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

Grove.io shutting down

grove.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 205 posts

Re: Grove.io shutting down

#111

Post by mh- »

jorde wrote: post #93

For those who liked Grove and its combination of IRC and web chat, I personally recommend Flowdock which also has an IRC interface https://flowdock.com/ I know the people behind Flowdock personally and know that they are going to be around for a long time. As a personal note, it's sad to see Grove go away. It was the first bigger service I got to design and I loved working with Leah.

can you point me to Flowdock's IRC interface? I evaluated them before we started adopting Grove, and I did not see that option.

edit: dunno how I overlooked this before: https://www.flowdock.com/help/irc

thanks for making me look again, though!

Re: Grove.io shutting down

#112

Post by heretohelp »

pbiggar wrote: post #32
robryan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes time. Some kind of competitive advantage over everything else in the marketplace will help to. People need a reason to bet on your company which overcomes the risk in instability. As time passes and your service stays solid more people will come on board. Something like github is a good example. I doubt many big companies would have considered relying on them early on, but their track record has changed that…

I really meant my point to be a counter to its parent. But since we're on the topic, presenting social proof is also pretty useful. Show customers that people know, show the press that featured you, show them who you are, who your advisors/investors are, show them whose tweeted about you. (Maybe writing this will be a catalyst to take my own advice for CircleCi)

>I really meant my point to be a counter to its parent.

I don't believe I've ever seen you do anything else on HN. I know you to be a reliable person, no reason to think you'd suddenly get fickle and take something I said seriously.

Do you mean to tell me that if somebody rolled up with a check written out for your price you wouldn't light the servers on fire and run for the hills? Realistically the only people who are cared after in any acquisition are the investors so that no bad-blood is in the water for the next acqui-hire. Customers are always left in the dark.

If you want any credibility to the contrary, you'd better start presenting your customers with an SLA that guarantees a detailed transition with a timeline in the case of company failure/acquisition.

Or you can just play PR games. Whatever bare minimum your sense of honesty necessitates.

I'd rather just sit on a happy customer base, but I never thought I'd become a millionaire anyway.

I just want to help people.

Re: Grove.io shutting down

#113

Post by njr123 »

jkaljundi wrote: post #92
heretohelp wrote: post #5

This is why I refuse to use external services hosted by small/tiny companies that haven't open-sourced their tech. Even in this moment, they still don't seem to be bothering to open source any of it. There's a lesson to be learnt here in terms of gaining buyer trust when you're small. I continue to use our own setup for IRC.

There is no difference between large and small tech companies shutting down their services. Google has shut down close to 50 services in recent year if I remember correctly: http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/03/google-shutdowns-continue-i...

These things are not really on the same level. Google usually gives more than a years notice, and always has a way to export your data. These guys are shutting down in the month and it looks like the only help you get with your data is a link to a gist on github.

Re: Grove.io shutting down

#114

Post by mibbitier »

njr123 wrote: post #113
jkaljundi wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no difference between large and small tech companies shutting down their services. Google has shut down close to 50 services in recent year if I remember correctly: http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/03/google-shutdowns-continue-i...

These things are not really on the same level. Google usually gives more than a years notice, and always has a way to export your data. These guys are shutting down in the month and it looks like the only help you get with your data is a link to a gist on github.

> Google usually gives more than a years notice, and always has a way to export your data.

Hahahahaha no. They don't. If only they did anything remotely as nice as that.

Re: Grove.io shutting down

#115

Post by plusbryan »

heretohelp wrote: post #5

This is why I refuse to use external services hosted by small/tiny companies that haven't open-sourced their tech. Even in this moment, they still don't seem to be bothering to open source any of it. There's a lesson to be learnt here in terms of gaining buyer trust when you're small. I continue to use our own setup for IRC.

When your favorite restaurant closes down, do you demand they post all their recipes?

Re: Grove.io shutting down

#116

Post by dchuk »

redguava wrote: post #90
dchuk wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of the time, if you build something that scratches your own itch, there will be others out there that will also find it useful. The challenge is to find a big enough itch.

I always find this to be terrible advice. Most programmers have similar itches, if you scratch your own itch, you are going into a lot of competition with many other developers. Why not solve a problem for an industry that gets much less attention? Maybe success rates would be much higher if we stopped all building the same things.

I never said anything about building tools for programmers. I'm actually a major proponent of building apps and tools that scratch non-technical itches, or more specifically, intersecting your development skills with your hobbies or interests.

Re: Grove.io shutting down

#117

Post by dchuk »

ricardobeat wrote: post #99
dchuk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The substance of social proof is that it shows that a lot of people have faith in your product and trust you enough to pay you to use it. It's not just a gimmick, it's a concrete psychological trigger.

Yes, of course social proof has substance as marketing strategy. But gaining trust is orthogonal to actually being reliable. (this is still about the top comment)

I disagree about trust and reliability being orthogonal. Unreliable products burn their bridges rapidly. Social proof can take many forms, from raw total user numbers to user testimonials. You're not going to collect testimonials if you have a shitty product.

Re: Grove.io shutting down

#119

Post by heretohelp »

zeeg wrote: post #110
heretohelp wrote: post #5

This is why I refuse to use external services hosted by small/tiny companies that haven't open-sourced their tech. Even in this moment, they still don't seem to be bothering to open source any of it. There's a lesson to be learnt here in terms of gaining buyer trust when you're small. I continue to use our own setup for IRC.

Why should anyone create software just so you can have it for free? You're not entitled to open source software, or the goodwill of others. If they decided that they didn't want to continue running their product, they can choose to shut it down. This is exactly the same as Sparrow, TextMate, etc. None of these companies owe you anything to where they should be required, or even expected, to open source their work.

I don't demand anything of them, but they won't create a dependency where I previously had none and expect to be rewarded with money for it.

I am making founders aware of this attitude so that they can

1. Realize that there's a problem

2. Distinguish themselves among their competitors by addressing this concern

I'm not aiming to prescribe solutions, just describing the heuristics I presently rely on to determine if a service is likely to become a liability. I always do a fluid cost-benefit analysis beyond the black-and-white I described in my top comment.

That you believed what I said had anything to do with "demanding" free labor of anyone is telling and indicates a defensive posture on the subject.

Not a surprising reaction to have, given that Sentry (your errors-as-a-service project) depends on people trusting you not to just shut it down tomorrow.

Re: Grove.io shutting down

#120

Post by mh- »

dchuk wrote: post #116
redguava wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always find this to be terrible advice. Most programmers have similar itches, if you scratch your own itch, you are going into a lot of competition with many other developers. Why not solve a problem for an industry that gets much less attention? Maybe success rates would be much higher if we stopped all building the same things.

I never said anything about building tools for programmers. I'm actually a major proponent of building apps and tools that scratch non-technical itches, or more specifically, intersecting your development skills with your hobbies or interests.

unfortunately for those of us who don't have any non-programming/tech interests that doesn't leave much left. :)

(uber, taskrabbit notwithstanding..)

Post reply on HN