Maybe Justin Kan should have focused less on his tweets and more on his company.
I'm sure the amount of attention he dedicated to his tweets was vanishingly small compared to his startup. Why did his tweets trigger you?
Atrium shuts down, laying off 100
21–30 of 175 posts
Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100
#22Let’s wait for the full autopsy but perhaps a better strategy would have been supplying tools and software to lawfirms, aggregating data and knowhow and then pivoting to an “automated” law firm as a service. But hindsight is always 20/20
Plenty of software companies make a lot of money selling to lawyers. Clio (https://www.clio.com/), for instance, is a SaaS that helps lawyers run their practices better. It doesn't try to replace lawyers; it just saves them time on the bullshit of running a firm. Kira (https://kirasystems.com/) automates due diligence, which is a labor-intensive (and hence costly) process that nobody loves doing, but which does generate a lot of billable hours for paralegals and support staff.
Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100
#23Maybe Justin Kan should have focused less on his tweets and more on his company.
Maybe you should focus more on your work and less on useless HN comments?
Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100
#24Kudos to shutting down instead of dredging on. It's never an easy choice, but giving everyone closure helps everyone to move on.
They shut down with 75 million in the bank a couple months after the pivot. I think there is more to the story.
They do not have 75 million in the bank. They returned what's left of their 75 million raised back to investors.
Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100
#25It sucks. Not even sure they should've called it so fast, why not keep going and try to figure it out till the money runs out. Investors would be OK with that. I wonder when Justin lost his conviction? I don't believe you can lose conviction in 2 month.
Sort of related, genuine q for the founders who've raised money and lost it (had to shutdown): how did you feel about losing investor money? Did it make you gun shy about raising again from investors? Did you retain good relationships with them? Does credibility take a hit?
Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100
#26what if a startup charged $300 per month for all you can eat email legal advice backed by a rich library of templates? they would instantly dominate and there are 6M small businesses in the USA alone
Cookie cutter legal advice is a landmine/footgun for a business. Even Stripe Atlas will lead you down a dangerous path if you don't check with a lawyer when incorporating. Don't fuck around with business legalities, it ain't worth it.
Unfortunately, if you even think about your attorney, you'll be charged for it but the peace of mind is worth it.
Having a lawyer you trust, is timely to questions, and works fast is just a layer of stability you need so you can focus on the important parts of a startup. Legalzoom is garbage in this regard.
Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100
#27what if a startup charged $300 per month for all you can eat email legal advice backed by a rich library of templates? they would instantly dominate and there are 6M small businesses in the USA alone
Isn't that LegalZoom?
Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100
#28Let’s wait for the full autopsy but perhaps a better strategy would have been supplying tools and software to lawfirms, aggregating data and knowhow and then pivoting to an “automated” law firm as a service. But hindsight is always 20/20
> a better strategy would have been supplying tools and software to lawfirms,
tools and software for patent law are abundant and low value. you can't just say "tools and software for [INDUSTRY]" and assume a business model exists there. you need some insight into how firms operate.
> aggregating data and knowhow
law firms are not going to give a startup access to client data. especially in any format that could be aggregated. 0% chance. confidentiality, privilege, and patentability, are essential. it goes against our business model and professional obligations.
> and then pivoting to an “automated” law firm as a service.
the portion that could be automated is 10% of the value. experience, both with the practice area and the client's industry, are 90% of the value.
think of stackoverflow, yes an applicable code snippet exists on there, but understanding how it works, what its going to do, and the larger implications is the valuable bit. you can't automate that.
Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100
#29Let’s wait for the full autopsy but perhaps a better strategy would have been supplying tools and software to lawfirms, aggregating data and knowhow and then pivoting to an “automated” law firm as a service. But hindsight is always 20/20
Plenty of software companies make a lot of money selling to lawyers. Clio ( https://www.clio.com/ ), for instance, is a SaaS that helps lawyers run their practices better. It doesn't try to replace lawyers; it just saves them time on the bullshit of running a firm. Kira ( https://kirasystems.com/ ) automates due diligence, which is a labor-intensive (and hence costly) process that nobody loves doing, but which does g…
clio is a good example.
Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100
#30It sucks. Not even sure they should've called it so fast, why not keep going and try to figure it out till the money runs out. Investors would be OK with that. I wonder when Justin lost his conviction? I don't believe you can lose conviction in 2 month.
Would you retain better rapport with the investors if you returned money and started something fresh rather than persisted when you were lacking conviction?
I don't think a guy like Justin lacks conviction. Justin.tv required huge conviction. If you don't recall, it was founded in 2007 -- just prior to the financial crisis -- with the unique idea of allowing people to live stream on the internet. Today, live streaming is just a feature of Instagram, Facebook, and other major services. But in 2007, it was revolutionary. Twitch was the breakthrough, but it took four years of grinding to get there [1].
In the case of Atrium, I'm sure that the investors would have had plenty of board-level conversations about the potential trajectory of the company. The decision to shut down and return funds was likely endorsed by the investors, if not proposed by them, who would doubtless remain extremely keen to invest in whatever Justin comes up with next.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2014/08/05/justin-tv-shuts-down-to-le...