It’s been five years since we closed our doors at flightSpeak. It was an incredible adventure - working to build a personalized airport assistant serving air travelers and airports.

With 5 years of post-startup life and perspective under my belt, here are the top 5 reasons we didn't cross the target finish line.

🎯 Lack of clarity on the business model. The balance between building a B2C app and monetizing with a B2B portal experience isn't novel, but we took too long to figure it out. The faster you can figure out how you'll make money (and actually make it), the clearer your signal will be. Unit economics matter.
🐢 Sluggishness to pivot. We took too long to discover our actual growth was misaligned with our ambitions. We fell into the next feature fallacy, which was fatal. Measure ruthlessly, and figure out what's working for your users and customers. Then adapt - quickly. Don't fall in love with the product; fall in love with the customer problem.
💰Lack of skill and awareness of the sales ecosystem. B2B relationships in the airport / travel industry take time to nurture and skill to close, and 9-12 months is not out of the ordinary. Budget and plan accordingly - these things take time to learn and a ton of money to win.
⏳Lack of awareness of the dynamics of the target industry. Most airports live comfortably in the laggards zone with no incentive for change. Radically understand your customer's industry, and build + nurture your relationships early and often. No matter how great your product is, industry dynamics will impact your product lifecycle more than the product itself.
📈 Prioritizing consumer growth over revenue. Doing the opposite is a privilege of well-funded startups and über-connected founders. If you are going to focus on this, you need the systems to maniacally measure if your growth curve is leading you to your version of the promised land. If not, radically focus on how you're going to get paid. You'll never get a better signal.
Building flightSpeak was an incredible experience...it was absolutely the hardest but most rewarding professional venture I've ever embarked on.
Next story: What we got right @flightSpeak.

Reflections: What we missed @flightSpeak

It’s been five years since we closed our doors at flightSpeak. It was an incredible advent

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