Very interesting read, although that's probably because my cofounder and I had nearly the same exact experience you did. We got an interview for this round of Y Combinator with an idea that could be summed up as, "it's pretty much an improvement of X."
But ultimately what any pitch comes to like that, whether it's the innovative minds at YC or the cruftiest, oldest-school VC, is always the same:
a) If X has competition and it that competition already has existing traction, they will point out it will be hard for your idea to catch on because of established players.
b) If X has competition and it's bad, they will point out that nobody will adopt X to begin with even if your version is better (generally "chicken and egg" problems)
c) And if any of them have any direct experience with X, they will point out they already did this and it didn't work.
My cofounder and I ran into scenario (b) and despite spending the spending the majority of our preparation time on (what we thought were) convincing answers, we didn't get accepted either.
If I had one regret, it's that we had a potential pivot for our idea that I think could have been spun off as a completely original idea W, and we spent barely a minute talking about it. We brought it up, PG went into brainstorming mode with us, and I walked out wishing we had just pitched W to begin with. But perhaps that story is for a blog post of my own.
There was an interesting blog post about this problem few weeks ago on HN. In general you can defend your b) or c) or d) situation with on word "Timing".The only problem is that you must convince people in the audience that Timing is right and why it was hard/impossible before and right now is easier/possible.
I was part of Auctomatic, and I still think inventory management is a space to be disrupted. I think that we were free from day one was a reason that people were reluctant to start paying.
The one trouble with eBay inventory management, or any space where there are existing competitors, is every user has their own pet feature they absolutely can't live without. It becomes a battle to implement them all and keep a clean interface.
Also make sure you can import everything from every competitor. It lets people try your software very easily and gives you all of their data. So even if they don't become a hardcore user you can see what one looks like.
For a story with a (bad) ending, that was really engaging to read. It sounds like you're still optimistic, and I'm definitely wishing you a ton of luck.
Rejection notwithstanding, I think the advice to get the system installed into a few other businesses is actually golden -- not just from a revenue standpoint, but from the product perspective. You'll get non-family feedback on how the system can be improved.
To be fair, building/selling a cool system is a higher goal perhaps than doing YC. (I say this knowing that for a ton of us, the hierarchy is confused in our own minds, haha!).
Either way, Jud, plug on, keep tooling and keep writing. I loved reading this...
If it doesn't take off like they suggested, what's your plan? I'm curious how someone in your position would (and should?) handle this. Did they give any specific advice to you re: your future? Dump the project and work on something else?
i read "the rest is history" at the end of your post. i went to http://inventory.io. nothing loaded. i assumed you scrapped the project. there's lots of types of inventory management; a page calling for the "other places" you are interested in might help.
Sounds a bit categorical with respect to inventory management. I know of one company, moysklad ('my warehouse' - in Russian), which has done quite well for itself in Russian-speaking countries. They are a couple years old and they've already taken venture capital from Ambient Sound Investments. I found a little snippet of info about them in English here: http://www.chubbybrain.com/companies/moysklad/investors-fund...
Thanks for sharing this. I read the line "the rest is history" and wasn't sure if I knew what that history was. Maybe a link to more info in the footer would help.
Anyway, it just goes to show how difficult it really is to get your ducks in a row and truly get to the root of the problem you're solving.
But ultimately what any pitch comes to like that, whether it's the innovative minds at YC or the cruftiest, oldest-school VC, is always the same:
a) If X has competition and it that competition already has existing traction, they will point out it will be hard for your idea to catch on because of established players.
b) If X has competition and it's bad, they will point out that nobody will adopt X to begin with even if your version is better (generally "chicken and egg" problems)
c) And if any of them have any direct experience with X, they will point out they already did this and it didn't work.
My cofounder and I ran into scenario (b) and despite spending the spending the majority of our preparation time on (what we thought were) convincing answers, we didn't get accepted either.
If I had one regret, it's that we had a potential pivot for our idea that I think could have been spun off as a completely original idea W, and we spent barely a minute talking about it. We brought it up, PG went into brainstorming mode with us, and I walked out wishing we had just pitched W to begin with. But perhaps that story is for a blog post of my own.