###Original Post
When we started our startup, it was our second company and first startup. And we didn’t know anything about startups so we made pretty much every single mistake in the book.
Of all the mistakes we made, one sticks out the most which is spending an entire year trying to convince companies from the likes of Coca Cola to medium enterprises to do something they’re already doing differently or doing something new they aren’t doing yet.
We now learned the difference between making something people “need” vs “want”. When you are not making something people want, it doesn’t matter how polished you make your product or how much they need the product.
We now accept our failure. However we have a useful and polished product in our hands that we really want to see used by people. So we’re finally opening up our platform to everyone, not just companies (we restricted access to companies and about a single topic only).
It’s a publishing platform. I haven’t finished transforming the product from the first idea/product, but it’s well-tested and ready to be used.
If anyone’s interested, please visit https://goodethos.com. I’m also going to release almost all of my code to open source hopefully in a month+ time.
If anyone uses what I built for their own personal use, I appreciate any feedback sent to me by email at hello[at]goodethos.com or jason.saeho[at]gmail.com.
Also if you’re using the platform and want a new feature inside it. You let me know. I’ll probably build it for you as long as you make good use of what I made.
One more reason why I’m doing this is because I’m a huge Meteor.JS advocate. Meteor.JS is great. You should use it.
Lastly I’m now looking for new cool projects to participate in or even a job. Please contact me if you’re interested.
Thanks to everyone who replied and sent me a personal email.
I just wanted to let everyone know that despite what’s there right now, Good Ethos was never meant to be a publishing platform or a Tumblr/Medium copy.
However I do admit what’s there right now is certainly reminiscent of those names people mentioned. Since our original idea didn’t work out, I decided to convert the product into a publishing platform.
Good Ethos is just a side project of mine right now. The plan is still to open source it and release it as an AtmosphereJS package.
That will happen very soon… I just have to replace all the fonts with other similar open-source fonts and change the application a little bit (i.e. get rid of signup and make it a standalone product). I will post here once I’m done.
I am not sure how you were promoting the product, but on the site it is really not clear - what is it. Is it hosted solution like wordpress.com? Or is it packaged product like the wordpress you can install on your own host? Or is it something else?
even when it is free, you still have to sell it.
And when I say sell, I don’t mean to be paid. I mean to get the idea and need of the service delivered to a user.
Again, wordpress is free, nice product (I still hate it). Is that one better? Why I would want it?
The entire thing is going to AtmosphereJS. In 1 to 3 weeks time (max), there will be an AtmosphereJS package. Upon installing that package, you will have a blog at http://YOURNAME.com/blog.
The AtmosphereJS package will be slightly different. For one, there won’t be no “create your publication” feature. You install that package and you will have a blog for yourself and yourself only.
At that point, I’ll probably change what it says on goodethos.com too, to reflect the fact it’s a free open-source package for Meteor. Good Ethos went through many iterations. The text that’s on goodethos.com does not reflect what it is now. Goodethos.com only exists for you to try the software right now.
I’m the only person who designed and coded this entire thing and I’m still working on it. After I upload it as a package to AtmosphereJS and GitHub, I’ll continue developing this and seek some help from other developers to add more features and make this FREE software even better.
Because I’m the only person who’s working on this right now, I haven’t yet had the time to change all the text on the website.
So please ignore what the website says right now and just focus on the fact that I’m currently working on releasing this to AtmosphereJS soon.
Whether it’s a clone or not, a failed startup or not, … it looks damn good and works well! Very interested to start hacking with it. Thanks for contributing to the Meteor community by releasing this open source. And of course, I wish you all the best with your future projects! Nice work saeho.
I think I understand
This is a free product going to atmospherejs
You would like people to use it
It doesnt matter if it is on atmospherejs, github or somewhere else, even opensource still needs users and clear usecase. Actually so many packages on atmospherejs are missing simple readme, I am wondering, author doesn’t care?
Of course when it is on atmospherejs, it changes something. I can install, try, delete in case I don’t like it. But I still value my time, so please, please do a nice demo/usecase/readme. And if you want others contribute to it, just add few words why it is better than…
I slightly changed my words in that post few seconds after you read my original reply (I think).
I understand what you mean. And when I release it on AtmosphereJS I will make sure to write a proper readme.
Long story short. I’m the only person who did everything in this application. I’m not downplaying my original co-founder in any way, she’s a brilliant person and me and her make a perfect team and we will one day do another startup again. It’s just that she was the business person and when it comes to the product, I built everything (both code and design).
Because I’m the only person involved in this project, I haven’t yet had the time to reflect what it says on the website to talk about what it really is. I will soon, I promise.
This is a fantastic tool and much needed. I love the idea of “dedicated storytelling”. I think it has so much potential to go beyond, and I believe you won’t be alone building it further…
There may be some bugs since I had to retouch the entire code base to turn it into standalone. If you use it, I would love to hear from you, my email is jason.saeho@gmail.com.
