Failure Analysis
Sigfox died from strategic architecture failure compounded by execution missteps. The root cause was choosing a proprietary protocol in a market that demanded interoperability....
Sigfox \France
Sigfox promised to connect billions of IoT devices through a proprietary, ultra-low-power, low-cost global network. The pitch was irresistible: a single network operator for the entire planet, enabling $1/year connectivity for sensors tracking everything from parking spaces to cattle. They would be the 'cellular network for things'—bypassing expensive telecom infrastructure with their own protocol and base stations. The vision tapped into the IoT gold rush: analysts predicted 50 billion connected devices by 2020, and Sigfox positioned itself as the inevitable infrastructure layer.
Discover the reason behind the shutdown and the market before & today
Market Analysis
The IoT connectivity market in 2024 is mature, fragmented, and commoditized. Cellular IoT (NB-IoT and LTE-M) has won the high-reliability segment, with over 500M...
Startup Learnings
Proprietary protocols in infrastructure are suicide unless you control both ends of the value chain. Sigfox's closed standard meant every device manufacturer had to...
Market Potential
The IoT connectivity market is real and growing—projected to reach $35B by 2025—but it has fragmented into specialized niches rather than consolidating around a...
Difficulty
Rebuilding Sigfox today would be extraordinarily difficult because it requires massive capital expenditure for physical infrastructure (base stations globally), regulatory approvals in every country,...
Scalability
The scalability paradox killed Sigfox: their network architecture was designed for massive device scale, but achieving that scale required massive upfront infrastructure investment. They...
Rebuild & monetization strategy: Resurrect the company
Execution Plan
Phase 2
Build a simple dashboard showing real-time occupancy heatmaps and energy waste alerts (e.g., 'Conference Room 3A has been empty for 6 hours but HVAC is running at full capacity'). Quantify savings weekly. Target $5K-10K in identified waste in 90 days.
Phase 3
Convert pilot to paid contract at $0.40/sq ft/year ($40K-50K annual contract). Use this revenue and case study to sign 3 more buildings in the same city. Standardize deployment playbook: 2-day install, 30-day calibration, 60-day ROI report.
Phase 4
Reach 500K sq ft under management (5 buildings, $200K ARR). Use this to raise a $2M seed round. Hire 2 sales reps focused on property management firms (CBRE, JLL, Cushman & Wakefield) that manage portfolios of 50+ buildings.
Phase 5
Build predictive maintenance module: use 6 months of HVAC data to predict equipment failures 30 days in advance. This becomes the retention hook—once you have historical data, switching costs are high. Expand to 20 buildings (2M sq ft, $800K ARR) by month 18.
Monetization Strategy
Charge $0.40-0.60/sq ft/year as a fully managed service (hardware, connectivity, analytics, support included). A 100K sq ft building pays $40K-60K/year. Gross margin is 70%+ after hardware amortization (sensors cost $30-50 each, gateways $500, total hardware cost $5K-8K per building amortized over 5 years). Target 50 buildings (5M sq ft) by year 2 = $2M-3M ARR. Upsell premium modules: predictive maintenance (+$0.10/sq ft), tenant experience scoring (+$0.10/sq ft), ESG reporting (+$0.05/sq ft). The business model is SaaS-like recurring revenue but with a physical deployment moat—once sensors are installed and integrated with building systems, switching costs are high. Long-term, license the platform to property management firms as white-label software ($100K-500K/year per firm) so they can deploy internally across their portfolios, turning you into infrastructure for the industry.
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