Of Hamsters and Foxes: How a Failed Startup Can Be a Real Success Anyway

medium.com

22 points·mirozoo··8 comments

I don't understand the value of this over simply building a mini ITX system for cheaper and equal/greater performance? The only advantage this has is being able stay portable with the external GPU but $500 just for a dock is insane.

Seems that you have commented the wrong link...

Very interesting read. Could you please elaborate on the startup/VC/software scene in Germany (Berlin?). It sounds like you didn't have experienced friends that would have help you change your mind earlier (intervention)

Good point, Itai! We'd contacted about 50 VC companies in Germany prior and during our development of teamspir.it. Unfortunately, the response rate was almost zero and we only had one meeting with a wannabe VC.

You're right: We neither had the right connections nor an adequate track record at that time.

I must admit that as a VC guy, I wouldn't had been interested to invest in teamspir.it back then, too. As described in the essay, USP, concept and target group really were not clear enough.

Somehow I expected an article about a start up doing something with cute animals...

Maybe then it would have been successful! ;-)

I felt this log startup like using facebook but only for companies or personal work.

Yes, in the broadest sense, it had some basic features in common with FB. If we would compare it to similar tools available today, it should have become a mix of jell.com, 15five.com, idonethis.com and Slack. (But we'd also planned some unique features before we ran out of cash.)

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