It's definitely true that we've been more focused on technology than market research, and that this is a huge factor in why our business didn't work.
However, I don't believe you can really make revolutionary changes based on the "lean startup", "do lots of market research and test everything with metrics" strategy. It's absolutely a great way to make incremental improvements -- even big ones -- but not paradigm shifts.
Sandstorm's vision is a long-term one, and it actually isn't primarily focused specifically on self-hosting, privacy, or even FOSS, but rather on creating infrastructure that allows decentralized software to stand on equal or greater footing compared to centralized services. There is a lot of work that needs to be done for this to function, and you can't justify it by saying "look, these customers asked for it" -- you justify it by laying out the vision and saying: "Look, there will be these clear enormous advantages if this works."
This is always a tough sell, because people rarely agree on hypothetical outcomes that can't be measured in advance. And if it were clear, someone would be doing it already. So, I don't expect you to agree. But I'm going to keep working on it.
"allows decentralized software to stand on equal or greater footing compared to centralized services."
While that's great from a CS/FOSS/EFF/hacker perspective, the question is what's necessary for such software to be on equal ground in the eyes of ordinary users? My guess is that the decentralized/centralized split isn't (yet?) it, but rather the UX and functionality. Few open source end-user apps are entirely original and cutting edge; most are poor knockoffs of commercial products or are failed commercial products that got open sourced.
To me that's why sandstorm didn't make much sense. I applaud your efforts, I really don't want to rain on your parade -- I poured my sweat and tears into a startup that failed as well so I get it -- I'm just reacting to what seemed like not-honest-enough reasons for failure on the website. It's really important to know what didn't go right for next time lest you make the same mistakes again.
It sounds like you're assuming that Sandstorm is a platform strictly for open source software, but that was actually not our intent. In the ten-year vision, there is a thriving ecosystem of both open source and proprietary / paid applications that build on the platform because it provides many advantages both to developers and to users, allowing for better-quality apps.
We've used open source apps to seed the app market, because we can do that without the upstream developers' help. We also are big fans of open source ourselves, obviously, and I feel open source is especially disadvantaged in a SaaS world, so Sandstorm will make it more competitive. But in the end what I really want is high-quality decentralized software in general.
> However, I don't believe you can really make revolutionary changes based on the "lean startup".
You know more than me, but isn't of the key ideas of the Lean Startup to validate your assumptions, which everyone has? Write them down and validate them ASAP to de-risk your project. For Sandstorm some could be:
- Developers are willing to bet on an unproven company/project/platform.
- Users are willing to create Sandstorm accounts.
- Developers are willing to build on top of Sandstorm rather than owning all the data and customer relationship.
But +1 for "people rarely agree on hypothetical outcomes that can't be measured in advance." Well said.
However, I don't believe you can really make revolutionary changes based on the "lean startup", "do lots of market research and test everything with metrics" strategy. It's absolutely a great way to make incremental improvements -- even big ones -- but not paradigm shifts.
Sandstorm's vision is a long-term one, and it actually isn't primarily focused specifically on self-hosting, privacy, or even FOSS, but rather on creating infrastructure that allows decentralized software to stand on equal or greater footing compared to centralized services. There is a lot of work that needs to be done for this to function, and you can't justify it by saying "look, these customers asked for it" -- you justify it by laying out the vision and saying: "Look, there will be these clear enormous advantages if this works."
For reference, here's our technology manifesto: https://sandstorm.io/how-it-works
This is always a tough sell, because people rarely agree on hypothetical outcomes that can't be measured in advance. And if it were clear, someone would be doing it already. So, I don't expect you to agree. But I'm going to keep working on it.