I strongly recommend using Atheme services for your next IRC project. They have a nice web interface and EGS is a really nice third party web interface.
Grove.io shutting down
21–30 of 205 posts
Re: Grove.io shutting down
#22Back to campfire, I guess.
I'd recommend hipchat.
Re: Grove.io shutting down
#23This 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.
Its a self-fulfilling prophesy. You can't get big without customers, but customers won't use you because you're small.
How do we overcome this?
(Edit: I was asking a rhetorical question to counter the parent. But great discussion below.)
Re: Grove.io shutting down
#24As a founder of http://lingr.com, I know firsthand how hard to build a chat app and make it sustainable. I've been working on it since 2006, first as a startup, then as my personal side project.
I've learned to not invest too much on the project, staying with the minimum server cost, and that's the only sustainable way for me. In fact it costs me almost nothing and users have built trust on me for running it for 6 years.
I'd give her tons of credit for trying to turn it into a real business. That's what I've been failing so far, or maybe I just don't even have the guts to do. I admire her courage and thus feel really sorry.
Hopefully I'll find another course, who knows.
Re: Grove.io shutting down
#25Re: Grove.io shutting down
#26This 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.
Its a self-fulfilling prophesy. You can't get big without customers, but customers won't use you because you're small. How do we overcome this? (Edit: I was asking a rhetorical question to counter the parent. But great discussion below.)
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 now.
Re: Grove.io shutting down
#27Re: Grove.io shutting down
#28It's getting a little difficult to trust stuff by Leah Culver. Everything (that I know of) that she has done so far has either shut down or been acquired and shut down. That said, no hard feelings. It's hard out there. I've never tried to run a company, so I can't judge.
And yet you just did. As a community we praise people for trying, then when it fails we pillory them? A dick move, sir.
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Re: Grove.io shutting down
#29This 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.
Its a self-fulfilling prophesy. You can't get big without customers, but customers won't use you because you're small. How do we overcome this? (Edit: I was asking a rhetorical question to counter the parent. But great discussion below.)
No NO.. it's not because they're small. It's because tech start-ups have a history of shutting down or selling, and leaving their users in the dust.
The list is long. Another recent example was Sparrow. I broke my rule about buying/licensing software from small companies (unless I got the source) with Sparrow. I didn't just buy 1 copy, I (we) brought 15 (for the office). And of course, I got burned. Again.
It will not happen again. Period. Unless you tell me up front your plans - what you plan to do for me, the user, when/if you fail or sell.
Re: Grove.io shutting down
#30This 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.
Maybe you touched on the solution.
If you're a small startup, putting forward a statement that all the code will be open sourced if you shut down should increase the level of comfort your customers have in the product.
What are the downsides I'm not thinking of? Companies that reuse code across multiple products, perhaps. Product A dies, but uses component Foo in Product B that still exists, and represents some kind of special-value-add.