Yesterday I took a look at the following infographic and demonstrated that, at least to all outsiders and many involved, Steemit inc suffers from anywhere between 13 to all 20 reasons start-ups fail.

I'd like to analyze SteemSTEM in the same way since I hold it very close, but for this reason, I'm also obviously going to be pretty biased. Anyone can feel free to point out different results in the comments but this is how I see SteemSTEM doing, in the most objective way I can be in my posititon:

SteemSTEM

1 - No market need

Now, as I said yesterday, Steem, to me, absolutely has a hold on a niche and necessary market. On the surface it's just 'get paid to blog', but this is largely the shape that was molded from Steemit.com, whereas many have found a whole diverse set of concepts Steem can expand into.

SteemSTEM, I believe - obviously - has cornered a market niche. Trust in media is lower than ever before (Especially in the UK where I'm from, the lowest in Europe), quality of media is down, misinformation, disinformation - fake news - is almost glorified and truth is starting to earn a negative connotatiton of its own.

Pseudoscience is ubiquitous, knowledge is expensive and real science is hard to communicate in a way that people know or care about. The consequences, of course, is disastrous.

By offering an incentive for real academics to communicate to a wider audience, and by having a system of checks and balances in place to assure only quality that matches objective guidelines reaches the top - or the front page of steemstem.io - we are doing a valuable service to the public. In theory, concepts that were once simply out of reach can be easily absorbed by the minds of the millions without needing to pay a penny.

Now, we also have several other projects which I might argue are even more valuable, but I'm keeping my mouth shut again for now.

So yes, there's a market need if you ask me.

2 - Ran out of cash

We never had cash to run out of! We have been basically working for free (or at a loss) for 2+ years. Nice!

3 - Not the right team.

Most of our team are qualified scientists, mathematicians, engineers or at the very least, inclined to be learned and very good at what they do. Does this itself make the team 'correct'?

Probably not. We have yet to fill many vital gaps. We need a proper marketing team, economists, lawyers, professional developers and most importantly of all, dedicated staff, rather than those who are mostly prioritizing their work with other initiatives such as Utopian. Unfortunately, what choice do they have when we can hardly pay a dime?

For what we can offer, our team is amazing, and they are dedicated in the sense that they have stuck with us this whole time against all odds, have been consistently professional and accurate with eagle eyes and unbiased approach to what they do. They already do 1,000 x more than one could ever expect people to do in the real world.

But until we can start giving out salaries, and until we can start hiring the staff we need to fill in the gaps, I cannot say we are 'the right team'. All in due time.

4 - Get outcompeted

Hm this is always a fear because, as above, we got no money! There have always been similar concepts and ideas out there so it's only a matter of time before somebody who happens to have a big wallet comes along and does what we do to a much better extent and faster rate.

This is a somewhat 'fingers crossed' scenario

5 - Pricing/cost issue

I guess the fundamental issue we have is the rewards.

The only value we have is thanks to our supporters. This is a fantastic concept but it also means we are dependent on their permanent support. Currently by far our best supporters are Utopian and Curie. As wonderful as this is, it is always best to have revenue coming from thousands of individuals, rather than a select few who can pull out or break down at any time.

Until we have a reward system that is not volatile, we we always have to contend with the mindet of 'is this money worth it' and thus price always reflects the community size. This is a problem.

6 - User un-friendly product.

Well, our website steemstem.io is of course user un-friendly. We have a one-man development team doing things for free between a 70 hour job in real life. We have hired some excellent developers in the past but, again, for free (more or less), with only temporary guidance and help. We have yet to find an actual web designer and if we do, we couldn't pay them.

However, the concept of SteemSTEM itself is quite friendly. One could, if they wanted, write a post, use our tag, and that's the end of that. One does not need to read a 200 page whitepaper or go through a 3 week sign up process and YouTube tutorial series. Just write, post, tag, done.

I'm not too concerned about the future of our friendly product. There is almost always somebody on discord available to help anybody in need.

7 - Product without a business model.

We do not have one of those websites where we introduce the beautiful graphic timeline referring to various quarters of the years until mid-late 2019 where everything will definitely be perfectly functional and perfect.

To me, there are just as many scams and failures that spend more time creating this graphic than anythting else, and doesn't reflect a detailed business model at all. It's mostly just used to appease the curious laymen.

Most of our business model is, for now, private. We of course communicate with the public everything that matters to them, this is totally necessary for the nature of what we do.

Long story short, we know exactly what we are doing, how to do it, and where to go with it, but we are not business professionals and will likely expect some hiccups along the way with compromise and change. I've no idea how to predict such outcomes unfortunately.

8 - Poor marketing

We have no money or skilled individuals involved to be satisfied with our marketing. I have been working on expanding to new communities and new languages, as well as charities and advertisements, but with no training there's only so much I can do.

This is increasingly becoming one of my focusses and I hope to show significant improvement over time. This is the direction we need to go, in my opinion. Like ned, I am not a face for Bloomberg.

9 - Ignore customers

I think it's pretty clear to anyone involved that this is not the case, but feel free to disagree in the comments (with evidence)!

From 10-20 I'll just cruise through more briefly the ones that I think apply.

12 - Disharmony among team

In the past there has been some chaos with clashing personalities and mutiny. This, as I've said for the longest time, was always going to happen when you have a team of basically anonymous users from extremely different backgrounds. Given that our team come from America, Africa, Europe and Asia with differing cultural expectations, political ideologies and so on... It would be hard to imagine a team like this that would simply just... work.

In fact, I'd argue if it was harmonious from the get-go, there's a problem. This implies no new ideas are being pushed, no boundaries broken, no discussion and no debate.

That being said, the disharmony was quite dangerous and a little damaging to our cause but is thankfully behind us... FOR NOW. The team for the most part has been pretty smooth sailing for some time now.

14 - Lack Passion

Absolutely not. At least among the three of us in management, and especially among myself, Excitement for what is to come is higher than ever. If only I could tell everyone!

15 - Failed geographical expansion

Well for us I suppose that applies to our sub-communities. We have had a consistent userbase in the languages and countries we work in, and we will soon be launching China edition! So I'd say no to this, too.

16 - No investor interest

Yep for sure. Now, just like marketing, we are unsure how to approach investors, and without a finished product in the form of steemstem.io, it would be unwise to do so anyway. When it comes to investors in the form of delegators, we have many kind contributors, but when it comes to the big bucks, little attention has been given, as far as I myself can tell. And this makes sense until we have a viable product to demonstrate with. I'm hoping this will change come the release of a final product but this is now quite some time away unfortunately.

Conclusion

So, we are far from perfect, clearly. We are lacking expertise, funding and support that is desperately needed to truly make a difference, and we have ambition that far outweighs the actual abilities to accomplish them.

We know this very well and we also know that we cannot go in this alone. The best way to success is to diversify in terms of finances as well as people. We collaborate with other teams and we communicate our concerns and questions to the public, becuase we would literally die if we didn't.

Whether you like it or not, we're all in this together!

But is there anything here that shows crippling evidence that we will fail? I don't think so. The fact that we have the passion even to this day is the main factor that will allow us to thrive. Of course, if Steem persists on going down to $0.00, and Steem itself colllapses, maybe we will fall with it.

Should we ever need to move to other blockchains (No plan to do that in the current state of things), where should we go?

What else are we doing wrong (that can realistically be mended)?