[gjm11]

You lied to customers to get something valuable from them (in this case, the information that they were prepared to pay you, and their engagement with your site). You used this, by your own account, to gain $4000. I wouldn't want to make a large bet that that isn't fraud and outright illegal.

It probably isn't, unfortunately. But I hope your company fails. You should not get away with such behaviour.

A decent person would learn from all the people here saying "This is not an acceptable way to behave", and issue an apology for boasting about how they made a profit from deceiving their customers. I wonder: are you a decent person?

[davidw]

I don't think I would have done this either, but before beating up on Adii too much, have you ever spent a lot of time and/or money building something that no one wanted? It really, really sucks, and I can understand the strong drive to avoid it.

To keep the discussion productive, I think we ought to look at similar ways to validate a product that more of us would be comfortable with.

Edit actually, patio11's take on how to validate struck me as a pretty good approach:

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2013/04/24/marketing-for-people-who...

It's pretty long, so if you find "This one day I went into a massage therapist, and asked" that's the start of the story.

I disagree with him about 'The Lean Startup' though, I thought it was a bit too ... "high level".

[adii]

You realize that the title is obviously exaggerated and that I didn't gain $4000 on day one. I did however gain the kind of validation that eventually allowed me to gain $4000 in cash when we launched a month later.

For every person that has criticized this, I have had another one saying this is great. I also know for a fact that I'm not the first startup entrepreneur to do this.

I have already apologized to each and every one of our customers. I have also mended the relationships (AFAIK) to the extent that the "angry" customers would consider being customers in future.

Ultimately, I think that this was ballsy publishing this and being open about the pro's & cons of this. I'm not saying that this is the best technique ever and neither am I saying that everyone should follow this approach. I am however saying that it worked for us and I am keen to engage others on this topic.

[USNetizen]

This is deception which and walks a fine line between legit and fraud. It doesn't matter what you think about who should do this or not - someone will attempt to emulate it, and they will end up in prison for taking money and not producing anything. It degrades the reputation of entrepreneurs everywhere who are diligently trying to build their businesses the RIGHT way.

The fact that you brag about it so boastfully is atrocious to be honest.

[tinco]

>The fact that you brag about it so boastfully is atrocious to be honest.

I didn't find his post to be bragging 'boastfully' at all. It reads chiefly informative and at times positively surprised. He found a technique that seems to work pretty well and he informs us about it.

I think your opinion is too harsh. Imagine yourself to be the customer of this website. You come across something you like so much you're willing to pay for it and you make the commitment to actually do so. Sure the revelation that the product does not exist yet is disappointing, but he also didn't take your money yet, and his website already convinced you that the product is going to be what you're looking for.

[adii]

You did read that we never took anybody's money, right?

[Robin_Message]

Since no-one reads newletters properly, I bet at least one of your "customers" thinks they are paying for access to some videos which they will intend to watch at some point in the future, and will be pretty pissed in the future when they discover they've been paying for months and those videos are still not available.

The shady part is doing the pivot without doing another opt-in. It's a classic bait ("Subscribe to get access to videos") and switch ("Continue paying to get access to a community and the promise of plans to make said videos in the future").

[adii]

If that's the case, I'm happy to issue a full refund, no questions asked.

There's a major difference between trying to scam someone and pushing the boundaries to validate (and de-risk) an idea. If our ideas are shit, I will never take someone's money for that (hence the no questions asked, full refund).

[tinco]

No one does, this is the internet. They found something wrong with your project and they're going to jump on it like flesh hounds. No one's going to mention a small detail like that you never took anyone's money or even that you never had malicious intent.

These are Hacker News commenters, prototypal white knights eager to show off their perfect moral compasses, disregarding any opportunity for reflection or relativism.

[davidw]

I wonder how many of these people have actually built something and made a living from it? Or tried? Or spent months building something only to find out no one wanted it?

No, it is not something I would have done, but I really understand the need to have some idea of what's going to work, and could see how one might go too far in pursuit of that.

[jamesk_au]

I have done all of those things and I maintain the view that there is no reasonable justification for deliberate deception in commerce. A fortiori amongst startup entrepreneurs, who should be doing their best to foster collegial relationships with one another based on mutual trust and confidence - ironically, one of PublicBeta's own goals.

[yesplorer]

You realize that the title is obviously exaggerated

For someone who is hearing of you for the first time, combining the subject matter under discussion and your admission of obviously exaggerating your post title makes you come across to me like a habitually deceptive person IMHO