SynapseLife
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
SynapseLife was the first consumer product of Synapse Corporate Solutions, a four-person Seattle team founded by Daniel Rust and Mark Michael. Launched in 2006, it was a suite of eight integrated AJAX web applications for managing your life - contacts manager, calendar with event RSVPs, email broadcast tool, to-do lists, financial ledger, feed reader, and bookmarking with tagging - all accessible by mobile device. The basic applications were free, with premium small-business features planned on top of the company's legacy web service. The service attracted 4,500 users. In March 2007 the company sold SynapseLife on eBay (opening bid $50,000) to pivot to its Down2Night nightlife SMS alerts product.
02 / SynapseLife FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
SynapseLife was crushed between bigger fish: TechCrunch's 2007 deadpool entry says it was 'sandwiched between more robust productivity management applications like Zimbra, Scrybe, and even the hipper Goowy.' A four-person team (plus subcontractors) building eight separate applications at once couldn't match the depth or momentum of dedicated competitors - breadth without a killer advantage. Rather than keep fighting, co-founder Daniel Rust sold the product off on eBay and moved the team to Down2Night.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Launch
Synapse Corporate Solutions, a four-person Seattle team founded by Daniel Rust and Mark Michael, launched SynapseLife - a suite of eight integrated life-management web apps (beta notifications from October 2006).
- Sold on eBay
In March 2007 Synapse Corporate Solutions put SynapseLife up for sale on eBay (opening bid $50,000) to move away from the competitive corporate solutions market and focus on its Down2Night nightlife SMS alerts product; the service had 4,500 users.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
In March 2007 Synapse Corporate Solutions put its SynapseLife productivity suite up for sale on eBay (opening bid $50,000); the technology's value was the main asset, alongside 4,500 users.
- 02
The team of four (plus subcontractors) moved to the company's Down2Night nightlife SMS alerts product for San Francisco and Seattle.
- 03
No bankruptcy filing, debts, or creditor claims were ever disclosed.