you for holding them firmly in hand.

Good luck!&Thank you for sharing your experience.

Laurent · 1 year ago

Must be hard to pull the plug.... congrats for that and good luck for the next venture !

Doctor_Subtilis · 1 year ago

Sad to hear :(

You should most definitely open-source Bricabox! I really think there is an interest in developing a content platform such as this.

Jeff Frese · 1 year ago

Great Postmortem comments. Very insightful, I agree 100%. Looking forward to innonate 2.0 or MasterNate

fanless · 1 year ago

This post bums me out, but I can't wait for the next awesome thing from you, Nate.

KristianHansen · 1 year ago

Nate, Time for us to do something awesome! Maybe, Men In Pinstripes <MIP> Part Deux?

Jonah · 1 year ago

Great insights amigo, I've been there and I feel your pain. Looking forward to small projects and big things down the road. The good news is that opportunities are still bountiful. After all, we still don't even have flying cars yet. :)

Ari J. Greenberg · 1 year ago

Nate,

Bummer! I'll be sorry to see BricaBox (and RateMyRabbi.com) go!

But, I'm looking forward to learning from you and seeing what comes next.

Ari

gregarious · 1 year ago

Nate,

Really sorry to hear the news bro. I am sure you will land on your feet no matter where you end up.

Next beer is on me.

Greg

rishi · 1 year ago

Nate,

I think this is a really bad move. It takes a 1000 days for any company to take shape. You have a great product, is there anyway to charge for it? How about hire a sales guy on commission to get you in the door of larger companies? It will work if you give it a little more muscle and time.

Double think your decision, starting from scratch again is really going to suck. Right now you have users, some press, probably a little bit of SEO. As Seth Godin would say you are in "The Dip" period of your company right now.

Don't give up.
Rishi

innonate · 1 year ago

Thanks, Rishi. It was a tough decision. I'd say The Dip was about two
months ago when I was left co-founderless... I plowed through with a
few strategies and at times things looked good and then bad. Leaving
it was certainly the difficult choice, not the easy one.

But thanks for the thoughts!

rayrayangel · 1 year ago

Nate,

I've been following Bricabox for only a short time since I saw it on the Social Brew podcast and I must say it was a pretty neat product.

I'm sorry to see it go. I wish you nothing but the best and this blog entry along with many other you've post before have served as great advice to myself and my fellow startup enthusiasts. Best of wish in everything you've got going on and I can't wait to see what the new job is that you'll be announcing soon.

Egor Bacardi · 1 year ago

Sorry to hear, body. Best of luck in future doings!.

Christien · 1 year ago

Nate, sorry to hear about it closing. I'm sure it's not easy to pull the trigger on something like this. You will learn and grow from it. I will continue to read your blog and look forward to seeing your new projects.

CL

georgezhao · 1 year ago

sorry to hear about bricabox dude. best of luck on your next thing!

Chris Pirillo · 1 year ago

Open source it, please. Please.

innonate · 1 year ago

Major points for open source, coming from Chris Pirillo.

Jeremiah Owyang · 1 year ago

That's a shame, I was hoping to see you evolve. Best to cut while you can, take a few bruises and walk out with the life lessons. Thanks for sharing your lessons, this is a sign of a true leader.

Look forward to your next venture

innonate · 1 year ago

Thanks Jeremiah. You've been a great help during this adventure!

Peter Laudati · 1 year ago

Nate,
While most here might express sympathy at the end of Brica Box, I'll throw you a 'congratulations' on the efforts you made and the lessons you learned going through the start-up process! Your efforts to put a start-up together and be a leader in the NY Tech community stand above any thing else.

Good luck on your next endeavor and looking forward to more community events like BarCamp NYC!
-Peter

Ryan Spahn · 1 year ago

Sorry to hear this; hope you can keep it up and running!

StartUp Camp 07 sure had a lot awesome people there!

Good luck with your new endeavors!

Conrado · 1 year ago

Good luck Nate. Your post shows integrity and bravery. You'll have many good things coming.

Matt Zarzecki · 1 year ago

Good Luck Nate, look forward to what's next.

Paul Dix · 1 year ago

Hey Nate,
Sorry to hear about BricaBox. But as you say, onward and upward. I'm sure you'll be doing many interesting things in the time to come.
Best, Paul

sstrudeau · 1 year ago

Nate, I'm looking forward to your followups here, especially your thoughts on "When in doubt, build off Open Source." -- you guys built off of CodeIgniter, which is an open-source framework -- but you seem to really be saying that you may have been better off starting off with a more feature complete CMS and working your way back down. For the problem you were trying to solve, I think you probably picked the right "layer" to start with.

Fraser · 1 year ago

All worthwhile journeys have their ups and downs. Happy to see you step towards the future and the next adventure with more wisdom and experience. We all know great things are coming.

earwood · 1 year ago

Nate- Man that is a very tough decision to make as I know first-hand. Kudos for giving it a hard run and good luck with the next one. Wasn't it M. Cuban who had to fail 7 times before his first one hit? I'm sure there's more great things to come.

Todd

bryanthatcher · 1 year ago

Nate, the most important aspect of creating and building a company is honesty, honesty with yourself and what you are building. My hat's off to you for having the balls to be honest with yourself. Tough decision are part of business, you just made the toughest one. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger :)

nichelle · 1 year ago

Thanks for the shout, Nate. You are smart to know when to hold em, and when to fold em. I look forward to your next projects!

Jim Hirshfield · 1 year ago

Nate - You're stronger for it. I know this is tough - been there. But you come out the other side better prepared for the next one. People that don't "fail" never succeed because they aren't pushing the envelope. Looking forward to seeing you again soon. Jim

willotoons · 1 year ago

Hey Nate! Finally getting a chance to read this today. First, I just want to say that I'm so glad we met last year. If it weren't for BricaBox, you two wouldn't have been in Vegas that weekend, and none of the insanity could have taken place! hah.. Seriously great memories there, eh? :)

Second, since we met I've truly admired your leadership & entrepreneurial spirit. You are a force in this web world! Congratulations on being courageous in making what I know was very difficult decision.

Lastly, I'm sooo excited to hear about & hopefully participate in your next awesome venture!

You're awesome and I love you!
xo
w

Danny · 1 year ago

Great post, Nate. Very much looking forward to seeing what's next!

kangas · 1 year ago

Nate, very sorry to hear this. We met at BarCamp NYC, and you clearly seemed to be going somewhere with BricaBox. I went though the same with my own startup last year (which shall remain nameless, since it's offline now. sigh.)

Best wishes, hope you land on your feed ASAP!

Thomas · 1 year ago

"Companies should tackle Market Problems, not Technical Problems." Are you kidding me with this? Who doesn't know this? How about this: get some life experience before learning lessons that are widely known by people who have been there/done that?

innonate · 1 year ago

Thanks Thomas!

Very insightful!

wiliam143 · 2 weeks ago

What are you currently up to? If entrepreunering (my word), tell me about your startup.
Today, I’m days off of launching my baby, BricaBox.com. BricaBox is a new kind of web publishing platform, focused on the social content market. We aim to power thousands of consumer and publisher generated websites, where, like with YouTube, Flickr, Yelp, and Wikipedia, people come together with the intention of collaborating on a base of content.

Why are you doing this? You could be doing so many other things in the world, what about this particular idea strikes you?
In a word, opportunity: Opportunity in the industry as a whole; opportunity in the web publishing market; opportunity in the social web space; opportunity in the semantic web. With so many opportunities floating around, it’s hard not to be in this business, doing what we’re doing. I really couldn’t imagine doing something else right now.

All startups should be addressing a problem in the market of backup. What is that exact problem and how are you solving it?
The problem has been that tools to create social content sites have had a restrictively high barrier around them. We think there’s a ton of opportunity locked up when those tools are out of the hands of the masses.