> Builder hired 300 internal engineers and kicked off building internal tools, all of which could have simply been purchased
Dear god, PLEASE hire an actual Enterprise IT professional early in your startup expansion phase. A single competent EIT person (or dinosaur like me) could have - if this story is true - possibly saved the whole startup by understanding what’s immediately needed versus what’s nice-to-have, what should be self-hosted versus what should be XaaS, stitching everything together to reduce silos, and ensuring every cent is not just accounted for but wisely invested in future success.
Even if the rest of your startup isn’t “worrying about the money”, your IT and Finance people should always be worried about the money.
I would assume they were collecting data. If you're building a chatbot to talk to clients, you need all the transcripts from meetings, chat logs, project info, analytics, metrics, and so on. It's the only way to train your model properly.
Do they have any patents related to using chatbots for project management?
Probably, but casting such a wide net so early has its risks - as is visible in hindsight. Build one, then use that to build the second, the first two to build the third, etc, etc.
Doing everything all at once is a recipe for disaster.
Exactly this. My startup count is zero, but even I’m well enough informed to know that casting such a wide net is diverting attention away into too many tangents, too quickly, and will drain your balance sheet dry before you can capitalize on any singular success to build a moat or secure another funding round.
They were banking on AI coding being better than it was, and the snowball effect happening faster than it ever could. And now, they’re toast.
Dear god, PLEASE hire an actual Enterprise IT professional early in your startup expansion phase. A single competent EIT person (or dinosaur like me) could have - if this story is true - possibly saved the whole startup by understanding what’s immediately needed versus what’s nice-to-have, what should be self-hosted versus what should be XaaS, stitching everything together to reduce silos, and ensuring every cent is not just accounted for but wisely invested in future success.
Even if the rest of your startup isn’t “worrying about the money”, your IT and Finance people should always be worried about the money.