[ensemblehq]

Best of luck! This feels very much like Algorithmia and a previous startup that I built a few years back. The challenge I experienced is the model productionization process and accountabilities as opposed to the infrastructure. No amount of tech I built mattered even if models could be deployed in seconds. Mind you - I was focused on enterprise. The hard part with startups for me was finding technical folks who already “know” how to deploy a model and don’t want to admit they needed a tool.

For a recent enterprise client, developers deploying models is just a non-starter. My advice is to talk to as many customers as you can, hone in on businesses where rapid model deployment is an absolute necessity and double down on them.

Good luck!

[araghuvanshi]

Thank you! Totally hear you on the part about convincing people who know how to do it to use a tool. We've found that those folks respond well to the counterargument that they shouldn't have to do it, even if they know how to, unless it's mission critical for their application. And thank you for the advice and good wishes!

[nmhancoc]

> developers deploying models is just a non-starter

Can you explain more of what you mean by this? Were developers sufficiently comfortable they completely brushed off the suggestion of needing a tool or did the enterprise already have tooling in place?

[ensemblehq]

For larger organizations, there are governance rules, accountabilities and politics at play. Generally, developers are not allowed to deploy models unless they are within the teams mandated to do so. I haven't seen any "AI" teams willing to bear the burden to allow anyone outside their team. And from what I've seen so far, developers in enterprise organizations weren't really that interested in deploying models in the first place.