Four years and a lot of investors, but we didn't move fast enough.
Quote from Terry Jones, chairman of WayBlazer, in an article on PhocusWire this week.
WayBlazer postmortem: Why did travel's highest-profile AI company fail?
The demise of WayBlazer is turning into a reference book for the modern travel startup - with the story behind its sudden (at least for those looking from the outside) closure likely to be pored over for years to come.
What makes the WayBlazer tale so interesting is that happened to a company that had pedigree, in terms of personnel, behind it (Jones and its most recent CEO, ex-Travelocity exec Noreen Henry); a modest amount of funding (nearly $9 million); it had a good partner in IBM with its Watson product; and was tackling what many tech heads believe is a genuine problem to solve.
The chances of the company surviving and thriving were deemed to be high, at least compared to travel startups trying to reach consumers.
But with all those factors taken into consideration, WayBlazer failed.
There are multiple reasons, as Jones explains, but the one about speed is an intriguing one.
Four years in business, with a bunch of smart people working on the product and trying to sell it to the industry, but it still didn't work out.
Perhaps Jones does himself and the team a disservice by saying "they" didn't move fast enough - and, instead, the industry itself is simply not geared up to the introduction of the technology.
The wider travel, tourism and hospitality sector is not one that is renowned for its ability to move fast, with countless regulations (especially in aviation), business rules and, indeed, long-standing consumer behavior often taking a generation to be overhauled.
So, perhaps, there is something more fundamental that can be gained from this example.
Rather than, say, WayBlazer needing to move faster, the answer is that startups (and their backers) should consider slowing down with their aspirations, at the same time as the industry speeding up a little with how fast it evolves to meet the opportunities around new technology.
The bright lights of artificial intelligence-based tech in the travel industry have been dimmed somewhat with this closure, but not enough to put off the countless others that are still operating in the space.
But lessons will no doubt have been learned as a result.