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Everpix was great. This is how it died

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Re: Everpix was great. This is how it died

#41

Post by sameer_sundresh »

shin_lao wrote: post #20
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #16

I can't help but wonder if that safety net feeling is part of what doomed Everpix. If they had believed they were incredibly lucky to land $1.8M and that they had to build the whole business with that (rather than having a belief that more funding awaited whenever they needed it), would it have forced a different set of decisions to be made that would have driven revenue and growth, and ultimately success, instead?

I agree with you. From what I read it seems they cared more about raising money than making money.

Our per-user income was above our per-user costs. But we hadn't yet reached the economies of scale where fixed costs were covered.

Re: Everpix was great. This is how it died

#43

Post by bjansn »

The transparency in this article is something we can learn from. It's sad to see a service like Everpix go as they were making money. But if you look at the other numbers, they just staffed up too quickly. Salaries, personnel and payrolling costs of together $3.7 million in two years is just way to much compared to the money they were making.

What I'm curious about is that the cost per user (storing photos) is what killed them, or a burn-rate simply to high for what they're doing.

But then again it's easy to look at this as an outsider and try to point out their flaws. I'm hoping to learn more about how they monitored specific business metrics to test their business model.

Re: Everpix was great. This is how it died

#44

Post by martingordon »

[deleted] wrote: post #31
martingordon wrote: post #28

> 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…

[deleted]

Part of the problem is that an MBA can be a lot of different things even within a schools. I, for one, am working on learning how to solve problems that startups face, problems that can't be solved by code.

I'm not saying that hiring an MBA would have been a magic fix for Everpix, but when looking at the business as a whole, the product looked great (despite its lack of support for non-JPEG formats, but that's more of a personal nitpick) and there was engineering talent to continue building the product. However, the part of the article I quoted above indicates that the team lacked the business talent to successfully find a market for the product (or to identify that there wasn't a market and pivot while they still had cash left).

Re: Everpix was great. This is how it died

#45

Post by Touche »

If you're a user who signed up because of the new tagline:

> Your photo mess, solved.

I'd be pissed right now. Not solved, the company's out of business. This is why I won't sign up for another web service that isn't open source again. I'll gladly pay for hosting, but core technology must be libre.

Re: Everpix was great. This is how it died

#46

Post by Guillaume86 »

homersapien wrote: post #26

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.

My feeling too, when you have an internet business, why would you waste so much money in the location...

Re: Everpix was great. This is how it died

#47

Post by enjo »

martingordon wrote: post #28

> 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…

The anti-education bias of HN simply fascinates me.

Re: Everpix was great. This is how it died

#49

Post by angersock »

jmduke wrote: post #38
angersock wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: "The reaction was positive for you as a team but weak in terms of whether a $B business could be built." Wow, fuck these guys. It seems like a lot of good ideas are getting left on the cutting-room floor because people are holding out for the next giant thing. I hope the crowdfunding thing is enough to help unlock capital for things like this. (j/k crowdfunded equity is going to be a shitshow) EDIT:…

I agree that venture capitalists passing on great businesses because they're "lifestyle ventures" or whatever the politically correct phrasing is is an issue, but that doesn't seem to be the case here? EverPix wasn't trying to become a $B business, yeah, but they were still rapidly outspending their income streams, which is only sustainable if you're an extreme edge case (or receiving the massive, massive influx of b…

Right, I agree that it looks like their business model was flawed. That said, that should've been the rejection status code instead of the billion-dollar opportunity remark.

Re: Everpix was great. This is how it died

#50

Post by atourgates »

Touche wrote: post #45

If you're a user who signed up because of the new tagline: > Your photo mess, solved. I'd be pissed right now. Not solved, the company's out of business. This is why I won't sign up for another web service that isn't open source again. I'll gladly pay for hosting, but core technology must be libre.

As a user, I get pissed off with acquihires, or pivots. Those can feel like a breech of trust.

This is different. It's pretty clear that the Everpix team worked hard to deliver the service they were selling, and in the end, failed.

I love(d) Everpix. It really did solve my photo mess, and their daily "flashbacks" were a welcome dose of nostalgia, delivered to my inbox every morning. There are other photo services that do similar things to Everpix, but none that can match their unique combination of pricing, ease of use and the brilliant flashbacks.

I'm sad that I lost a service I really really liked, but far from pissed off, at least at the company itself. They created an awesome service, and hopefully one that will soon be copied by a more financially stable successor.

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