PackLate shuts down: ‘We had to make our one basket work or die trying’

PackLate, the Conshohocken-based B2B startup that provided listings for vacation rentals, shut down as early as December because it wasn’t growing quickly enough, according to an announcement on PackLate’s website.

Founder Steve Barsh did not respond to initial requests for comment.

In late 2011, PackLate, which raised a $685,000 seed round from investors like First Round Capital and Genacast Ventures in 2010, pivoted from a consumer-facing business to a B2B model. Following the pivot, Barsh reported a 10x increase in revenue.

On its website, the PackLate team offered some advice to entrepreneurs, including:

If you pivot, make sure that you have enough cash on board that you don’t have all of your eggs in one basket and you preserve optionality. Packlate could only afford one basket and that basket did not grow quickly enough. We realized we had to make our one basket work or die trying.

The PackLate team’s willingness to be open about what worked and what didn’t is one way to promote the “fail fast” spirit locally.

Read the rest of the announcement here.