This post is a gem. I wanted to build something like this for 10 years but shied away until last year because your journey seemed exactly what would happen going down that road in a world not ready yet.

I started with regular valve inspired "playtesting" with users on prototypes which showed:

- Power users love canvas and multiplayer but only need it in distinct product or company phases which last a few weeks or months max, outside these phases they need that maybe once every one or two weeks which is not enough to stick to a new browser - outside of the usage, they feel burdened by mental overhead of collaboration or canvas features and much prefer simplicity - the world does not need another closed source browser, VC is fundamentally incompatible with what is needed, so any step after joining yc was doomed from the start