Funny, the startup I work for made three of his deadly strategic mistakes, and ended up doing very well. In fact, we believe that selling before the product was ready and not making it self-serve were essential to our success. Sometimes, there is just a lot of luck involved in finding product-market fit.

I came close to joining Eventvue last year and making the big move from SF to Boulder just because I liked these two so much, so I'm bummed to see their baby wind down and know they put a lot of heart into it. Closing their second round during the "RIP Good Times" winter of 2008 was pretty difficult and definitely impacted their ability to hire, among other things.

I'm happy to call Josh and Rob friends and am excited to see what they do next.

One has to appreciate the audacity and ability to reflect on their mistakes. Good luck to them on their future ventures.

Interesting. I'm sure we'll be hearing from Rob and Josh again soon. As others have said, this is not a failure, it's milestone on their journey and learning experience.

Their story has inspired me to write a blog post based around the following premise:

Taking that VC money is a root cause of most/all of the "Deadly Mistakes" Rob and Josh made.

Whatever you think about that premise, hopefully you'll agree that it's not a bad idea to stop, think, and discuss before you make an irreversible, and potentially fatal, decision.

Here is the blog post (too long to cut and paste here): ""Bootstrap or Die - Lessons Learned From a Web Startup's Murder/Suicide"": http://bootstrappy.blogspot.com/2010/02/bootstrap-or-die-les...

What an excellent analysis of your troubles, I hope very much that you will be successful in whatever you pursue next.

Your candidness and willingness to reflect and learn from your mistakes are a good indicator for future success.