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End of the Road for Xmarks

(blog.xmarks.com)
201 points willwagner | 1 comments | 27 Sep 10 23:27 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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fauigerzigerk ◴[28 Sep 10 09:00 UTC] No.1735041[source]▶
It's always sad when someone's dreams are shattered. But what I don't get is why a bookmark syncing service needs venture capital, employees, a CEO and whatnot. There may not be a business model that supports all that, but there may be a business model that pays for the labor actually required to provide a syncing service.

In a way this is like shutting down all the cafes that failed to become Starbucks.

replies(2): >>1735044 #>>1735966 #
1. bstrong ◴[28 Sep 10 15:30 UTC] No.1735966[source]▶
My guess is that this has a lot to do with when they started. In 2006, the cloud platforms we take for granted today didn't exist. Running a service meant buying servers, hiring an ops team, etc. Starting today, you could probably bring a sync service up on App Engine in a few weeks and operate it for a couple hundred bucks a month.

I started my last company in 2005, and I've often thought that if we had started a couple of years later when the cloud platforms were available, we could have been a lot more successful. Instead we built a product and an organization around an obsolete technology stack with a high cost structure, and there was no going back.