I still think we had a reasonable business model. The problem is, it was enterprise-targeted, and none of us actually knew how to sell to (or even talk to) enterprise customers. It turns out this is a skill that is not easy to learn. We really should have hired for it, rather than trying to figure it out from first principles. But by the time we realized that, it was too late -- enterprise sales cycles are long so we needed a lot of lead time.
With more investment I think we could have made it work, but it turns out that once you run into any kind of "trouble" as a startup, getting further investment becomes incredibly hard -- and we were pretty bad at the fundraising game to start with (it is, essentially, sales, after all).
I don't think we have any particular evidence that Sandstorm wasn't viable as a technology or a business -- we just personally did not have the right skillset for the business model we chose. :/
"The problem is, it was enterprise-targeted, and none of us actually knew how to sell to (or even talk to) enterprise customers. It turns out this is a skill that is not easy to learn. We really should have hired for it, rather than trying to figure it out from first principles."
That's how I predicted it would fail, too. You were at least able to figure out the problem. Many people will blame everything or everyone else. Enterprise sales is it's own beast that's much different from how things operate in the Valley or smaller shops. That's only half the problem. The other half is you usually have to integrate with systems designed not to integrate with 3rd parties easily. Lock-in loving systems. The healthcare startups are particularly being hit hard by this.
I keep thinking there's potential to get a business going that specializes in the sales and/or enterprise features at reasonable price. A public benefit or nonprofit company that forces the charges to be limited to something reasonable. They can help all these new companies bootstrap the enterprise-specific aspects of their goods for a price. What you think?
With more investment I think we could have made it work, but it turns out that once you run into any kind of "trouble" as a startup, getting further investment becomes incredibly hard -- and we were pretty bad at the fundraising game to start with (it is, essentially, sales, after all).
I don't think we have any particular evidence that Sandstorm wasn't viable as a technology or a business -- we just personally did not have the right skillset for the business model we chose. :/