[tacostakohashi]

I also tried a startup which was largely premised on having better scheduling, and solving obvious operational inefficiencies with competitor businesses.

In hindsight, that was dumb, because we never got to anything near the scale where the scheduling would matter.

We didn't have a better way of acquiring customers, so efficiency never came into play. Conversely, if you have enough customers, operational efficiency doesn't matter that much.

Anyway, no profound insights here... just pointing out to people that if you have a great startup idea based on using a more elaborate scheduling algorithm than your competitors (an attractive trap for programmers, no doubt), then think again.

[smallnamespace]

Business execs are often taught to distinguish between cost centers and profit centers, and to focus their attention and resources on the profit centers.

Any product that's premised on making a company's cost centers (e.g. HR scheduling) marginally more efficient is going to see very slow adoption just because it's not something execs will focus on -- they have so many other priorities that are higher on the list.

Also, SMBs almost never want to convert to pay cash for anything because they are usually so cash crunched.

[tacostakohashi]

Yep, it totally makes sense when put in those terms.

Also, any attempt to make the cost centers more efficient (by introducing elaborate software and algorithms) will probably make them quite a bit less flexible, require higher skilled staff, etc.