The team behind Pulsar is a community that came about naturally after the announcement of Atom's Sunset and decided that they needed to do something about it to keep their favorite editor alive.
It seems to me the main reason for this failed startup is lack of marketing. I am in the middle of building/promoting a startup company and the first batch of customer seems very quite difficult to attract.
% brew install kew
...
kew: Linux is required for this software.
Error: kew: An unsatisfied requirement failed this build.