Kiko, the free Web-based calendar with AJAX, written in Ruby On Rails and funded by Y Combinator is up for sale in eBay (with a starting bid of $50K).



Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan on OnStatups.com have wrote an interesting analysis on why it failed and the lessons that we can learn from it.



They have listed 5 things as follows:



a) Google is today what Microsoft was yesterday. When entrepreneurs started new ventures they kept their business models different from Microsoft to avoid getting stomped on by the giant. Google is a huge company now and by the looks of it, it is nastier than what MS had been. Besides, it has the energy and enthusiasm of a startup. Now, with Google launching Google Calendar, Kiko didn’t have a chance as it stuck to the original business model. But instead of changing it did and got stomped by Google.



b) Kiko founders were being unrealistic. When Google launched Google Calender, they didn’t make any adjustments and this was foolish and not bravery. It should have moved away from competing with Google Calendar yet, it chose not to.



c) Lack of alternative plan in the Kiko project. It is OK to stick to original plan but expecting everything will work out according to it was not smart thinking especially when overlooking the need to have an alternative plan should minor changes needed to be made.



d) The Web 2.0 thingy hype and popularity is no guarantee that you will survive. This is particularly relevant here because when Kiko was launched, it got a very good publicity, got a reasonably good number of subscribers and was fairly popular. Even then, it sank. So banking on popularity and Web 2.0 enthusiasm (or hype) is immature.





e) The whole Kiko thing was of little or no value actually. As Don Dodge on the Next Big Thing writes in his analysis, Calendars are a feature and not company. Kiko burnt a lot of oil creating something that might have been interesting, a novelty then perhaps, but actually it had no value at all.





Absolutely right! Web 2.0 is definitely the next big thing, however, one must have the acumen of the old economy entrepreneurs to start something worthwhile, that has the potential to last for a long time with the tricks of old times. They are still very much relevant and apply for the Web 2.0 thingy as well.





Read