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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quite baffling that success is measured in how much you raise. Company burned more money than it made and winded down, impact on customers have been ultimately negative. Where's the success?
> Company burned more money than it made and winded down As far as I can tell that applies to neither Heap nor Benchling which were the companies OP cites as successes.
Was a former employee at Airplane. We were quite disappointed and surprised by the sudden choice to shut the company down. In many ways, we had good metrics, customers that liked us, a lot of runway, and a great team. In the end, the decision came to our CEO. While he never gave a clear reason why, it was pretty clear that he burned out and tossed in the towel.
https://www.airplane.dev/blog/no-code-has-no-future-in-a-wor...
I love what I'm doing and I feel very fortunate for the opportunity to build a startup in a domain that I cherish, devtools, and have grown to love demanding customers as people that care about our product. But if I wasn't passionate in it and its technical challenges, I think there are easier opportunities out there to make a successful startup and can easily imagine how disappointing this segment is with the track records they had as founders.
Very clear and well-written article. I think that the author is likely to be correct that the CEO was overwhelmed by going alone. One thing not mentioned at all, though, is what the investors in Airplane might have wanted to happen. Seriously, ctrl-f for "investor", it doesn't show up even once. In addition to the CEO being overwhelmed and tired, it's very important to realize that: - Airplane raised a $32mm series B…
Do the investors care? If they're not making 100x return on an investment, will they truly care about 0.5x return? My feeling is that most would just say "OK, you have a good team, you have money in the bank, pivot and go wild".
Lesson for all of us (customers of SaaS companies): never depend of VC backed non profitable companies for critical components of your infrastructure or business processes. Always build on tried and tested open source software.
Any guidance will be appreciated.
Why was the employees' common stock worth $0? Liquidation preference for the outside investors? Related: How can a regular employee joining a startup know beforehand that there isn't a high chance of their equity (which is probably a significant part of their total comp) being worthless even if a big acquisition is made?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that were the case, why wouldn't the CEO say so?
I probably would have in their shoes, but that is one of many reasons I am not CEO. Bosses tell polite fictions that preserve relationships.
Lesson for all of us (customers of SaaS companies): never depend of VC backed non profitable companies for critical components of your infrastructure or business processes. Always build on tried and tested open source software.
That's why I never use Supabase.