Everpix was a business establishment that focused on providing customers with an excellent app for managing their photos. The founders of the firm aimed at making the startup become a world choice for the management of photos. The service could help people to manage their photos using digital cameras and other mobile communication devices. The business was finally closed in December 2013 (Newton par. 2). Although it was closed, its creators aimed at making it remain in business by adopting various financial and marketing approaches.
The founders of Everpix were obsessed with creating an excellent photo management service at the expense of marketing the service. In fact, the service was quite fast and it offered a good interface that was characterized by a high level of usability (Newton par. 3). The business failed to understand that all the investors who injected their funds into the firm aimed at growing the business by attracting more customers and recording improved financial results (Croll and Yoskovitz 23). The top management did not concentrate on developing the business and marketing the photo sharing app across the globe. Thus, Everpix was characterized by high costs that could not be paid by income.
For example, it incurred $566,000 in legal costs, $129,000 in office maintenance costs and $360,000 in operation costs. It was absurd that Everpix incurred $1,411,000 in paying its seven workers, yet it was recording poor financial results. The overall effect of the poor marketing approaches adopted by the firm was a turnover of about $254,000 (Newton par. 4). The business could have used marketing strategies that could attract potential users of the app (Croll and Yoskovitz 30). For example, it could have used the internet to make the service more popular. Also, it could have sent short messages to mobile phone subscribers to request them to subscribe to the service.
The founders of the business also failed to understand that the US market is characterized by a high level of competition from businesses offering similar products. In such a market, entrepreneurs pay for their business mistakes. Everpix did not aim at strategically positioning itself to offer alternative services to those provided by its business competitors like Apple and Google (Newton par. 6). In fact, the two global firms still provide evolved photo sharing services to millions of customers across the world for free. It is recommended that businesses should offer perfect alternatives to what their competitors offer so that they could gain significant market shares (Croll and Yoskovitz 27).
The developers of the service offered by the failed business did not try to make the service easier and more intuitive. Thus, the software was too complex to be used by an ordinary person with limited information technology knowledge. Entrepreneurs should always aim at providing products that can be used by many customers at ease. This helps in attracting a significant number of customers that could improve the sales of a product. For example, the photo sharing apps that are offered by other firms are easy to use and can be applied by many customers, even those with limited information technology knowledge.
In conclusion, Everpix created a very fast app that could not generate substantial income for the company because of poor business development and marketing strategies. The reasons that made the firm fail could be used by aspiring entrepreneurs across the world so that they cannot make the same business mistakes in the future.
Works Cited:
Croll, Alistair, and Benjamin Yoskovitz. Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media, Inc., 2013. Print.
Newton, Casey. Out of the picture: why the world’s best photo startup is going out of business. 2013. Web.