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Everpix is Shutting Down

everpix.com

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Re: Everpix is Shutting Down

#91

Post by 72deluxe »

awad wrote: post #89
swisspol wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Everpix was making around $40K / month from subscription revenue covering the infrastructure costs for both free and paid users with some margin. The problem is (obviously) having enough to cover fixed costs as well i.e. mostly personnel costs.

The personnel costs of a 7 person startup really jumped out at me. Am I the only one that was surprised?

No, I thought the personnel costs / salaries was bonkers too.

EDIT: I read some of the comments on the Verge's page and it seems that the salaries were over a few years, and apparently that isn't bonkers money! I must be out of touch.

Re: Everpix is Shutting Down

#92

Post by sameer_sundresh »

gobbluth wrote: post #77
sameer_sundresh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's right. AWS infrastructures costs were already being covered by subscription income. We also had prototypes ready to flesh out to reduce per-user costs as we scale up, but were not at that point yet.

If the only problem was scale... how is it even possible that a VC didn't invest? You had a proven product, fanatically loyal customers (including myself), and unbelievable growth potential. Everpix is a textbook case for venture capital. Even more amazing to me is why someone like Apple didn't purchase Everpix. They're in desperate need of competent web services, and god knows they have the cash. Of all possible fut…

There's two levels to the scale problem: (a) sufficient scale for a successful small business, and (b) sufficient scale to repay a whole VC fund, with interest. VCs agreed that (a) was achievable, but they really need (b) and didn't see that with us.

Tools for private photo collections are important, but don't have the same sort of explosive viral growth curve of, say, a public social network. Even private social networks have a more difficult time scaling up quickly compared to the more open but less privacy-respecting alternatives.

Re: Everpix is Shutting Down

#93

Post by gobbluth »

sameer_sundresh wrote: post #92
gobbluth wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the only problem was scale... how is it even possible that a VC didn't invest? You had a proven product, fanatically loyal customers (including myself), and unbelievable growth potential. Everpix is a textbook case for venture capital. Even more amazing to me is why someone like Apple didn't purchase Everpix. They're in desperate need of competent web services, and god knows they have the cash. Of all possible fut…

There's two levels to the scale problem: (a) sufficient scale for a successful small business, and (b) sufficient scale to repay a whole VC fund, with interest. VCs agreed that (a) was achievable, but they really need (b) and didn't see that with us. Tools for private photo collections are important, but don't have the same sort of explosive viral growth curve of, say, a public social network. Even private social net…

Even so, Everpix is a tool that literally everyone needs -- organization, deduplication, backup, and daily refreshers of all your photos. I was contemplating buying a subscription for my elderly mother, since she has no idea where her pictures are or how to access them. To say nothing of the rest of my social network.

Maybe I'm still in mourning, but if I ran a VC fund, Everpix seems like a sure investment. You certainly had much more potential for growth -- and steady revenue -- than another Instagram clone or internet radio service. And once your growth eclipsed your fixed costs (which could have been reduced further by running your own servers when you reached an appropriate size), you'd be consistently profitable. And since Everpix provided such a valuable service, your customers would advertise on your behalf.

However, even I discovered Everpix only a few weeks ago, just before The Verge published a write-up about cloud photo backups -- and crowned Everpix the winner. You were just reaching a critical mass of followers... I can't help but think Everpix would have been a wild success if it stuck around for just another year.

Re: Everpix is Shutting Down

#94

Post by vinceguidry »

oceanic wrote: post #86
ukd1 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checkout Loom - https://loom.com

How likely is it that Loom will go out of business in a year too?

If you have to ask, then you're probably better off rolling your own service with S3. Amazon's not going away anytime soon.

Re: Everpix is Shutting Down

#95

Post by alandarev »

jonny_eh wrote: post #64
esusatyo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truth is, there aren't as many people like you and me who would pay $20 a month to Everpix. So many people are just not worried about their data until something bad happens to them. I kept telling every single friend every time I see them post data loss grief status update on Facebook - use Dropbox, use CrashPlan, use iCloud, etc etc. And yet it seems like they either think that their data is not worth $5 a month, or…

Right, people only value their data once it's gone. Here's an idea: free and seamless backing up of your data, but if you want to access it in the case of loss, you pay through the nose.

Ha, that is an excellent idea :)
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