I’m sad to report that Teqlo has closed.

The challenge was simple: figure out how to commercialize some really powerful software created by Jacoby Thwaites. In the end, we ran out of runway.

People will say that you should figure out a business model and a target market first, and then work out how to service that market. There is certainly less risk to that approach to building a start-up. However, sometimes, start-ups are faced with a different challenge.

In Teqlo’s case, Jacoby had developed a platform for turning widgets into real working applications using mostly just drag and drop. There were two problems then: how do you commercialize cool technology, and how do you keep the company funded until you reach market.

When it became clear that taking the technology to market as a mashup platform was not going to fly… at least not with the VCs… we quickly came up with a new plan. Our plan was pretty simple. The product was going to be Gmail + Salesforce in one integrated workflow.

What are the lessons to be learned?

1. Getting to market quickly and building momentum with even a limited audience is critical to the chances of success of any venture. Teqlo got 3/4 of the way there with it’s mashup platform. You could assemble applications, but the tools to build your own widgets and publish the applications you built were never finished. Teqlo got 7/8 of the way there with its new integrated workflow product. It was to be called QuickWork. In both cases, the partially completed product was shown to investors before it was shown to potential customers.
2. Working with VCs automatically puts your company on a time line. This can be a great thing if you engage them at the right point in the process. But that time line also leads directly to final stop date if things do not go as planned. The longer you can figure out how to boot strap your company, the better off you will be.
3. Sometimes, despite a brilliant team and great technology, luck just doesn’t go your way.

Good News for Recruiters

Teqlo’s demise has released some brilliant engineers out onto the market. If you are looking to hire experts in AJAX, Java, Tomcat, Sleepycat, XML, and XSLTs … just let me know. I can put you in touch with 4 people in the Bay Area and 2 in London who are truly rock stars.

What’s next for me? I have very luckily landed on my feet. I’ll blog about that next.