Secret Shuts Down

#1

Post by ilamont » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

Secret Shuts Down
techcrunch.com

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#2

Post by kra34 » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 7:15 PM UTC

How much do Unicorn horns fetch on the black market?

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#3

Post by sharkweek » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 7:23 PM UTC

For the curious, pulled their deal history from PitchBook:

Secret raised their B last July at a post valuation just over 130M (http://i.imgur.com/jNXw5PZ.png). They had some major investors backing them up, and then the hype train just... stopped.

I remember so many people being so high on it when it launched, with several friends all raving about how fun/addicting it was, then just poof it disappeared from conversation.

Hearing that the founders got some cash off the table (article from last summer - http://www.businessinsider.com/secret-founders-pocket-6-mill...). While I always thought that seems like a good thing, I can't help but let my mind wander a bit as I know if I were given a nice chunk of change like that so early, it might be kind of hard to keep focus.

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#4

Post by bifrost » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 7:23 PM UTC

nooooooooooooo

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#5

Post by robbiet480 » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 7:23 PM UTC

I hope that Ping [0], a side project by the Secret team that has nothing to do with Secret itself, is going to stick around in some capacity. I loved the little knowledge bits that it sent me randomly. I just checked the app and other than a couple weather notifications, the last curated content was pushed to me 2 weeks ago :(

[0]: http://iamping.com/

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#6

Post by nedwin » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 7:24 PM UTC

This is going to be used as a case study of why not to let founders take cash off the table in early rounds for years to come.

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#7

Post by joshstrange » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 7:25 PM UTC

While I have heard of Secret the majority of my friends who are still in college haven't and it's all about Yik Yak on campus right now.

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#8

Post by SandersAK » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 7:27 PM UTC

sharkweek wrote: post #3

For the curious, pulled their deal history from PitchBook: Secret raised their B last July at a post valuation just over 130M ( http://i.imgur.com/jNXw5PZ.png ). They had some major investors backing them up, and then the hype train just... stopped. I remember so many people being so high on it when it launched, with several friends all raving about how fun/addicting it was, then just poof it disappeared from convers…

Investors (and the team) were looking at the wrong numbers. In apps, it's basically all down to having meteoric growth week over week. It can't be based on spikes as this was.

Taking money off the table in a B makes sense for the founders, and I can't blame them for leveraging their situation.

Ultimately this falls on the investors for biting on hype, and not having a deeper understanding of the product (and it's potential)or the founders (and their potential).

edited for clarity.

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#9

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 7:27 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#10

Post by r0naa » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 7:27 PM UTC

joshstrange wrote: post #7

While I have heard of Secret the majority of my friends who are still in college haven't and it's all about Yik Yak on campus right now.

Same here. I am curious as to what caused Secret to disappear so suddenly. I am not a power user of social networks but something that really struck me was the really poor UI of Secret relatively to the crystal clear interface of YikYak.