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This happened less than 2 months after a "pivot to tools": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22040238
It 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.
working at a zombie company that has no traction is not fun for anyone part of the “challenge” of being a famous founder is you can raise pre product. $75M seems insane for a company like that. Burn couldn’t have been that high, mostly rent and salaries, no heavy computation, etc.
Weirdly, the investors are happier with that than 5 smaller series A's of money-making / real-IP companies with existing growth engines. Easier to bet on nothing vs improving.
I do find the flameout odd, and not isolated to Atrium. Why flameout vs spinoff a small business for folks who wanted to continue? Same difference to the investors, but meaningful to the lives of the believers. Worst case, just OSS for them..
Thinking more: A good comparison is Carta, also in legal, whose funding was more correlated to revenue and growth.
Kudos 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.
Not trying to attack -- just typing out the questions and consequences to think about.
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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…
I meant conviction with regard to Atrium. Was responding to the idea that he could've stuck it out and burnt through the money persisting as opposed to something new.
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Wouldn't rent and salaries (at least in the SF Bay Area) almost always be vastly more expensive than computation?
Depends on the company. If it’s a marketplace like Uber then you’re burning a lot of operations. If it’s ML or heavy compute then AWS bills.
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More like an hour of a good lawyer time. Mine charges $350/hr. But your point stands. I don't see how his work could be done with "templates". Most of the time I pay him for contract reviews.
High end firms can easily be $800+/hr for attorneys. I believe Wilson Sonsini was $1200/hr for an attorney I was recommended.
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High end firms can easily be $800+/hr for attorneys. I believe Wilson Sonsini was $1200/hr for an attorney I was recommended.
Top partners were already at $1,200/hr when I left the law in 2014. They’re now hovering around $2,000/hr.
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Depends on the company. If it’s a marketplace like Uber then you’re burning a lot of operations. If it’s ML or heavy compute then AWS bills.
Honestly surprised a bunch of VCs haven't gotten together yet and built out their own compute for portfolio companies considering how much VC money gets shoveled into the AWS fire.