Kiko has put itself up for sale on eBay. Kiko is an online calendar service that is notable because of its adoption of standards-based rich front-end technologies (AJAX) to build the GUI. Or at least it was notable for that until Google launched Google Calendar. Kiko clearly does more than Google Calendar, but Kiko's management clearly sees a trendline in Google's offering that they don't like. No matter how much Web 2.0 buzz Kiko can generate (kudos to them for the level of mindshare they have achieved in such a short time), it pales next to the buzz Google can generate. I think it's wise of the Kiko team to sell now, before Google revs their Calendar a few times. Fortunately, Kiko is a YCombinator-backed startup and probably hasn't taken on a ton of capital. So this exit might not recoup all of the capital that's gone into the company so far, but I'd but it gets back an appreciable portion.
Lessons learned:
- an AJAX GUI is not a sufficient differentiator (i.e. to set Kiko apart from the years-old Yahoo! Calendar)
- Minimal capital investments are a Good Thing
Good luck to the Kiko team in its next venture!
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