Live data from Hacker News

Wunderlist founder wants to buy his app back from Microsoft

venturebeat.com

41–50 of 181 posts

Re: Wunderlist founder wants to buy his app back from Microsoft

#41
post #23

You don't usually have to tell this to an adult, but: no backsies. Your can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't sell your company and keep it too. Basic.

He's not trying to keep the money, the headline says it right there: "founder wants to buy his app back." Of course you can buy back something that you sold. They just don't have to sell it to you.

"Backsies" is reversing the original deal, not just half. This founder is asking for backsies by definition.

Re: Wunderlist founder wants to buy his app back from Microsoft

#43
post #39

I don't understand, why Microsoft is porting features from Wunderlist to their To-Do instead of just shutting down To-Do and add small shiny MS logo to Wunderlist? As far as I can see, WL is more feature rich and has better user base, no?

Probably grooming it for enterprise use cases/customers

Re: Wunderlist founder wants to buy his app back from Microsoft

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that’s why he wants to buy it back. They will get their money back.

Microsoft would get a fraction of their money back. The former owners wouldn't pay more than 10-25% of what they previously sold Wunderlist for, at this point.

That's why this feels like a publicity stunt to shame Microsoft.

If you've made millions of dollars from selling something - I don't feel like you have the right to shame the buyer especially if you're only offering 25% back. He should have kept the offer he made private.

Re: Wunderlist founder wants to buy his app back from Microsoft

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And God help them if they somehow have a work/school and personal Microsoft account and don't remember which one they used.

The company I now work for has decided to separate out admin accounts in Windows. Fair enough, except it's not like a Unix system where you can quickly context switch. Trying to administer Office 365 with two separate Office 365 accounts is an absolutely nightmare!

Sorry, maybe I am missing something here. For local admin, I agree re context switching etc. But for O365 admin, we have a similar setup and I admin O365 through a separate container tab or Powershell where you need to connect to Azure separately anyways. Seems straightforward to me.

Re: Wunderlist founder wants to buy his app back from Microsoft

#47

It blows my mind that todo list app can be worth $200 million... Then again a chat app is now worth several billion... I don't have any idea of how this works.

Chat app is only worth that with a huge network of users, which is the real value.

Anyone can make a chat app. Making a chat app with 100M+ users takes years of effort and luck.

Re: Wunderlist founder wants to buy his app back from Microsoft

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And God help them if they somehow have a work/school and personal Microsoft account and don't remember which one they used.

Is this somehow worse with MS accounts than with Google or Apple accounts?

People use them less frequently, so they don’t type the credentials as often?

Re: Wunderlist founder wants to buy his app back from Microsoft

#49

It blows my mind that todo list app can be worth $200 million... Then again a chat app is now worth several billion... I don't have any idea of how this works.

It's far from accurate, but an easy way to think about it is:

200 000 000 users * $1.

Re: Wunderlist founder wants to buy his app back from Microsoft

#50
post #20
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might provoke strong responses from hacker / programmer crowd, but... Relatively speaking, building a small team of capable engineers is much easier than getting a business, especially in a competitive space like TODO lists, to 13+ million users (their numbers in 2015 at the time of Microsoft acquisition).

I find the complete 180 to be true. Very easy to get a business into a competitive space, but it’s hard to build a capable team of engineers. If you have both money and a solid idea to generating revenue (business plan) then you have solved both problems easily, relatively speaking. Engineers come together with the universal language.. money. Something startups don’t have.

They said getting a business to 13million+ users, not getting a business into a competitive space alone. The point is the users are where the money is and getting to that many users is the most difficult part, neither gathering a group of engineers nor entering a competitive space.
Post reply on HN