Flud
Social news reader for different platforms
Description
Flud was a social news reader available for iPads, iPhones, Androids and Windows platform. Flud distinguished itself from other news readers because users could save or store articles and news in the reading list for later reading. It was made to display RSS feeds from other blogs or news sites which made it easy for individuals to stream different sources of news - at the same time - on a single platform. Flud was considered as one of the best social news readers because it had a beautiful UI design, users could create profiles, follow other users, create communities and discussions around a topic and become major contributors by sharing their content.
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Cause of Failure
The reason for which Flud joined the graveyard list of failed startups was mainly that they were unable to raise additional funding for their operations. Despite its various ways to raise money (including making it an enterprise), the company failed to become profitable and eventually ran out of cash.
Another reason the company failure could be attributed to was the unreliable volume of demand. The market was already filled with similar products and the competition was too high. When Flud came to be, Flipboard and Pulse were already the leading franchise in the field.
An additional reason the company didn’t ultimately succeed was the lack of initial testing of the product. Moreover, they had sought the press too early on, without having a thoroughly tested product. The large media coverage the app received did Flud more damage than good because people, upon hearing about the app, would download it and try it out. Flud wasn’t expecting to have so many users download the app so soon and en masse, so they had suddenly had to deal with glitches and bugs. Having a faulty app when respected companies were praising it, might have cost them a bit of credibility and stopped the momentum they could have had.
