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Secret Shuts Down

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Re: Secret Shuts Down

#61

Post by Gaussian »

abalone wrote: post #35

"Secret will hand its remaining cash back to investors" Minus the $6M the founders took off the table? If they keep it.. if ever there were a case for blacklisting founders, this is it. It is definitely NOT cool to pull a move like that. You want to cash out early a little because you've been boostrapping, ok, but if you then bail on the company and shut it down within a year, then you start to look like a fraud who…

That's silly. Everybody involved understood why the founders would choose to do this. It has everything to do with risk and opportunity and likely nothing to do with some kind of malevolent avarice.

And bailing while returning a significant sum to investors takes courage. It's easier to sit in board meetings and pound the table and tell them how you're going to turn things around, even if you don't believe it.

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#62

Post by nulltype »

emp_ wrote: post #31
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…

Noobie question: what happens with the off the table cash?

I'm guessing it remains firmly off the table.

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#63

Post by gsibble »

I've never been more addicted to an app than when Secret first came out. It was all the rage in SF. I had to force myself to delete it after a few weeks in order to get back to productivity. I completely understand the hype. Personally, I feel this is a story about poor execution. They changed the nature of the app so significantly over time that it lost its appeal and never expanded successfully beyond the bay area. Shame.....it was so much fun and they are such a talented team.

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#64

Post by petercooper »

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…

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.

Pure speculation, but I think trolls/frauds took it over. I say this as a Secret troll myself. I knew the odds of the data (linked to my FB account) becoming public was too high to post real secrets, so I used to just experiment with what got people liking or leaving comments instead. Which was amusing.. until I could tell a lot of people had started doing the same. So I stopped using it.

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#65

Post by [deleted] »

emp_ wrote: post #31
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…

Noobie question: what happens with the off the table cash?

[deleted]

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#66

Post by smt88 »

gsibble wrote: post #63

I've never been more addicted to an app than when Secret first came out. It was all the rage in SF. I had to force myself to delete it after a few weeks in order to get back to productivity. I completely understand the hype. Personally, I feel this is a story about poor execution. They changed the nature of the app so significantly over time that it lost its appeal and never expanded successfully beyond the bay area.…

> never expanded successfully beyond the bay area

This seems to be something of a meme.

The Bay Area is a truly unique and bizarre place. People are incredibly busy and tech-savvy, and they're willing to spend way more on minor conveniences than people elsewhere.

It seems like lots of companies raise on their explosive growth in and around the SV community. It may extend to people with similar demographics in other cities, but it's still a niche.

I'm also thinking of all those gourmet snack-delivery companies, laundry-delivery, etc. Those might make a few million in revenue some day, but they're never going to have high margins or universal appeal.

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#67

Post by smt88 »

GCA10 wrote: post #39
downandout wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> http://i.imgur.com/jNXw5PZ.png Here was the intended use of the $25M: "The funding will be used to implement two new features, a Facebook login and the ability to follow posts on a certain topic" . This is what is wrong with Silicon Valley today. An afternoon project for a single developer gets $25M from investors. Please, someone give me just $10M....I've already implemented Facebook login for my apps.

That's hilarious! In Web 1.0, people raised $7 million to buy a domain name. Needing $12.5 million to implement a Facebook login ($25/2 projects) is even more ridiculous.

Box paid 7 figures for the Box.com domain name, so I wouldn't say that raising money to buy domains is dead yet.

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#68

Post by prezjordan »

suyash wrote: post #50

I knew day one the idea and execution was going to fail.

You could say this about every single startup, and you'd be right 99.9% of the time. The other 0.1% you'd find a way to make yourself right.

It's a really, really silly thing to say.

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#69

Post by [deleted] »

abalone wrote: post #35

"Secret will hand its remaining cash back to investors" Minus the $6M the founders took off the table? If they keep it.. if ever there were a case for blacklisting founders, this is it. It is definitely NOT cool to pull a move like that. You want to cash out early a little because you've been boostrapping, ok, but if you then bail on the company and shut it down within a year, then you start to look like a fraud who…

[deleted]

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#70

Post by smt88 »

zaidf wrote: post #54
abalone wrote: post #35

"Secret will hand its remaining cash back to investors" Minus the $6M the founders took off the table? If they keep it.. if ever there were a case for blacklisting founders, this is it. It is definitely NOT cool to pull a move like that. You want to cash out early a little because you've been boostrapping, ok, but if you then bail on the company and shut it down within a year, then you start to look like a fraud who…

1. What do you mean "if they take it..."? It is their money. They gave away personal equity that was at the time worth $6M for the cash. 2. It is ridiculous to assume they pulled any move. Startups are a high risk gamble and the VCs who put money in them know it better than anyone else does. So they didn't pull a move on anyone. 3. Let's say a company raises $1M on a $3M valuation. Then in one year the valuation goes…

I agree that there isn't necessarily anything unethical about this. The investors knew what they were doing.

However, founders who would pocket $6M from a not-even-close-to-profitable company are probably not good founders, or they don't believe in the company. Either way, their behavior doesn't inspire confidence.

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