Everpix was great. This is how it died • Hacker News Board

Re: Everpix was great. This is how it died

#21

Post by Codhisattva » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 6:29 PM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #12

Codhisattva wrote: post #2

Wow. What an interesting example of what's wrong with the venture capital model. A great product dies because the founders "spent too much time on the product". I hope a 9th inning miracle saves the day. If not, thanks for the great product.

Looks to like it died because they spent too much by being in the Bay Area. Seriously... they're spending ~$1k/employee/month for office space in a "co-working venue" in SF.

Well in defense of that - it's easy to underestimate the value of a good, creative, productive workspace.

Re: Everpix was great. This is how it died

#22

Post by eterm » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 6:29 PM UTC

Artemis2 wrote: post #3

I'm not surprised, AWS is expensive as hell.

While the article concentrated on the incomnig AWS cost, if you look at the infographic the expense of AWS is tiny compared to their overall expenses.

Re: Everpix was great. This is how it died

#23

Post by radley » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 6:29 PM UTC

Perspective:

"Blogger was a success and quickly gained traction. But unlike their enterprise product, Blogger had no way of making money. Pyra Labs eventually had to lay off all of their staff as the money ran out. For a year, Ev worked on Blogger by himself in order to keep the site online. After a year of struggling to keep the site afloat, Blogger eventually started to make some money. Google would eventually make Blogger it’s first acquisition."

http://culttt.com/2013/09/11/founders-work-review/

Re: Everpix was great. This is how it died

#24

Post by Codhisattva » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 6:31 PM UTC

coldcode wrote: post #17

Codhisattva wrote: post #2

Wow. What an interesting example of what's wrong with the venture capital model. A great product dies because the founders "spent too much time on the product". I hope a 9th inning miracle saves the day. If not, thanks for the great product.

It's not a great product but a great idea. A great product is one people will either pay for or investors invest in with the assumption is will be more valuable in the future. There is a difference. Sometimes the people with the idea can't figure out the leap to a great product and it fails. I've been there.

From the investor perspective, the company is the product. Not the company's product.

Everpix, from a user perspective is a great product. So says this paying customer.

Re: Everpix was great. This is how it died

#25

Post by jrnkntl » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 6:31 PM UTC

3JPLW wrote: post #6

Dammit. That sucks. I am (well, was) a paying member of Everpix and I loved it. It was very great. It surprises me that this is how I found out about the closing. They haven't sent out the notifications to members yet, it seems. Guess I now have to look for another similarly seamless remote backup of my photo library. Any suggestions?

I am in the same boat :( so sad. Loved the product; checked the flashbacks everyday, shared through the easy photomail feature. It was way better built out than Loom and didn't have a storage cap. But yeah, what is that worth when it's not viable? :/

Re: Everpix was great. This is how it died

#26

Post by homersapien » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 6:31 PM UTC

Their focus wasn't on the product, it was on living/working in SF. They could have saved a year's worth of AWS payments alone by trimming the fat that comes with wanting to be in a "hip" location.

Re: Everpix was great. This is how it died

#27

Post by dm8 » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 6:32 PM UTC

That was fascinating read. Kudos to the team for opening up their finances and talking about them openly. It brought some scary memories when I was in a similar situation a while ago and had trouble paying AWS bills even though they were much smaller than what you guys have to pay. Startups are indeed hard.

One thing that I've learnt is that market size matters the most in venture backed startups. And if your addressable market is not large enough then product or team are irrelevant.

Regardless, good luck to the team. I'm sure things will work out eventually for everyone.

Re: Everpix was great. This is how it died

#28

Post by martingordon » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 6:32 PM UTC

> They spent too much time on the product and not enough time on growth and distribution. The first pitch deck they put together for investors was mediocre. They began marketing too late. They failed to effectively position themselves against giants like Apple and Google, who offer fairly robust — and mostly free — Everpix alternatives.

People on HN crap all over MBAs, but these are the types of problems many of them have been trained to solve.

Re: Everpix was great. This is how it died

#29

Post by msutherl » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 6:42 PM UTC

For my part, I didn't use Everpix because I actually want to edit my photos and just save the best ones. I keep less than 5% of the photos I take. Everpix tried to do the editing for me, but software will never win that game.

Re: Everpix was great. This is how it died

#30

Post by Artemis2 » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 6:42 PM UTC

eterm wrote: post #22

Artemis2 wrote: post #3

I'm not surprised, AWS is expensive as hell.

While the article concentrated on the incomnig AWS cost, if you look at the infographic the expense of AWS is tiny compared to their overall expenses.

That didn't help them through