

6 reasons why my VC funded startup failed - Tachikoma
http://stephan.reposita.org/archives/2008/10/27/6-reasons-why-my-vc-funded-startup-did-fail/

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mattjung
I experienced exactly the same story in the startup I worked for. Selling
software to big enterprises is a kind of science: finding the right people to
talk to, circumvent the irrelevant people that steal your time, addressing the
problem you solve in the right manner, expect a contract to bounce until you
have the money on the bank, ...

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acgourley
You call it a science but I think its more of an art. Enterprise sales
requires experienced sales staff... I wonder how many young scrappy technology
driven start ups have failed for this reason.

I know that I never hear good things about the enterprise software from
successful enterprise companies, so it seems like the technology is not the
deciding factory of company success. I almost wonder if a company that is too
technology focused is at a competitive disadvantage.

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webwright
"Enterprise sales requires experienced sales staff"

I've seen enterprise software companies with a barely-graduated team of phone
sales people kick ass, FWIW. Totally depends on the complexity of the product
and whether there is a services component.

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davi
Are you saying a services component helps, or hinders the sale?

I could see it going either way, depending on the product and the customer.

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webwright
I think it depends. In general, I think selling services is strangely easier
than selling just a product. Products often represent "work" - the buyer has
to learn about the product, sell it to their team, etc. If you basically say,
"we're going to hold your hand at $125/hr every step of the way", it can make
the sale easier.

Middle manager buyers don't care much about profit. They care about stuff that
allows them to work less or look smarter/better/more capable to their peers.

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dhimes
one reason: "Error establishing a database connection"

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brlewis
Was slashdotted by reddit. Working again now.

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dshah
What's unfortunate is that these particular experiences repeat themselves so
often.

Like most technical founders, I don't like selling stuff (I'm much rather
crank out code), but as it turns out, that's an awfully important thing to do.

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joshu
I'm always vaguely amused when people claim to have invented Delicious years
beforehand.

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axod
What's to invent? ;)

The hard bit surely is building a userbase that uses it. Not coming up with
the idea. Right?

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cstejerean
at the time delicous came out I wasn't aware of any other competing products.
i also thought about a web based bookmarking service before delicious, but i
never would have thought about the sharing and tagging links aspect. did
someone release a similar product earlier?

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joshu
No. So far as I know, I invented tagging.

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axod
I can't work out if you're being sarcastic or not. I think tagging has
probably been in use in various places for a few hundred years if not
thousands.

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shafqat
Best advice: start selling now!

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dpapathanasiou
Here's a great approach along those lines (i.e., research an idea among
prospective clients _before_ investing a lot of time building it):
[http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven-
Blank/dp/09...](http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven-
Blank/dp/0976470705)

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okeumeni
'Wrong business model' is the right answer here, it encapsulates: Market not
ready for idea, focus on technology (trying to make something useful), selling
nothingX3.

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netcan
_Market not ready for idea_

\- "We got out marketed." Seems people are happier with this then we got out-
invented. I'm not sure exactly why. There seem to be a lot more companies out
there that say they got out-marketed then likely. Actually, I don't even
really know what that means.

