<p><pre><code> If the model sounds familiar, that’s because it was
kind of the idea behind Milk. But the world has
changed since then, according to Rose. “The biggest
thing that’s changed in the last three years is that
back then we spent a lot of time spent building out
the back end… But the scaling piece is a solved
problem,” Rose told me.
</code></pre>
They shipped one app, Oink. Oink didn't fail because of the amount of time required to build out the backend. It failed because it was a me-too product in a sea of me-too products, and didn't do anything to differentiate itself or provide meaningful value to its users.<p>Edit: On an unrelated note, it looks like Kevin must've been binging on Wes Anderson films recently. The North website looks like one of Anderson's film title cards. Compare
<a href="http://wesandersontitlecards.tumblr.com" rel="nofollow">http://wesandersontitlecards.tumblr.com</a> and <a href="http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/</a><p>Edit 2: Yep, Futura. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futura_(typeface)#Usage" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futura_(typeface)#Usage</a> and check out the CSS on the North website.
> Nowadays he says, a lean startup can work specifically on product and design, and leave the infrastructure side of things to someone else.<p>Probably not true. Anyway, that's not what the plan is:<p>> He envisions North as a team that has one product person, one design person, and a full-stack engineer
This doesn't surprise me. To me Kevin seems to have a drive to tackle the latest interesting trends in social and always with a new twist. Success or Failure. This is a good quality. Good Luck Kevin.
It's weird to see a shopping cart powered by Squarespace at n-o-r-t-h.com<p><a href="http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/commerce/show-cart" rel="nofollow">http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/commerce/show-cart</a>