Singulution

Hunt Burdick had been programming since age 12 when his father showed him Visual Basic on DOS, building software for his own business. This early exposure planted a seed: Hunt wanted to create a comprehensive business management solution. After a successful career as a software engineer at Silicon Valley's Arista Networks, Hunt couldn't shake the entrepreneurial itch. In June 2017, he took the leap, leaving his job and cashing out his stock options and 401k to fund his new venture, Singulution.

Hunt threw himself into development with singular focus. "I spent every waking moment building," he recalls. Using Ruby on Rails and React, he constructed a full-duplex real-time point of sale and business management system with WebSocket connections—technically advanced and architecturally elegant. But there was a critical flaw in his approach: he built in a vacuum for 10 months straight, never once using the product himself and never engaging with potential customers until it was too late. The scope ballooned. Every feature seemed necessary. Real-time functionality added overhead. Infrastructure consumed time that should have gone elsewhere. After 10 months and $30,000 burned through (mostly his personal runway), Singulution had no customers and no revenue.

Hunt's biggest mistakes were architectural and strategic. He built what he thought people wanted instead of asking them. He spent too much time on infrastructure and not enough on customer discovery. The product lacked core features because he'd prioritized technical beauty over usability. "Without the complete set of features, the system was not usable," he admits. By the time he started networking to save the company, the runway was gone. The competition was entrenched and far ahead. There was no path forward without significantly more capital.

Though Singulution failed, fate intervened. While networking desperately, Hunt met the founders of E-Dealer Direct, a dealer management startup that was already past MVP with a working model. They bought Singulution's intellectual property, brought Hunt on as Chief Technology Officer for equity, and shuttered the company. Hunt later reflected: "It really wasn't a big deal since we didn't have any customers." In fact, he was relieved. Now he could focus on building with existing customers and real feedback rather than in isolation. Parts of Singulution's infrastructure were eventually incorporated into E-Dealer Direct's system.