SubscribeBuykee Enters Dead Pool
Buykee, a Hangzhou based social shopping service for consumer electronics, has quietly closed the door. We profiled Buykee at the end of last year when it formally launched. The service only lasted for four months or so.
The reason of the shutting down is not widely known yet. Based on my observation, running out of cash may not be the reason. It’s most probable reason is the team has lost the heart. The following is just a couple of my thoughts, none of which could be the main cause of the failure:
- In stealth mode for too long. This may or may not be bad. The good thing is you can get a lot of hype. But the high expectation can also be harmful if you cannot produce a comparable product.
- They haven’t taken good use of the stealth mode. When they formally launched the service, it was almost empty. This may be the reason that lots of surfers came to have a look, but never turned into your users. A content based community needs a group of high quality seed users to generate the distinct culture of your website.
- We have built a great platform, so users should come. This is not always the case. Lots of web1.0 product review services are still running well. The difference between a web2.0 style community and a traditional forum is the rising of the importance of individual. You should identify your power users and treat them really well. This may not be simply putting top users list on your homepage, but you should show awareness of their presence and smartly turn this into a reason for other users to come back.
Buykee is the first company in our dead pool. There will be more. This is not always a bad thing for entrepreneurs. It’s time to back to your kitchens to prepare for the next big meal.
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mourning 5minutes……
Great post! I think what you pointed out (even though they might not be the final reasons killed BuyKee) are very valuable to all startups. Thanks.