Step 1. Step 2. ??? Profit!!!

Editorially is shutting down. It was a site that allowed for collaborative editing and writing, and had gardered a lot of positive reviews.
Seems, despite being able to design a great product, they couldn’t make money off it:

WHY NOT JUST CHARGE FOR USE?

We thought of that, and in fact, it was always our plan to do so. But Editorially is a sophisticated application that requires a team of engineers to maintain and develop. Even if all of our users paid up, it wouldn’t be enough.
I’m not happy a great product failed, but that sounds like a pretty shitty business model.
After doing a little digging, their Crunchbase profile reveals they received Series A funding in January of 2012. Sounds like they didn’t come up with a monetization strategy in the 2 years since and the money ran out.
This is why I think in more cases than not, taking on investors in a new business is bad if you haven’t figured out your business model. Most companies don’t have the scaling power of Facebook or Twitter. Those guys can integrate advertising and be okay.
Supply chains, pricing models and marketing are just as important as how pretty your product is and how well it works.

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