Dropbox acquires Loom (YC W12) • Hacker News Board

Re: Dropbox acquires Loom (YC W12)

#111

Post by innonate » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 10:20 PM UTC

pnathan wrote: post #84

innonate wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but I think these startups just give other startups a bad name. I'm the CEO of Picturelife and I wouldn't dream of rolling over like this so easily. We have thousands of customers and just killing our service would be such an assault on their trust. All these services you mention are just taking the easy way out. There's a long road ahead for us and we'll going to keep making the product and experience bet…

Can you promise in writing enforceable by a court that Picturelife or whoever might buy it will supply services, guaranteed, or face up to penalties? Because you - like me - will probably be happy to be bought out for sums of money over a certain number. (let's say, 1 billion). And unless you have a fairly hardcore contract with me, I'm not willing to bet your service won't be wound up by the acquirer. So my pictures…

It's a good question and something I've thought about.

I have a half-written blog post from a few months ago (proof: http://note.io/1lde2HC ) that tries to address this. My idea was that every SAAS startup should start with an exit plan for its customers that would be legally viable in the case of acquisition, being shut down, or any other scenario. Basically a set of software tools and policies that are clear from the get-go, so you aren't waiting to see what they'd do in that case.

We're working on some pretty major releases here so I haven't gotten a chance to finish the post (and publish a plan ourselves) but it's something I think about a lot.

It's a SAAS problem beyond the photo space.

Re: Dropbox acquires Loom (YC W12)

#112

Post by gkya » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 10:23 PM UTC

I reckon this "big companies hoovering up smaller ones" phenomenon will eventually cause the startup economy to die. None of the services are reliable; they come up, start their services with a "no warranties, use at your own risk and we go away at our own disposal" policy; then some big company like Google, Facebook or the newfangled giant Dropbox buy them out and mix them into themselves. The service is gone. The users have to recover. The only acquisitions I can recall, which did not disrupt users recently was that of Instagram's and Vine's (also WhatsApp, but that's too recent to be sure, isn't it?). But the wonted story is that money is poured onto the owners, and the services get killed. Now, I am not an entrepreneur, and am not that knowledgeable about business topics, but I can see that people become less likely to invest in startups each day, every time news of these kinds hit the headlines. Sad, that is.

Re: Dropbox acquires Loom (YC W12)

#113

Post by innonate » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 10:30 PM UTC

enjo wrote: post #75

innonate wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but I think these startups just give other startups a bad name. I'm the CEO of Picturelife and I wouldn't dream of rolling over like this so easily. We have thousands of customers and just killing our service would be such an assault on their trust. All these services you mention are just taking the easy way out. There's a long road ahead for us and we'll going to keep making the product and experience bet…

"I'm the CEO of Picturelife and I wouldn't dream of rolling over like this so easily." I'm sorry, but I don't believe you. If someone waves $10M in front of you, you're going to take it. I think that's ok and I don't think it's (exactly) giving anyone a "bad name" (in the moral sense). It does mean that I'm going to be hesitant to put my photos into a startup again. Are you willing to put out a guarantee? Are you wil…

Hi @enjo, see the reply I gave @pnathan to answer some of this.

But in general I can tell you that we really are driven by much more than money here. A few times we've gotten to consider the idea of having a small financial outcome, and we keep coming back to the same thing: if we all became millionaires and then went out to start another company, what would we do?

If we're being truthful with ourselves, it's still doing Picturelife. There's just not another idea we're passionate about, and working on something we're not passionate about sounds like a terrible, terrible time. So we're just not going to take any easy roads here. If it ever gets tough, we're going to toughen up. When things get really good, we're going to dream bigger.

Maybe it's that we've all been around the block a bit -- both of my co-founders have already had great companies (OMGPOP and Threadless) -- but we really don't want to be doing anything else.

We love our customers, we love our work, we love the challenge. Selling out for 10M to Dropbox frankly sounds like a shit time to us, and we wouldn't do it.

Re: Dropbox acquires Loom (YC W12)

#114

Post by innonate » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 10:32 PM UTC

cschmidt wrote: post #93

innonate wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha! Thanks -- love that you're asking to pay for it. For now our custom S3 support is a gift. In the future we may change that (and grandfather folks in). In any case, thanks for being a fan.

I'm sure he is serious, and I'd actually take him up on it. That's out of self interest - if people can freeload, then it means you are less likely to survive in the long run. So how about a license fee? Maybe $39-69? That's kind of the point of this thread, in fact. If you don't charge enough, then you won't survive, and your users lose. I would be uneasy using an important service without paying for it (but I do li…

Well, our company's PayPal address is linked to nate@picturelife.com -- if anyone wants to pay us for the custom S3 service they are already using, and we are giving away for free, they can feel free!

Like I said, as we take another look at pricing (we are in the middle of it now) we will think about what to do on a more formal level.

Thanks for the feedback.

Re: Dropbox acquires Loom (YC W12)

#115

Post by innonate » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 10:57 PM UTC

inklesspen wrote: post #60

Well, this is awfully disappointing. I'm in the process of migrating my stuff off of Dropbox due to the Dr. Rice issue (only problem is a lot of apps use it as their sole syncing service); I have no desire to move gigabytes of photos into Dropbox's control.

FYI Dropbox is one of the places you can import/sync from https://picturelife.com/settings/networks (need to login first)

Re: Dropbox acquires Loom (YC W12)

#116

Post by innonate » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 11:06 PM UTC

anon808 wrote: post #88

innonate wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but I think these startups just give other startups a bad name. I'm the CEO of Picturelife and I wouldn't dream of rolling over like this so easily. We have thousands of customers and just killing our service would be such an assault on their trust. All these services you mention are just taking the easy way out. There's a long road ahead for us and we'll going to keep making the product and experience bet…

serious question: is this your sole decision to make? what about investors/other owners? I respect that may be your personal opinion, but the company's opinion may not necessarily match it. just being real. btw, did you go along with the sale of omgpop?

Totally not my sole decision. If there were an offer on the table it would be my fiduciary responsibility to let the Board know, and we as a group would vote along with other shareholders with voting rights.

It's a bit more complicated than that, though, and management always has the most control. For instance, it's because of this mentality we're not just shopping ourselves around for little exits -- and so offers like these never have to be decided on. We also chose Spark as a VC because we knew they wouldn't want a small outcome either. They invested in Twitter, Tumblr, and more. We, and they, are looking to build something big and meaningful. A VC like Spark is going to have a lot more patience than some other VCs -- and so it increases our chances of staying independent.

As for the OMGPOP question, I was never a part of it. My co-founder Charles Forman founded it and left the company a year before its sale... so he could start Picturelife with me and Jacob. As it turns out, 3 of our core team members were also at OMGPOP and later joined us at Picturelife, after the company sold to Zynga.

Re: Dropbox acquires Loom (YC W12)

#117

Post by innonate » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 11:07 PM UTC

zippergz wrote: post #67

innonate wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but I think these startups just give other startups a bad name. I'm the CEO of Picturelife and I wouldn't dream of rolling over like this so easily. We have thousands of customers and just killing our service would be such an assault on their trust. All these services you mention are just taking the easy way out. There's a long road ahead for us and we'll going to keep making the product and experience bet…

I just looked at your site, and I couldn't find answers to a couple of key things. First, what if I have more than 300GB of photos and videos (I do)? Second, what platforms do you support syncing on?

We have plans up to 1TB -- we need to update our marketing site. Check out https://picturelife.com/settings/subscription (once you're signed in).

We support Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android. And then imports from Dropbox, Facebook, Smugmug, Flickr, Instagram, Foursquare, and a few more...

Re: Dropbox acquires Loom (YC W12)

#118

Post by innonate » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 11:14 PM UTC

pearjuice wrote: post #72

innonate wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but I think these startups just give other startups a bad name. I'm the CEO of Picturelife and I wouldn't dream of rolling over like this so easily. We have thousands of customers and just killing our service would be such an assault on their trust. All these services you mention are just taking the easy way out. There's a long road ahead for us and we'll going to keep making the product and experience bet…

I hope you realize comments cannot be deleted after a hour or so. So you either speak the truth or will hurt your public image so bad in a few months/years. Speaking of your promise... What is "so easily"? Does it have 6 or 9 trailing zeros?

I am totally fine with this. I've been living on the Internet for a long time. I've always been comfortable saying exacting how I feel and what I believe and letting there be a permanent record of it. There are definitely comments on blogs from 7 years ago that I wish I never said, but I'd never dream of deleting them. It's part of being an open, honest person in the 21st Century.

As for what's "So easily," it's not just about money. What I mean is this... if something's not working, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. What you'll see from Picturelife in the next few months is us hustling like crazy, putting out major releases and taking risks. "So easily" to me is trying one thing, seeing that it's not working, and then taking someone's offer to make the pain go away. It's like watching someone get dunked underwater and not fight to get free. If someone wants to get free, you could tell, because you'd see a lot of splashing and fighting to survive.

So "so easily" to me means fighting. And that's what we're doing, and that's what you're going to see us do a lot of from now and into the future.

Re: Dropbox acquires Loom (YC W12)

#119

Post by innonate » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 11:16 PM UTC

phmagic wrote: post #43

innonate wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but I think these startups just give other startups a bad name. I'm the CEO of Picturelife and I wouldn't dream of rolling over like this so easily. We have thousands of customers and just killing our service would be such an assault on their trust. All these services you mention are just taking the easy way out. There's a long road ahead for us and we'll going to keep making the product and experience bet…

Picturelife looks great! Why haven't I heard of you guys sooner? Just like my mom said: the right photo sharing service is out there.

Thanks! We never "launched" -- just one day we had a website and our beta friends started inviting other friends, and then we just grew from there. Looking back, though, that was a dumb idea. We shoulda done a mega big PR launch :)

Re: Dropbox acquires Loom (YC W12)

#120

Post by sreitshamer » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 11:16 PM UTC

swanson wrote: post #2

In case you're playing the Acquisition Post Drinking Game: "It’s been a long road and we feel that we have come a long way in solving this problem. We are elated to announce the next step in this journey" "It’s been an immensely exciting journey and we are humbled by the support we received along the way." http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/

"We gotta play 'em one day at a time." "I'm just happy to be here. Hope I can help the ball club." "I just want to give it my best shot, and the good Lord willing, things will work out."