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Color Will Shut Down on December 31st

color.com

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Re: Color Will Shut Down on December 31st

#51

Post by jarek »

jfb wrote: post #23
bvdbijl wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like live mobile streaming? http://color.com/about : At Color, we believe in the opportunity that the new mobile era presents and are excited about developing products that transform the way people share the stories of their lives. We work collaboratively, iterate often, and enjoy problem solving. Color is a company of entrepreneurs and innovators, highly skilled in their respective specialties, constantly…

It seems like someone with a modicum of jargon, zero ethics, and balls of brass would be able to suck a nearly unlimited amount of cash out of the herd mentality that rules VC. Perhaps there's a startup idea in there.

> Perhaps there's a startup idea in there.

Bill Nguyen, Inc. for the last two-odd years...

Re: Color Will Shut Down on December 31st

#52

Post by diN0bot »

marc wrote: post #43
emehrkay wrote: post #39

Was the original idea for you to take a picture at an event and see other people at the event taking the same pictures? What is is now? And is anyone implementing the original idea? I think it is pretty cool, not 30/40 million cool

The original idea was to build an implicit or 'implied' network with a social graph based on your behavior rather than social graph you manually select yourself (like on Facebook, Twitter, Path, etc). I think that was a pretty big idea, and it's a shame they couldn't get it to work. ( The photo app was just an MVP if I understand correctly. )

Wow! That sounds awesome. I really want this. Should have downloaded color :-/

Re: Color Will Shut Down on December 31st

#53

Post by robryan »

casinaroyale wrote: post #47
rauljara wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investors in startups are making bets. If they deserve the huge payouts they get when they bet correctly, then they don't deserve pity when their bets go wrong. In this particular case, Bill Nguyen had a whole bunch of red flags, including exiting shortly before his previous companies failed. I, for one, am not happy that investors continue to give such large amounts of money to such obvious carpetbaggers. The Bill N…

Put yourself in his shoes. You have seen that the team is not working well together. The product vision is getting executed badly. Lot of VC money went down the drain. What would you do? Wouldn't you exit while the sun is up?

Not let it get so dysfunctional in the first place. You are right that down the track after everything the best thing was to exit.

Re: Color Will Shut Down on December 31st

#54

Post by robryan »

diN0bot wrote: post #52
marc wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original idea was to build an implicit or 'implied' network with a social graph based on your behavior rather than social graph you manually select yourself (like on Facebook, Twitter, Path, etc). I think that was a pretty big idea, and it's a shame they couldn't get it to work. ( The photo app was just an MVP if I understand correctly. )

Wow! That sounds awesome. I really want this. Should have downloaded color :-/

By downloading the app you would have go no closer to seeing what they intended because there was never really a critical mass of people using it anywhere to make it work.

Re: Color Will Shut Down on December 31st

#55

Post by tlb »

casinaroyale wrote: post #47
rauljara wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investors in startups are making bets. If they deserve the huge payouts they get when they bet correctly, then they don't deserve pity when their bets go wrong. In this particular case, Bill Nguyen had a whole bunch of red flags, including exiting shortly before his previous companies failed. I, for one, am not happy that investors continue to give such large amounts of money to such obvious carpetbaggers. The Bill N…

Put yourself in his shoes. You have seen that the team is not working well together. The product vision is getting executed badly. Lot of VC money went down the drain. What would you do? Wouldn't you exit while the sun is up?

No. Like the captain of a sinking ship, the CEO of a fucked company's duty is to make sure customers get their data back, employees have a soft landing, and investors get back any remaining money.

Re: Color Will Shut Down on December 31st

#57

Post by ChuckMcM »

DrStalker wrote: post #49
ChuckMcM wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, to be contrarian, "Why is this a good time?" Here is what I don't agree with in this statement, you take the app they shipped and the money they raised and you then assert they could have done it for so much less. The flaws in that claim are that the shipped application is probably not particularly close to the 'vision' of what they wanted it to be, no doubt it was a minimum viable product to test the basic conce…

There was IMO a third failure: they released an app with no clear purpose and no indications of what it was meant to do. I downloaded it after the hype about the acquisition, had to guess what the different icons did, I made a profile image and took some photos that were maybe uploaded somewhere? I've no idea what was actually meant to happen, except it was supposed to share photos somehow.

Agreed the app had no clarity. At the time it released (the first app) it seemed like a real-time mash-up of that wedding thing where there is a camera on every table, and the guests are supposed to shoot candids of people around them, and then at the end of the event folks go through all the candid shots and create an album which captures the 'essence' of the event for your memory book.

Take that model, apply technology where everyone is already walking around with a phone, and boom you've got the 'color' app.

And it was a cool idea but the whole "its doing this all the time" thing really was weird. Our CEO was getting pictures of people's friends from Oracle across the street because we happened to be geographically "close." That was more creepy than interesting.

Re: Color Will Shut Down on December 31st

#58

Post by lbotos »

Does anyone else know of open source (or not) tech that would easily allow live streaming like color did? I'm sure it needs some kind of beefy backend, no? Use case: Local sporting events with smartphone holding spectators capturing different "views".

Re: Color Will Shut Down on December 31st

#59

Post by edictive »

tlb wrote: post #55
casinaroyale wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put yourself in his shoes. You have seen that the team is not working well together. The product vision is getting executed badly. Lot of VC money went down the drain. What would you do? Wouldn't you exit while the sun is up?

No. Like the captain of a sinking ship, the CEO of a fucked company's duty is to make sure customers get their data back, employees have a soft landing, and investors get back any remaining money.

I completely agree! It should be a fiduciary duty.

Re: Color Will Shut Down on December 31st

#60

Post by edictive »

casca wrote: post #6
francesca wrote: post #2

In 1.5 years, $41 M gone. This company was full of so much drama. It's a shame that really good investors had to deal with a lot of grime.

Giving a company a large amount of money and watching it spent poorly does not make "really good investors".

I completely agree.
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