[alttab]

Considering the largest social network in the history on man tanked their stock price right after their IPO, I would venture to guess that VCs aren't answering emails from 17 year olds wanting to start a social network.

Is it what you want to hear? Probably not. Is it reality? Yeah. Does it suck?cjust wait until you have to pay your own bills and your parents don't throw money at your ideas.

My advice? Restart that business you created that had 100 paying customers in the first 7 days. Seriously, you shut it down to focus on school but took money from your parents to start your own social network? Seems silly from where I'm sitting.

[jaredsohn]

>tanked their stock price right after their IPO

Why is this relevant? The VCs made plenty of money and even though the price is less than asked for, a social network just got validated as worth over $60 billion on a public market.

There may still be issues with creating a new social network, but I don't think FB's IPO price tanking is one of them. (Unless success requires a $100 billion exit.)

[alttab]

It shows the lack of appetite from consumers for social networking companies. Sure, the investors for Facebook got rich, but will then next ones? The post IPO stock price would suggest that the next party won't be as big.

[lyetzz]

I suppose I looked at Facebook's suffering stock situation a bit more optimistically (at least in the eyes of potential competitors), as I figured it would've opened new doors for competition.

In regards to the hosting business, I was a freshman at the time and didn't have the same opportunity I now have to be an early graduate. If it had been up to me, I definitely would've kept it going, but at this point, that market is far too saturated.

[alttab]

Social networks aren't open for competition like VPS hosts are. People us hosting for certain features, uptime, or price. People use social networks simply for the fact that others are using it too. It entrenches players easily.

Look at Craigslist. The UX sucks and they haven't done anything with it in a while. But people use Craigslist, with no one able to displace it at scale, simply because it has gravity and users don't go elsewhere. Niches is the best way to unentrench a social network, but these are just as saturated as vps hosts and aren't likely to get investor attention. I would cut your losses and find lower hanging fruit.

[lyetzz]

I wouldn't quite consider social networks and VPS hosts to be just as saturated as one another. Building a social network from the ground up requires time, some creativity, the ability to bring something unique to the table, and forming a team that's just as passionate towards an idea as you are. Running a VPS company, on the other hand, requires an install of a hypervisor and a ticket/billing system. I'd prefer to contribute something that requires a bit more thought and energy. First, I'd like to weigh my options for this particular project, rather than jumping ship this early and heading down another path.

[alttab]

You make a valid point. Vps is spessentially a service industry vs a product. That said, wih a social network you are 99% likely to fail. Proving me wrong is worth a billion dollars, the question is what kind of goals are you setting for yourself.