I tried to create a startup to allow home owners to track items in their home which require periodic maintenance, receive notifications, and monthly summaries.

I tried to create a startup to allow home owners to track items in their home which require periodic maintenance, receive notifications, and monthly summaries. I was then planning to help connect them with local service professionals with targeted leads to make money. I tried to do this as a bootstrapped startup, while maintaining a day job. In the end, it failed after about a year of my working on it and launching a private beta. Here's why I believe it failed: * I should have launched with a mobile app first. Desktop web apps (which we focused on) were a non-starter. But this was 2010 so the rise of mobile was still unknown. * Sales to service professionals is tough since many are small, family-owned businesses. This requires a high touch sales process and an army of sales people to execute on it. * Doing a business like this while bootstrapping and working full time was impossible and I moved slowly as a result. To make it work, it would require going at it full time with VC funding. Since I shut it down, I have noticed a few startups penetrate this field (RedBeacon, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor) and it's been interesting to see how they tackled the same problems. I learned a lot from the experience, both professionally and technically (it was my first Rails app) which I've been able to successfully leverage into a career working with startups. So I don't consider it a loss at all.