// startup autopsy
Lumos
Lumos built smart internet-connected switches that learn from user behavior to automate home appliances.
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Key Events Timeline
FOUNDING
Lumos was founded as an IoT startup focused on smart switching technology with three first-time entrepreneurs.
PRODUCT LAUNCH
Lumos began early-stage development of its smart switch hardware product, targeting Indian residential and commercial consumers with a connected home device.
FUNDING
Lumos secured a small seed funding round to support hardware prototyping and initial manufacturing exploration in India.
PIVOT
The founding team expanded the product feature set beyond core smart switching, simultaneously pursuing multiple functionalities that strained engineering resources and worsened unit economics.
PRODUCT LAUNCH
Lumos launched a limited pilot of its smart switch device but discovered that manufacturing costs required a 5x markup to achieve profitability, making the retail price uncompetitive in the Indian market.
CEO CHANGE
Internal communication breakdowns among the three co-founders led to a reorganization of leadership responsibilities, reflecting deep team dysfunction that the founders later publicly cited as a primary failure cause.
SHUTDOWN
Lumos shut down after less than a year of operation. The founders acknowledged they were not the right team to build a hardware company and identified seven major problems that led to failure.