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coffeemug/rethinkdb-failure-reasons-according-to-hn.md

Created December 3, 2016 06:41
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rethinkdb-failure-reasons-according-to-hn.md 
- Inexplicable perversity of human nature.
- The clever machinations of MongoDB's marketing people.
- The AGPL license killed it.
- We spent too long development before monetizing.
- Bad performance.
- Numeric types limited to a 64-bit `float`.
- Great product, but didn't/couldn't translate to revenue.
- Bad business model.
- Failure in timezones/timestamp nuances.
- Document databases are a bad idea.
- Investment dried up due to noisy market.
- Did not solve problem companies using databases and having money
  need solved.
- NoSQL hype died out.
- No Java driver / automatic failover for too long.
- No cloud service.
- Trying to ship a cloud service.
- Failure of capitalism.
- MongoDB has done a way better job at SEO.
- Realtime technology was too early.
- Didn't build good sales/marketing teams.
- Bad name.
- The product was too good.
- Didn't have a Heroku addon.
@Alex2357
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Alex2357 commented Feb 20, 2018 •
edited

HI,
You mentioned

The clever machinations of MongoDB's marketing people.

I wonder, what machinations do you mean?

@vap0rtranz
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vap0rtranz commented Jul 11, 2018 •
edited

Just read Slava's explanation [0] and the 2nd to last reason on this list makes the most sense.

"The product was too good."

Bingo. Engineering pitfall.

I was part of VC startup, not as a founder but 2 years in, engineering built 1 product, legal & biz folks did it on the opensource core model (80% OSS/20% closed), and -- big point -- we had a powerhouse of sales, marketing, and partnerships. That big point worked for our little startup if you count getting acquired a success (because a 35% return to our VCs should be considered as a success). Whether acquired/sold or going big, it seems Slava's essay echoes back to the lack of a sales, marketing, and partnership group early on at RethinkDB. He admits to focusing on the engineering for 3 years! That's a lot of cash to burn with little/no revenue even for Dark Startups.

Engineers have this idea that if you build it they will come. Ok, but how do they know to come?! Especially if you're 30 guys coding away all hours of the night, with the occasional Meetup pizza, and the only folks seeing your hard work are fellow engineers following your git commits? Followers of Github repos tend to not pay for software. :) So the point is nobody with a checkbook will know.

[0] http://www.defmacro.org/2017/01/18/why-rethinkdb-failed.html

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