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A good question to ask before starting a startup is : "Do I see myself working 10 years on this problem?". Looks like they ran out of steam, rather than out of runway.
Why 10 years? Is it not typical with startup founders to plan a lucrative exit in a much shorter time frame?
What I mean by understanding the economics of the value chain is you've to understand how your customers make money, how their customers make money & how their suppliers make money. From there - you can workout your value proposition - are you saving your customers money (means there's a cap on how much value you can extract) or are you allowing your customers to make more money (how much value you can extract is kinda uncapped - depending on mechanics)
The other mistake - which you correctly kinda alluded to is not understanding the incentives / dynamics of the industry. UK land is tricky since most wealth / power is packed into UK land. hence your part about emotion etc.
final mistake was equating success to raising money. Profit, if not revenue growth is the only measure of success. Raising money is not.
Thanks for writing this! > Housing in Britain is expensive because getting planning permission is difficult. Isn't the real problem that supply is artificially constrained because house prices and the economy are interlinked in a way in a special way in the UK economy, such that the majority of home owners don't want it changed (because more supply == downward pricing pressure) I think the only entity that could mean…
Not a fundamental cure, of course, but it sounds like a promising hack to squeeze out a few more building permits than would otherwise have been issued.
Thanks for writing this! > Housing in Britain is expensive because getting planning permission is difficult. Isn't the real problem that supply is artificially constrained because house prices and the economy are interlinked in a way in a special way in the UK economy, such that the majority of home owners don't want it changed (because more supply == downward pricing pressure) I think the only entity that could mean…
This is interesting and they make some good observations but I can't help but think the deck was stacked against them because they are trying to come up with a technical/business solution to what is fundamentally a political problem.
There was literally zero hope for success.
>> After raising a £744,000 pre-seed round in April 2024, we explored several business models Capital after traction
Thanks for writing this! > Housing in Britain is expensive because getting planning permission is difficult. Isn't the real problem that supply is artificially constrained because house prices and the economy are interlinked in a way in a special way in the UK economy, such that the majority of home owners don't want it changed (because more supply == downward pricing pressure) I think the only entity that could mean…
I think you're describing NIMBY, which is more of a US/SF thing (but also is a case in Europe to some extent).
well written. I think your fatal mistake even though you folks are smart was not understanding the complete value chain of your business. What I mean by understanding the economics of the value chain is you've to understand how your customers make money, how their customers make money & how their suppliers make money. From there - you can workout your value proposition - are you saving your customers money (means the…
> If I were to start a startup again, I’d take more time and be more intentional in talking to potential customers before needing to raise money.
From the outside, this pretty much hit the nail on the head.