RIP Ryma - What Went Wrong?
Sunday, June 17, 2012 at 07:46PM Ryma Tech, makers of FeaturePlan, was founded a decade ago to (so I am told) bring to market a tool that implemented the Pragmatic Marketing Framework. Last week we learned they are going out of business. Except in certain circles, the news has not been widely distributed. (As of this writing there is still nothing on their website.)
This news and rumors of layoffs at other long-established vendors confirmed for me, though, real changes that are at work in the software industry -- changes that, ironically, many product management tools have failed to respond to. Product people want lean and simple tools that do one thing well and are focused on making people productive right away with an intuitive and configurable UI.
As readers of User>Driven know, I am at work on a tool like this called Reqqs. This is not just my self-serving interpretation of events, though. Here is a sampling of quotes from here, here and here on Ryma's passing.
Its biggest problem (my opinion) was that it missed the SaaS and Web 2.0 wave by about 3-5 years
I think they could have succeeded if they had put more emphasis on usability and less on complexity. Sometimes simpler is better.
FeaturePlan was slow, and cumbersome to enter and find things. People got lazy and started building a backlog on their own PCs.
Personally, I want to be in the business of managing products, not managing a product for managing products.
I used MS Excel posted on a collaboration site and was very much more effective in managing features.
My colleagues were worried that this tool needs custom integration that might be too expensive. At the same time, their demo was focused on features that did not matter to us.
Their sales team was more worried about selling expensive consulting services to "customize" (i.e. make somewhat useable) the product.
For a company supposedly knowledgeable about Pragmatic- they did not follow the Voice of the Customer methodology. Their product concept was decent - but the execution was not.
At the same time and despite these sentiments, many loyal customers and partners are sorry to see Ryma go:
I have had the privilege of getting to know several of the members of the RYMA team and I want to wish them the best as they move to the next phase of their careers.
I'm sorry to see them go. We've been using FeaturePlan for about 7 years. There are lots of products that are good at requirements tracking and management. Very few that are a tool for the front-end of Product Management: synthesizing customer problems into features and requirements.
Could Ryma have pivoted and continued meeting the changing needs of product managers? Given time enough and an openness to customer feedback, maybe so. Ryma's CEO (new this year), Michel Besner, had a pithy response to that question.
I guess 6 months was not enough to turn the company around ...
This does not have to be the end of something, though. Perhaps -- in the spirit of Joseph Schumpeter's creative destruction -- it can be a new beginning for the industry, for the employees of Ryma and for the product community.
What do you think? Post your thoughts in the comments below.
Reader Comments (4)
I've had the pleasure of knowing many of those who founded and ran the company, and I know they'll land on their feet soon!
There's a case study in here somewhere. (Insert mean-spirited rant about sales people here).
Thanks for putting together this summary. As with any major company change, real details are hard to come by.
I've not yet seen an officiaI written statement from the company or a reference to one in the blogosphere or news.google (there may be on out there?), and the website and phone number (selecting 0 at the toll-free # gets accounts payable/receivable) are still functional as of this post. I find it curious that a company that prides itself on establishing professionalism with the PM lifecycle, if indeed they are going out of business, would be handling the Retirement phase of a product and company with such poor communication. (If not going out of business, it's proving to be an effective awareness / thought provoking campaign on the state of PM software tools.) Perhaps current customers have been formally informed? Indeed, fodder for a case study.
The latest from folks at the 280 Group (who seem to have good access to company information):
"I just spoke with a member of the RYMA’s management team who related more details about what transpired. (This information is no longer confidential according to the company).
Here’s the gist – RYMA was unable to raise needed capital due to a set of unfortunate financing circumstances. This forced the company into receivership and led current employees to seek new industry opportunities. It’s possible that someone will acquire RYMA (or its assets) but the outcome is uncertain. All of this happened very quickly which led to the abrupt closing."
Given the state of their product line and the lack of communication on this topic from the Ryma team, I don't think I would want to acquire the company assets, even at a fire sale. "Unable to raise needed capital" is very often code for no one was interested in buying.
If you are interested in ready the point of view of the last CEO of Ryma, check out my latest blog ... http://michelbesner.com/2012/07/09/the-fall-of-ryma-technology-solutions/
Hope this will help clarify what happened ...