Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Springpad is shutting down

springpad.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 23 posts

Re: Springpad is shutting down

#11

Post by pccampbell »

VLM wrote: post #10
pccampbell wrote: post #8

All for respecting the dead, but I'm more curious in terms of how you can have 5 million users and still need to shut down. Any commentary on whether it's a monetization issue or more along the lines of "5 million isn't worth the VC"?

https://springpad.com/blog/2014/05/springpad-says-goodbye/ "As part of closing our business, a portion of our team is joining Google." So those are the facts. My probably inaccurate opinion is an acqui-hire gone somewhat off the rails.

Looks less like it though, as there's definitely a postmortem being given about the ebb and flow of freemium/revenue models: http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2014/05/28/five-lessons-for-co...

This begs the question: figure it out later once you have a lot of users or figure it out with a small number of users and then try to get a lot of users?

Obviously not that simple, but curious.

Re: Springpad is shutting down

#12

Post by smtddr »

pccampbell wrote: post #11
VLM wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://springpad.com/blog/2014/05/springpad-says-goodbye/ "As part of closing our business, a portion of our team is joining Google." So those are the facts. My probably inaccurate opinion is an acqui-hire gone somewhat off the rails.

Looks less like it though, as there's definitely a postmortem being given about the ebb and flow of freemium/revenue models: http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2014/05/28/five-lessons-for-co... This begs the question: figure it out later once you have a lot of users or figure it out with a small number of users and then try to get a lot of users? Obviously not that simple, but curious.

I dunno... that article you linked has this part in it:

"Springpad co-founder Jeff Chow, who previously worked with Janer at Third Screen Media (acquired by AOL), is joining Google in Kendall Square, along with Springpad’s top four engineers:"

Sounds exactly like an acqhire that somehow instead became a poach. And a pretty rip-the-heart-out poach too. I can't think of any start-ups that could survive that kind of talent loss. I envision some upper-management person suggesting buying SpringPad, Google-execs veto it, but said upper-management person secured the funds to poach out the core.

Re: Springpad is shutting down

#13

Post by pccampbell »

smtddr wrote: post #12
pccampbell wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks less like it though, as there's definitely a postmortem being given about the ebb and flow of freemium/revenue models: http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2014/05/28/five-lessons-for-co... This begs the question: figure it out later once you have a lot of users or figure it out with a small number of users and then try to get a lot of users? Obviously not that simple, but curious.

I dunno... that article you linked has this part in it: "Springpad co-founder Jeff Chow, who previously worked with Janer at Third Screen Media (acquired by AOL), is joining Google in Kendall Square, along with Springpad’s top four engineers:" Sounds exactly like an acqhire that somehow instead became a poach. And a pretty rip-the-heart-out poach too. I can't think of any start-ups that could survive that kind of tal…

That's a fascinating take on things I didn't really internalize. In the Boston community (which I'm a part of) it's being treated more like a "we couldn't raise the B, so we needed to shut things down and admit defeat."

That being said, a core team poach would definitely have killed the team, as well.

Consumer plays are hard in general, but particularly difficult in Beantown.

Re: Springpad is shutting down

#14

Post by smtddr »

pccampbell wrote: post #13
smtddr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno... that article you linked has this part in it: "Springpad co-founder Jeff Chow, who previously worked with Janer at Third Screen Media (acquired by AOL), is joining Google in Kendall Square, along with Springpad’s top four engineers:" Sounds exactly like an acqhire that somehow instead became a poach. And a pretty rip-the-heart-out poach too. I can't think of any start-ups that could survive that kind of tal…

That's a fascinating take on things I didn't really internalize. In the Boston community (which I'm a part of) it's being treated more like a "we couldn't raise the B, so we needed to shut things down and admit defeat." That being said, a core team poach would definitely have killed the team, as well. Consumer plays are hard in general, but particularly difficult in Beantown.

I guess it's all about the order of events. _If_ the poaching happened first, then the investors found out that core-talent got poached they might hesitate to invest.

Re: Springpad is shutting down

#15

Post by aschobel »

pccampbell wrote: post #8

All for respecting the dead, but I'm more curious in terms of how you can have 5 million users and still need to shut down. Any commentary on whether it's a monetization issue or more along the lines of "5 million isn't worth the VC"?

Catch Notes had around the same number of users when we "decided to go in a different direction" last summer.

It was incredibly challenging for us to monetize the service and our user numbers where an order of magnitude off of where things would have been intesting for some investors.

Re: Springpad is shutting down

#17

Post by tr4656 »

izacus wrote: post #9

Ugh, sorry to see them go, their idea of how notes app should look like pretty much complemented my workflow. Having migrated everything to Evernote... it just reminded me just how atrocious their web and Android apps are UX wise.

I'd agree about the web client but what's atrocious about the Android app?

Re: Springpad is shutting down

#18

Post by yabatopia »

I'm a longtime Evernote Premium user and for I while I ran Springpad simultaneously, saving my notes both in Evernote and Springpad. I really liked the Springpad interface, but in the end I decided to stick with Evernote. The main reason? Springpad was free, with no paid plans.

I don't really like free services for important stuff like my personal of professional notes. I want to be sure I'm dealing with a reliable service, with revenue to cover the bills, with a real chance to stick around. It's hard to trust a free service.

Re: Springpad is shutting down

#19

Post by inthewoods »

I think their big issue was that they couldn't get to "we're the best at X" - there was no use case where they were top dog. They tried to find it - recipes, etc - but they just couldn't get out of Evernote's shadow. I wasn't surprised when they announced they were shutting down - they were pretty clearly thrashing around, trying to figure it out.

Re: Springpad is shutting down

#20

Post by AznHisoka »

pccampbell wrote: post #8

All for respecting the dead, but I'm more curious in terms of how you can have 5 million users and still need to shut down. Any commentary on whether it's a monetization issue or more along the lines of "5 million isn't worth the VC"?

Because I doubt they had 5 million engaged, active users.
Post reply on HN