A Postmortem of a Startup

Summary

Introduction Between May 2023 and March 2025, Tract attempted to build a venture-backed company to address Britain’s housing crisis by improving the planning permission process. After raising a £744,000 pre-seed round in April 2024, we explored several business models: a site-sourcing tool for developers (Tract Source), a free land-appraisal tool for landowners (Attract), becoming tech-enabled land promoters ourselves, and finally, an AI-powered platform to assist with drafting planning documents (Tract Editor). Despite significant technical progress, building tools like Scout and the well-received Tract Editor, our journey taught us critical lessons from failing to secure a viable, venture-scale business model in the British property market. We learned the difficulty of selling software into a conservative sector, experienced the operational complexities and timelines of land promotion, and encountered a low willingness to pay for useful tools. Furthermore, we came to understand how the market's conservatism and fragmentation limited its potential for venture-backed disruption. After nearly two years without revenue or committed paying customers, we realised we lacked a clear path to the necessary scale and returns. This prompted the decision to cease operations and return capital, sharing our experience as a case study. In retrospect, it's easy to see ways we could have approached things differently. This document is a post mortem, explaining what happened and why it went wrong. Our aim in writing this is: Codify and share what we’ve learned for our benefit and hopefully others. Document the story for posterity. Produce an artifact to explain, if not justify, the time and money spent. Exorcise our demons. We want to stress from the start that the ultimate failure of the company lies with us. Some issues were within our control and some were beyond it. At times, we’ll describe external factors in ways that sound negative. This isn’t an attempt to pass blame. We wan...