Xobni - wouldn't get out of bed for $20m • Hacker News Board

Re: Xobni - wouldn't get out of bed for $20m

#41

Post by jdroid » Fri, May 02, 2008, 5:58 PM UTC

paul wrote: post #37

pg wrote: post #27

How on earth did this troll post get 17 votes? There's only one paragraph in it that's even new, and that doesn't say anything that hasn't already been said.

I'm starting to get the feeling that there's a big jealousy factor developing here. The formula is simple: find something that's getting traction and getting talked about, and then bash it. This bashing is very appealing to people whose own efforts are less successful (or more likely have never started), because it reassures them that the other people's efforts and success aren't "real" or legitimate. The same thing…

It's lame to pretend the reactions of potential clients aren't important. Even if there is a jealousy factor, a good founder would take it into account and act accordingly.

"But isn't xobni just an outlook plugin?"

Clearly people have that idea in their head. Now what is xobni going to do about it?

Re: Xobni - wouldn't get out of bed for $20m

#42

Post by brlewis » Fri, May 02, 2008, 6:37 PM UTC

jdroid wrote: post #41

paul wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm starting to get the feeling that there's a big jealousy factor developing here. The formula is simple: find something that's getting traction and getting talked about, and then bash it. This bashing is very appealing to people whose own efforts are less successful (or more likely have never started), because it reassures them that the other people's efforts and success aren't "real" or legitimate. The same thing…

It's lame to pretend the reactions of potential clients aren't important. Even if there is a jealousy factor, a good founder would take it into account and act accordingly. "But isn't xobni just an outlook plugin?" Clearly people have that idea in their head. Now what is xobni going to do about it?

http://www.xobni.com/

"Drowning in Email? Find Email & Attachments Instantly"

"Xobni is the Outlook plug-in that helps you organize your flooded inbox"

It looks to me like they're focused on reaching people who have a problem to solve, and aren't concerned about being viewed as "just an outlook plugin."

Re: Xobni - wouldn't get out of bed for $20m

#43

Post by brlewis » Fri, May 02, 2008, 7:00 PM UTC

paul wrote: post #37

pg wrote: post #27

How on earth did this troll post get 17 votes? There's only one paragraph in it that's even new, and that doesn't say anything that hasn't already been said.

I'm starting to get the feeling that there's a big jealousy factor developing here. The formula is simple: find something that's getting traction and getting talked about, and then bash it. This bashing is very appealing to people whose own efforts are less successful (or more likely have never started), because it reassures them that the other people's efforts and success aren't "real" or legitimate. The same thing…

I do see that happening with friendfeed. It must be hard sometimes to find useful feedback when there's all this noise from random bashing.

Re: Xobni - wouldn't get out of bed for $20m

#44

Post by nostrademons » Fri, May 02, 2008, 8:41 PM UTC

jdroid wrote: post #41

paul wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm starting to get the feeling that there's a big jealousy factor developing here. The formula is simple: find something that's getting traction and getting talked about, and then bash it. This bashing is very appealing to people whose own efforts are less successful (or more likely have never started), because it reassures them that the other people's efforts and success aren't "real" or legitimate. The same thing…

It's lame to pretend the reactions of potential clients aren't important. Even if there is a jealousy factor, a good founder would take it into account and act accordingly. "But isn't xobni just an outlook plugin?" Clearly people have that idea in their head. Now what is xobni going to do about it?

Many of the people who're objecting - at least on these TechCrunch and FeedBurner stories - would never have bought it anyway. It's better to concentrate on the folks who will buy it (I assume they're out there, though I'm not one of them...) and make something that they'll use, love, and tell people about.

http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/01/what-ive-learned-from-sa...

Re: Xobni - wouldn't get out of bed for $20m

#45

Post by nostrademons » Fri, May 02, 2008, 8:53 PM UTC

ashu wrote: post #39

paul wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm starting to get the feeling that there's a big jealousy factor developing here. The formula is simple: find something that's getting traction and getting talked about, and then bash it. This bashing is very appealing to people whose own efforts are less successful (or more likely have never started), because it reassures them that the other people's efforts and success aren't "real" or legitimate. The same thing…

I think the "never have started" is probably the crux of the matter. People who don't actually build things tend to look at the world from a very different perspective. The focus is more on "how is this thing different from anything else I have seen" and not on "is this thing actually useful to a non-trivial set of people out there". When they focus on the first part, it is very easy to bash almost all things out the…

I think it's more a distinction between "people who have problems" and "people who don't have problems". When you don't have a problem, you're in browse mode - open to new ideas, but only if they're substantially different from everything you've ever seen and trigger some flicker of recognition, some reason to think it's a good idea. When you do have a problem, you're actively looking for something to solve it, and get really excited about the solution. So if you happen to have the particular problem that Xobni solves, it's great, but if you don't, it's just ho-hum.

Re: Xobni - wouldn't get out of bed for $20m

#46

Post by apathy » Fri, May 02, 2008, 9:57 PM UTC

webwright wrote: post #31

People need to do some math before they say this was a good opportunity for Xobni (and the investors-- who likely have the power to veto any acquisition). When you take 4.35 million in investment, you are giving away a percentage of your company. Say it's 1/3rd for the sake of argument. That creates a post-money valuation of $13m. Which means that a $20m buyout (once the lawyers get their slice) is, what-- a 1.5x ret…

RescueTime has the data to prove it-- someday we'll publish some interesting stats)

I see what you did there ;-)

Your business model makes a lot more sense now.

Re: Xobni - wouldn't get out of bed for $20m

#47

Post by apathy » Fri, May 02, 2008, 10:04 PM UTC

Wow, it's a good thing that Xobni couldn't integrate with GMail or Yahoo! Mail and play off the monstrous business interests against each other.

Also, it's a good thing that the information they mine from the social structure of your contacts is useless. (Moreso, the joint distributions of contact networks among multiple employees in a large organization, or the temporal patterns therein... nothing to see here, move along now)

But most of all, it's a good thing that everyone commenting on the deal knows all there is to know about the product, its futures, and their value to Microsoft and other companies, due no doubt to vast, deep expertise in the field.

Because if the above were not true, well, then it would be just a windbag yelling into an echo chamber, and that simply would not do!

Yes, it's a great thing that everything has already been invented, cannot be improved, and is already maximally efficient. We're done now, let's go get a low-paying service job (or, worse, program Java for a big company)

Re: Xobni - wouldn't get out of bed for $20m

#48

Post by aneesh » Fri, May 02, 2008, 10:08 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #27

How on earth did this troll post get 17 votes? There's only one paragraph in it that's even new, and that doesn't say anything that hasn't already been said.

I'll upmod a crappy article if the discussion it generates is high-quality.

Re: Xobni - wouldn't get out of bed for $20m

#49

Post by chaostheory » Fri, May 02, 2008, 10:18 PM UTC

apathy wrote: post #47

Wow, it's a good thing that Xobni couldn't integrate with GMail or Yahoo! Mail and play off the monstrous business interests against each other. Also, it's a good thing that the information they mine from the social structure of your contacts is useless. (Moreso, the joint distributions of contact networks among multiple employees in a large organization, or the temporal patterns therein... nothing to see here, move…

Xobni’s Secret Project: Merge Outlook With Yahoo Mail

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/28/xobnis-secret-project-m...

Re: Xobni - wouldn't get out of bed for $20m

#50

Post by ph0rque » Fri, May 02, 2008, 10:48 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #45

ashu wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the "never have started" is probably the crux of the matter. People who don't actually build things tend to look at the world from a very different perspective. The focus is more on "how is this thing different from anything else I have seen" and not on "is this thing actually useful to a non-trivial set of people out there". When they focus on the first part, it is very easy to bash almost all things out the…

I think it's more a distinction between "people who have problems" and "people who don't have problems". When you don't have a problem, you're in browse mode - open to new ideas, but only if they're substantially different from everything you've ever seen and trigger some flicker of recognition, some reason to think it's a good idea. When you do have a problem, you're actively looking for something to solve it, and g…

To confirm your explanation, I never could understand the appeal of jottit until I attended a meeting where I was able to put up a site of what was being discussed before the end of the meeting using jottit.