Killing Off Dyced

Two days ago, I introduced Dyced which we have been working on this summer. Today I’m killing it off. After performing sufficiently many customer discovery interviews. Here is an analysis of why we are not going to pursue this startup idea:

1. Software is not the issue:  Different segments of the video wall market have different fundamental needs. At the low end (e.g. bars and marketing walls), the market needs super simple and super reliable solutions and fresh content is the major problem. At the high end (e.g. scientific labs), content is also the problem – meaningful scientific visualizations. Neither of these pain points are addressed with our cloud based solution.
   1. Low end – we do not want to get involved on the low end because customers are terrible to deal with (e.g. bar owners that do not pay their bills) and we do not have an integrated solution that would be super simple and super reliable.
   2. High end – the problem of scientific visualization is not generalizable and requires custom expertise. ArrayFire is best equipped to handle this directly (no need for a video wall company to do this).
2. Software is not sold alone:  Video walls are purchased as integrated solutions from AV companies. AV companies are locally based and resell the major manufacturer’s systems. Breaking into local AV companies would be tremendously difficult. AV companies do installation, maintenance, and service. They are not incentivized to go to the cloud.
3. Early adopter problems:  The type of people that would be prone to put up with the issues of a new cloud based video wall are also the type that are savvy enough to hack together their own video wall. The bulk of people buying video walls are not tech savvy and just want a super simple and super reliable system.
4. Unclear customer:  It is unclear how to find and target potential video wall buyers. It is not possible to look at an organizational chart and immediately understand who would “own” the purchase decision for video wall things.

Here are some potential thoughts we evaluated for how to sidestep the issues, with their associated downsides:

1. We could go niche with mosaics which would be really cool and clearly have a cloud advantage. Downside:  The market for mosaics is really small and we’d be reliant on a viral spread of mosaic type displays (not something to rely upon).
2. We could develop the technology and license it out. Downside:  There are already other entrants in the market doing cloud-based video wall solutions. Technology licensing outcomes are shaky at best and we would be shooting in the dark to get a return on that investment.

So we are done with Dyced.

What are your thoughts on shutting down a startup idea?