Failure Analysis
Solid died from a lethal combination of broken unit economics and strategic positioning failure, both rooted in underestimating the complexity of enterprise integration. The...
Solid \USA
Solid was a B2B SaaS platform that promised to revolutionize enterprise data integration and workflow automation by providing a unified API layer for connecting disparate business systems. Founded in 2017, Solid raised $81M from top-tier investors (FTV Capital, GGV Capital) to build what they positioned as the 'Plaid for enterprise software' — a single integration point that would eliminate the need for custom API work when connecting CRMs, ERPs, HRIS systems, and other enterprise tools. The timing seemed perfect: enterprises were drowning in SaaS sprawl (average company using 100+ tools by 2020), and integration costs were ballooning. Solid's value proposition was compelling: reduce integration time from months to days, eliminate maintenance overhead, and provide a developer-friendly SDK. They targeted mid-market and enterprise customers who were spending millions on integration consultants and custom middleware. The 'why now' was clear — API economy maturation, microservices architecture adoption, and desperate need for interoperability as digital transformation accelerated post-COVID. However, despite strong initial traction and significant capital, Solid shut down in early 2025 after burning through their runway without achieving sustainable unit economics or product-market fit at scale.
Discover the reason behind the shutdown and the market before & today
Market Analysis
The enterprise integration market in 2025 is a $7B+ industry dominated by three categories of winners, with Solid's horizontal positioning representing the strategic dead...
Startup Learnings
Horizontal integration platforms have exponential complexity that cannot be solved with linear venture capital. Each new system integration adds not just one connector, but...
Market Potential
The enterprise integration market remains massive and growing. Gartner estimates the Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) market at $6.7B in 2024, growing to...
Difficulty
Building a universal enterprise integration layer remains technically challenging even with modern tools. The core problem is not the API infrastructure (Vercel, Railway, Supabase...
Scalability
Enterprise integration platforms have inherently poor scalability characteristics due to high-touch sales, custom implementation requirements, and ongoing maintenance overhead. Solid's model required: (1) 6-9...
Rebuild & monetization strategy: Resurrect the company
Execution Plan
Phase 2
Step 2 - Compliance and Reliability Infrastructure (Validation, Months 4-8): Achieve HIPAA compliance and SOC2 Type 1 certification using Vanta automation. Build compliance-as-a-service features: automated BAA generation, audit logging for all API calls, patient consent management, data encryption at rest and in transit. Implement Temporal-based retry logic with exponential backoff for EHR API failures (critical for healthcare reliability). Add real-time monitoring dashboard showing connection health, API latency, and error rates per EHR. Expand to 15 EHR connections including regional players (NextGen, AdvancedMD, DrChrono). Launch usage-based pricing: $500/month per EHR connection + $0.10 per API call. Success metric: 15-20 customers, SOC2 Type 1 certified, 99.9% uptime, $30K-50K MRR.
Phase 3
Step 3 - Write Capabilities and Event Subscriptions (Growth, Months 8-14): Add write capabilities for clinical workflows: create appointments, submit orders, write clinical notes, send referrals. This unlocks higher-value use cases (care coordination platforms, clinical trial recruitment, specialty referral networks) and increases ACV from $10K to $50K+. Build real-time event subscription system using Redpanda: customers can subscribe to patient admission events, lab result updates, or medication changes. Expand AI normalization to handle bidirectional mapping (FHIR to proprietary EHR formats). Launch partner program for health systems: white-label integration layer that Epic customers can use to connect third-party apps. Success metric: 40-60 customers, $200K-300K MRR, 10+ enterprise health system partnerships, net revenue retention over 120%.
Phase 4
Step 4 - Platform Moat and Enterprise Expansion (Scale, Months 14-24): Build defensible moat through network effects and data assets. Create community-contributed connector marketplace where customers can build and share integrations for long-tail EHR systems. Launch AI-powered integration builder: customers describe their use case in natural language, Claude generates FHIR queries and transformation logic. Develop proprietary healthcare data normalization models trained on millions of API calls (competitive advantage that cannot be replicated). Expand to adjacent healthcare data sources: labs (LabCorp, Quest), pharmacies (Surescripts), payers (claims data), wearables (Apple Health, Fitbit). Build enterprise features: dedicated VPC, custom SLAs, professional services for complex implementations. Target Series A at $2M-3M ARR with 100+ customers and clear path to $10M ARR. Success metric: $2M+ ARR, 100+ customers, 15+ enterprise contracts over $100K ACV, SOC2 Type 2 certified, market leader in digital health integration.
Monetization Strategy
Usage-based SaaS with land-and-expand motion. Base pricing: $500/month per EHR connection (covers infrastructure, compliance, and support). Usage pricing: $0.10 per API call for read operations, $0.25 per API call for write operations (reflects higher complexity and liability). Volume discounts kick in at 100K+ API calls per month (tiered pricing down to $0.05 per call at 1M+ calls). Enterprise tier: $50K-200K annual contracts include dedicated support, custom SLAs (99.95% uptime), professional services for complex integrations, and white-label options. Revenue model targets 70%+ gross margins by year 2 (infrastructure costs are 15-20% of revenue with Vercel/Supabase, support costs are 10-15% with AI-powered documentation and automated error resolution). Land-and-expand strategy: start with 5 EHR connections for $5K-10K/month, expand to 20+ connections as customer grows, upsell write capabilities and real-time events. Average customer lifecycle: Month 1-3 at $5K/month (pilot), Month 4-12 at $15K-25K/month (production rollout), Year 2+ at $50K-100K/month (enterprise scale). Target unit economics: CAC of $15K-25K (developer-focused content marketing, conference sponsorships, design partner referrals), payback period of 8-12 months, LTV/CAC ratio of 5x+. Path to $10M ARR: 100 customers at $100K average ACV (mix of 60 mid-market at $50K and 40 enterprise at $200K). Competitive pricing vs. incumbents: Redox charges $2K-5K per connection with annual minimums of $50K+, Particle Health charges per patient record accessed ($1-5 per patient), Nexus Health undercuts on base pricing but captures more revenue through usage-based model as customers scale.
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