[enewc]

I disagree. If you have a flawed business model, or a product that's simply not that desirable, then execution doesn't matter. Junk ideas remain junk, regardless of how well they are marketed.

In this case, it's my opinion that the startup in question was just never a good idea to begin with. No solid business model and no good reason why it would be widely adopted.

[kkowalczyk]

I'm not the author of penflip but you're missing a big thing: Editorially had 11 people on staff (https://editorially.com/about).

Penflip apparently is just one person.

If penflip makes $500k/year, it's a lot for 1 person but not even close to covering 11 people.

Collaborative writing is not a junk idea. There is a bazillion of different takes on that (draft, all the etherpad clones, google docs, ...).

[kskz]

Starting an entire company based on collaborative writing is a junk idea. It's a niche service without much room for improvement, and it's currently being provided for free by one of the largest software companies in the world.

There is no way that this will ever achieve anything close to $500k/year. For this to happen, at $8/month it needs to attract 5000+ subscribing, paying users. This is not going to happen when anyone can just use Google docs for free. Especially when Google is more well-known, better maintained, and integrates into existing Google accounts. There is just no good reason to sign up for a new service.

Most people have never heard of draft or etherpad. I'm willing to be that they are not actually generating any substantial revenue either, which is the benchmark for whether it's a good idea to start a business or not.