Another one bites the dust...

Fetchnotes was acqui-hired by Driftt (what is up with these company names?!) last year. As usual, there was the brief period of "we're not going away, great new things are in store!" But alas, it was yet another Incredible Journey (http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com

I continue to be convinced: DO NOT KEEP YOUR DATA IN A THIRD-PARTY SERVICE. DO NOT KEEP YOUR DATA IN A CLOSED FORMAT.

Thanks for the link to ourincrediblejourney. It's funny and sad how similar so many of the acquisition/shutdown messages are.

I continue to be convinced: DO NOT KEEP YOUR DATA IN A THIRD-PARTY
SERVICE. DO NOT KEEP YOUR DATA IN A CLOSED FORMAT.

Amen to that!

Small consolation, but at least FetchNotes exit was a bit more graceful than Circus Ponies Notebook.

Steve Z.

zoe wrote:

Another one bites the dust...

Fetchnotes was acqui-hired by Driftt (what is up with these company
names?!) last year. As usual, there was the brief period of "we're not
going away, great new things are in store!" But alas, it was yet another
Incredible Journey (http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com

I continue to be convinced: DO NOT KEEP YOUR DATA IN A THIRD-PARTY
SERVICE. DO NOT KEEP YOUR DATA IN A CLOSED FORMAT.

Thanks for the link. A painfully funny reminder about, as well as a deeper insight into, acqui-hires. It does make me wonder how many folks set out with this end goal in mind - produce just enough product to showcase your talents to somebody with deeper pockets and a need to hire.

--Ken

It does make me wonder how many folks set out with this end goal in mind

Almost none. I know lots of people who started software product companies. They usually divide into:

'startup' - Take VC and try to grow really fast. Want to be the next Google/Facebook. Dream of making millions from an exit.
'bootstrapper' - Grow slowly from their own profits. Want to create a profitable business they can sustain long term.

Neither wants to be 'acqui-hired'. Although that is generally still preferable to going bust.

Andy Brice wrote:

It does make me wonder how many folks set out with this end goal in
mind

Almost none. I know lots of people who started software product
companies. They usually divide into:

'startup' - Take VC and try to grow really fast. Want to be the next
Google/Facebook. Dream of making millions from an exit.
'bootstrapper' - Grow slowly from their own profits. Want to create a
profitable business they can sustain long term.

Neither wants to be 'acqui-hired'. Although that is generally still
preferable to going bust.

I am sure that a decent majority of folks have good intentions, and I know that this forum has seen and supported its share of bootstrappers and startups, but I still wonder about that dream of making millions from an exit, and truly wonder how different that is from an acqui-hire. I can sympathize with not wanting to go bust, but I suspect that any "exit" strategy will involve some end of life for the company's product, so why not be honest, or at least not put up the pablum that has been so duly noted in the linked website. And if VC funds did not exist, I think that startups might have to rely on a different model of growth that might be a bit more customer-friendly, although acquiring talent and sitting on it (if only to deny your competition access to it) has been a time-honored tradition of the corporate world for many years. IIRC, IBM and Xerox among others were known to scoop up talent in years past.

--Ken

There is definitely a contingent of people for whom acquisition by a larger company is the unspoken goal (or one acceptable goal out of several options). By 2016, after all the acqui-hires that have taken place, a startup founder would have to be incredibly naive to expect Google/FB/Twitter-like success.

Back in the first dot-com bubble, I remember companies were IPOing left and right, and the bubble amounted to something like a pump-and-dump scheme for the founders and early staff who got stock options. Nowadays, tech companies seem loath to go public. Those who have gone public are widely variable in their success. Once-unicornish companies like Groupon and Etsy are not doing so hot in the market. Yahoo! of course is getting worse every day and I can't imagine how they will save the company now. LinkedIn just lost about half of its value in one day. Nobody seems to know what will become of Twitter. Facebook and Google are doing OK, but they are the exception. Who even knows if Evernote (which is not publicly traded) will remain in business, and they are arguably the dominant player in the online PIM space.

The landscape for the majority of internet-based companies doesn't seem all THAT different to me from what it looked like on the eve of the first dot-com bubble bursting. In the first bubble, a few companies did manage to survive and become highly successful even as the majority of them imploded. But it's pretty much winner-take-all. I just don't think most smaller companies have a chance these days, even if they have a good product.

zoe wrote:

There is definitely a contingent of people for whom acquisition by a
larger company is the unspoken goal (or one acceptable goal out of
several options). By 2016, after all the acqui-hires that have taken
place, a startup founder would have to be incredibly naive to expect
Google/FB/Twitter-like success.

Back in the first dot-com bubble, I remember companies were IPOing left
and right, and the bubble amounted to something like a pump-and-dump
scheme for the founders and early staff who got stock options. Nowadays,
tech companies seem loath to go public. Those who have gone public are
widely variable in their success. Once-unicornish companies like Groupon
and Etsy are not doing so hot in the market. Yahoo! of course is getting
worse every day and I can't imagine how they will save the company now.
LinkedIn just lost about half of its value in one day. Nobody seems to
know what will become of Twitter. Facebook and Google are doing OK, but
they are the exception. Who even knows if Evernote (which is not
publicly traded) will remain in business, and they are arguably the
dominant player in the online PIM space.

The landscape for the majority of internet-based companies doesn't seem
all THAT different to me from what it looked like on the eve of the
first dot-com bubble bursting. In the first bubble, a few companies did
manage to survive and become highly successful even as the majority of
them imploded. But it's pretty much winner-take-all. I just don't think
most smaller companies have a chance these days, even if they have a
good product.

Living in the land of Amazon (I used to say Microsoft, but they have been surpassed in number of local employees in the past year or so), I find it a bit refreshing when there are market "corrections". This is a region that often suffers from over-inflated egos and sense of self-importance, and always those suffering seem to think that this time it will be different, and the bubble will not burst. From a historical perspective, it is still early in the world of technology/internet services, so frequent bubbles and corrections do not seem that unusual to me. But, I do wonder when the VC money will find the pickings slim, and no longer throw their money at any and everything that looks like the next FOTM.

I do appreciate technological improvements, but much of what I have been seeing in the latest iterations from the hot service providers has been focused more on style and less on substance. I am still not sure how a new logo or using tropical colors rather than a more traditional color scheme will improve my productivity. And, I do wonder what the folks who designed the early GUI interfaces for companies like Apple and Microsoft think of all their hard work trying to standardize GUI's from device to device and program to program must think of what is being offered up today. Perhaps I am just starting to show my age (and that old dogs do not always like new tricks), but I just do not seem to understand the priorities of product improvements in many products today? I'll get off of my soap box on this issue as we have discussed this topic before, I suspect that we will keep seeing these announcement for some time to come.

--Ken

Ken wrote:

And if VC funds did not exist, I
think that startups might have to rely on a different model of growth
that might be a bit more customer-friendly,

Indeed. However sustainable long-term businesses don't need VCs and aren't sexy enough for the media to care about. So all we hear about is VC-fuelled Google-or-bust businesses. Consequently a lot of founders now think that VC funding is the only option. And when you are VC funded, your real customers are your investors - the people using your product are just a means to an end.

Andy Brice wrote:

Indeed. However sustainable long-term businesses don't need VCs and
aren't sexy enough for the media to care about. So all we hear about is
VC-fuelled Google-or-bust businesses. Consequently a lot of founders now
think that VC funding is the only option. And when you are VC funded,
your real customers are your investors - the people using your product
are just a means to an end.

Very well stated.

--Ken

I do appreciate technological improvements, but much of what I have been
seeing in the latest iterations from the hot service providers has been
focused more on style and less on substance. I am still not sure how a
new logo or using tropical colors rather than a more traditional color
scheme will improve my productivity. And, I do wonder what the folks
who designed the early GUI interfaces for companies like Apple and
Microsoft think of all their hard work trying to standardize GUI's from
device to device and program to program must think of what is being
offered up today.

Ha, yes. I'd have to agree on the style and substance. There's been an explosion of truly impressive graphics apps in the recent past - some fantastic alternatives to the Adobe Empire are beginning to proliferate. But the number of truly ground-breaking text or knowledge management apps to appear has been remarkably small - there's been no significant paradigm shift for a couple of decades now, despite some laudable (and now moribund) attempts. Some of the most interesting developments have been in the enterprise authoring space, but unfortunately those are about as accessible to the ordinary user - or even the ordinary business - as Mars. This is the area that really needs some serious "democratisation".

MadaboutDana wrote:

Some of the most interesting developments have
been in the enterprise authoring space

Would you mind telling us which ones you have in mind?

But the number of truly ground-breaking text or knowledge management
apps to appear has been remarkably small - there's been no significant
paradigm shift for a couple of decades now, despite some laudable (and
now moribund) attempts.

There is an inherent tension between niche products for "power users" and large scale innovations that might count as a paradigm shift. I'd consider MS Word such a paradigm shift, when it became the de facto writing application for the masses.

So probably the audience of this forum would lose interest in those tools exactly at the point when they turn their attention to the mass market, such as it happened with Evernote when it abandoned its power users.

Maybe what's necessary is for small niche developers to learn how to survive as relatively small scale but profitable operations--and for users to adopt those developers and look after them. And if it's subscription what it takes to look after them, then that's what it has to be.

Then these "power users" can ensure that tools get developed that produce a local paradigm shift for their own working practices, not necessarily for the masses.

E.g. I have absolutely no problem paying my subscription to WorkFlowy or buying a lifetime licence for Gingko or giving a donation to WriteMonkey or paying for an upgrade to the latest version of ConnectedText; in fact it makes me feel good, almost like a charitable act, that my little contribution might hopefully contribute to their longevity. But it helps that I absolutely love those tools and they all produced what could be considered a "paradigm shift" in my little world.

The pinboard founder Maciej Ceglowski gives interesting talks on the whole start-up and sustainable business topic, they can be found on youtube, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eky5uKILXtM