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Imzy is shutting down

imzy.com

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Re: Imzy is shutting down

#211

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

m3rc wrote: post #199
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has nothing to do with what a "product" is.

What? So your advice is to knowingly ignore what actually makes your site money and just call some random other feature "the product"? How would Reddit admins/CEOs ever make decisions using that advice?

If you didn't understand what he meant by the distinction between community and product, you should have asked to clarify, instead of just assuming (completely incorrectly) what he meant and arguing based on your own interpretation.

Building up a community and building a product are completely different things. You can have the perfect product yet never get any community. You can get a great community without even a product.

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#212

Post by rexpop »

prodmerc wrote: post #204
antonber wrote: post #52

I run an online community. Building a safe space is extremely difficult and full of grey area, online or offline. There's a fine line between the freedom to express yourself and offending someone else. As a community moderator, choosing what is and isn't offensive is by definition subjective. It's an impossible task for a global, multi-cultural community. You end up with a vanilla message board where most interesting…

You really don't want to cater to the easily offendable, imo. I remember writing an ebook on affiliate marketing when it was a new thing (free for email subscribers), which had the word Bullshit stamped on an image. Two people said maybe I should tone down the language heh. Fuck right off, buddy :D

> You really don't want to cater to the easily offendable, imo.

This attitude rings with the dismissive tone of the unapologetically privileged who — rebelling against the slightest whiff of shame — are quick to marginalize any and every voice with whom empathizing would require their stingily hoarded emotional labor and energy. Ironically, communities populated by such misers enthusiastically take umbrage with the peculiar struggles of their own, insular milieu.

Twinkle, twinkle, little snowflake.

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#213

Post by EpicEng »

paulsutter wrote: post #194
austenallred wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish the founders well, but I feel like people nowadays give up too early. It's really difficult to offer perspective like that on something you don't really understand and haven't seen from the inside. It's pretty clear if you don't have product-market fit as a founder. And if you don't have a really good idea of what you could do to get to product-market fit, it's entirely possible it's wise of the founders to…

What's going on with raising $11M if it's pretty clear you don't have product market fit?

It's people who don't know what they're doing playing with Monopoly money. I mean really; $11M+ for that site, which existed all of 7 months?! The start up scene boggles my mind.

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#214

Post by 55555 »

rexpop wrote: post #212
prodmerc wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really don't want to cater to the easily offendable, imo. I remember writing an ebook on affiliate marketing when it was a new thing (free for email subscribers), which had the word Bullshit stamped on an image. Two people said maybe I should tone down the language heh. Fuck right off, buddy :D

> You really don't want to cater to the easily offendable, imo. This attitude rings with the dismissive tone of the unapologetically privileged who — rebelling against the slightest whiff of shame — are quick to marginalize any and every voice with whom empathizing would require their stingily hoarded emotional labor and energy. Ironically, communities populated by such misers enthusiastically take umbrage with the p…

I feel that you're making a lot of assumptions about a stranger. Also, the groups of 'oppressed' and 'easily offended' people don't perfectly overlap. Overall I find your comment confusing because I'm not as 'caught up' with this movement but I'd love to hear more of your thoughts if you feel like elaborating. Maybe try using small words like Trump does.

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#216

Post by crsv »

The execution overall at Imzy seems lazy. Kind of shocked that a founding team that raised an A last October is folding in May. Embarrassing performance all around.

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#217

Post by Guest98123 »

Elect2 wrote: post #139
kickme444 wrote: post #3

Hi, I'm the founder of Imzy. It's a hard day but I want to make myself available, especially to entrepreneurs who may have questions. This last 2 years has been fun, and hard and I've learned a lot. You can reply here or email me at dan@imzy.com I also have an amazing staff of developers, community minded folks, product people, executives, who are looking for work. Many of them mare open to moving (we are in Salt Lak…

Could you share a brief of Imzy monthly traffic, bandwidth, and aws cost?

It looks like their traffic has been fairly flat. I'd guess just over 1,000 unique users a day based on their Alexa rating, and a number of sites I run for comparison numbers. At the peak of their popularity, it would have been closer to 2,000 unique users a day.

It's incredibly small for the amount of media attention they received. I think shutting down is the right, and responsible move here.

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#218

Post by austenallred »

EpicEng wrote: post #213
paulsutter wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's going on with raising $11M if it's pretty clear you don't have product market fit?

It's people who don't know what they're doing playing with Monopoly money. I mean really; $11M+ for that site, which existed all of 7 months?! The start up scene boggles my mind.

They didn't spend all of the $11m. Only a tiny fraction of it. And they worked on the site for two years.

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#219

Post by stale2002 »

kickme444 wrote: post #9
GuiA wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, ~10 employees in SF + office rent + other various costs (lawyers, accountants, the odd office party, etc.) will easily burn through $4M a year. Edit: oh wait, that's $8M in October 2016, not 2015 - ie 8 months ago. Burning $1M a month does seem quite high. Maybe they're shutting down early to give some money back to investors?

We're in SLC and still have the majority of that money left.

Good on you!

To many startups these days just try to throw good money after bad.

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#220

Post by stale2002 »

prodmerc wrote: post #202
Angostura wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was basically aiming to be a nice, polite version of Reddit.

So, what would Imzy do when a user started acting "not nice"? Because if they're forced to act nice, most people will just quit. Nobody's nice all the time (everybody has problems), and online communities are great for when you want to vent once in a while. Plus, all the nicety invites narcissistic assholes who think they are better than everyone else. I've never heard of Imzy either, and I think I keep up with all t…

They'd probably ban them.

Unfortunately, having your site based around the idea of throwing up barriers to entry, and kicking people out, isn't good for user growth.

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