DocSyncer, the service that allowed users to sync their desktop documents with Google Docs, has closed its doors.
At first glance, the move seems surprising. DocSyncer had established a strong user base, having accumulated over 6 million documents since its launch last October. A mere six months ago we reported that the company was “going gangbusters”, and was the web’s largest contributor to Google Docs.
So what happened? DocSyncer CEO Cliff Shaw says that the company simply couldn’t find a viable business model. The team decided that despite DocSyncer’s steady growth, it wasn’t going anywhere fast (the company also faced the looming threat of Google creating its own syncing service). Rather than dwindle more money and time on the service, Shaw and company have decided to move on. The team has begun work on a new photo site called picstreem, and are currently seeking funding.
Last December Shaw’s photo backup company ProtectMyPhotos shut down after losing out to competitors like Mozy and Carbonite. DocSyncer was that product’s successor, leveraging much of ProtectMyPhotos’s technology.
DocSyncer has been added to the Deadpool.
“DocSyncer CEO Cliff Shaw says that the company simply couldn’t find a viable business model.”
Ha ha, welcome to Web 2.0.
Bummer … It is ashame when a good growing product has to shut down because the funders could not find a viable business model. This is not to say that the founders are not smart and intelligent; however, products and business models not always go well together. The question is: Should you put up a product (and the investment that goes into it) without a business model before hand? My answer is that you find the product and then you find the business model. Fair enough … it ends up on the deadpool more often than not. But that is the nature of innovation. And not I am talking in the mathematical sense.
I love silicon valley. people pouring money into companies w/o a business model in the first place. no wonder it went belly up. anyone want to invest in my new startup? I sit on my ass and play XBOX all day. Haven’t found monetization strategy just yet…….
@techfacecrunchbook, it’s a boulder colorado company and cliff and company are smart and great guys building cool and innovative products. keep up the great work fellas
Let’s invest in another one of his companies! Yeah!
Another case of “build something people want” being insufficient to sustain a company. Sounds like a combination of 1) Not thinking through a revenue model; 2) Having a very low barrier to entry.
Without a revenue model, your best hope is to get bought as a feature, but if your feature is simple to create in-house, nobody is going to buy you.
It’s easy to criticize them, but hopefully these guys gained some good experience that they can leverage for something with a better business model. Failure is a great teacher.
integrating an acquisition is now more painful and expensive than building it inhouse, even for the dullard behemoths of the web
unless an acquiree brings millions of users (youtube, flickr), i expect to see acquisitions drop dramatically
Just a normal story. Glad that they decided to stop bleeding.
Well, this news is no surprise to me. Those who really need such a sync service can custom-built a solution with tools like iMacros in less than a day - and this approach will work with any website, not just Google Docs.
Expect to see this months ago.
Don’t really think business people willing to pay for DocSync since it not 2-way compatible with Office.
For casual user or tech-crazy, they will just happy with the Google Docs, why bother.
the main issue which non of these services like DocSyncer, Sugarsync, Mozy and others didnt solve is to have all functions necessary for “file freedom” under one service.
That would be: real time automatic backup, ability to recover files from history, storage, easy sharing, transfering large files, syncing between computers and syncing between Google Docs and office docs.
These features are very related and shouldnt be a big problem to pack them together.
I’m at the moment combining Mozy, Sugarsync and Mediamax for all this but in the moment when somebody figures out all this together I’m canceling all my subscriptions and jumping on board.
I’m pretty sure that Google will come out soon with some cool service which will wipe off most of these companies.
playing with house money rocks.
Wait, this “company” is doing what?
Photo site> doc synch > photo site
Yes, very innovative. flickr, smugmug, zoomr, facebook, photobucket, and the rest will never be able to reproduce whatever feature these guys come up with.
Earth to Cliff, no more photo sites!
Could never get it to work anyway, though there’s a big need for a service like this (especially with Google Spreadsheets, which are just plain awkward to use for anything beyond the basics).
Have to agree with @13. We have enough photo sites already and don’t really need more.
Better yet - I love companies that start companies with no business model other than “Google will buy us” as their exit strategy.
Couldn’t they have merged this with something like docStoc?
Where the 6 million documents would have been added to the docstoc base instead?
It doesn’t sound like he tried very hard.
I tried to use this service about a month ago and the site was down. I had a feeling this was coming.
When you build a service onto a free service (Google Apps) there’s little chance you are going to convert those users to paying customers- they have self-identified as being free-users, not paid.
The bigger question here is what defines a ‘company’? It’s not a product or an idea (those are inventions or concepts), it’s a business model that takes an idea and monetizes it. There is far too much coverage of ideas and concepts here that are described and financed as though they were businesses. You’re not a business until you do business.
ok guys….
this isn’t rocket science… if you want a successful/generates revs, you need to go ask your potential suppliers of revs (possible customers) what they want/need.
so if you’re going to have a biz based on advertising, you better damn well have done your homework to make sure you can get the advertising to support you biz. i know this part is hard/unglamorous. but i can tell you that walking in for a meeting with funding sources, and stating that you’ve talked to 200-300 potential customers about what you’re doing, and if these potential customers will pay, and how much they’d pay… this makes a world of difference.
don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of sites/businesses that you can point to, that went and built the product/site/technology and managed to be wildly successful. but i’m willing to bet that these are the anomalies as opposed to the rule.
or, on the other hand, you can talk to a few friends and convince yourself that this idea will fly, and go off and build the site/app… and more often than not.. watch it stumble along….
peace…
@Sam, et. al.
ANY startup that survives is an anomaly.
The odds are 8 out of 10 against success.
1) Failure is the norm.
2) Followed by a very slim chance of being acquired by an established tech giant before your funding runs out.
3) Followed by an even more remote chance of finding a sustainable business model to support ongoing ops, and perhaps make a small profit.
4) Followed by an almost 0% chance of a runaway success, a la Threadless.com, etc.
It’s easy to be an arm-chair founder and just hang out on TC and say “idiots” whenever something gets Deadpooled.
@Web 2.0 user
Most of the Net can be built by people with the right know-how, in their spare time. However, most users are total noobs, or don’t have the free time to do things on their own.
How many people you meet on the street will even know what a macro is, let alone know how to make their own??
However, they’ve probably all heard of MySpace, Facebook, etc. which really don’t do anything you couldn’t build for yourself with an open source CMS package like Drupal, etc.
Microsoft Office has such a giant market share, its saddens me to see this die, anything to open up the web and take away Microsoft’s market away. There was hope, maybe Google will figure out another ally in its battle?
I like the fight these guys put up. What happened to adaptation. If they had investors, what are they thinking now…
I am always curious what happens to the assets from a company like this? Do the owners just fold it into their next start-up?
@11 and others:
“That would be: real time automatic backup, ability to recover files from history, storage, easy sharing, transfering large files, syncing between computers and syncing between Google Docs and office docs.”
Apologies in advance for the plug. Like DocSyncer, Syncplicity does sync with Google Docs but in a two-way fashion with Microsoft Office. It also does all of the features above in one integrated experience.
We’re in beta right now, but would love any feedback you might have!
You can learn more at http://www.syncplicity.com/Tou.....eDocs.aspx
Cheers!
Leonard (from the Syncplicity team)
Jason,
God will punish you guys for hyping nonsensical ideas.
Gangbusters .. come one .. do you guys pay attention to what you are saying or doing?
There is a startup out there thinking they are Youtube of doc’s .. now pray tell what does it mean?
This was was even dumber .. Who wants to sync doc’s only .. Syncing has value if done right,
This idea of generating companies of vicarious living .. google doc’s was STUPID .. the vc’s who funded them were dumber than a rock; and you guys who push such drivel will burn in the infernal hell .. only worst than the one where the founders and funders of floundering startsup burn.
There are more dominoes ready to fall .. one should watch all those facebook widget companies leaving the garage doors open soon.
@24
still no mac version. Than we can talk.
Are you planning to have subscription plans or get income with advertisement?
The thing pooped all over my sync efforts. I ended up with one file that ’synced’ to GDocs 1459 times!
Glad they are gone. I hope they burn in hell