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

On Shutting Down

blog.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 88 posts

Re: On Shutting Down

#61

Post by ehnto »

dyarosla wrote: post #46
fencepost wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's tough to declare later that you have made nothing of value and will close shop. It's not that you've made nothing of value or that there was no need, it's simply that you weren't able to build a viable business from what you were doing. It doesn't even mean that nobody could build a viable business, it may be that your definition of viable is different from someone else's (e.g. minimum required growth numbers, d…

I think the definition of viable isn’t really up for debate. But I do agree with your sentiment: There may have been a need and you may have created value but perhaps the need/value wasn’t viable at the target size set for the business by the founders and investors.

It kind of is though. Maybe a founder is happy making 90k a year off a small band of loyal customers. By all means, that's a viable business.

Maybe the business wouldn't be able to run profitably with anything less than 1000 users and one founder can't make it happen in their budget while another can, or another yet decides to raise money.

Re: On Shutting Down

#62

Post by gitgud »

Jach wrote: post #41

There's a kind of shutting down not covered here: getting acquired. Too often a phrase similar to "our incredible journey"[0] appears, in which case as an end-user you know the time for enjoying the service is at an end just as surely as if the startup went bankrupt. [0] https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/

That's a great website, I check it every now and then for a laugh. It's funny how similar every company portrays the acquisition experience.

It's almost always; a positive, reflective experience which dismisses any consequences to end users...

Re: On Shutting Down

#63

Post by kogir »

iandanforth wrote: post #29

YC provides a toolkit for starting up and incorporation. Do they also provide a toolkit for shutting down and wrapping up legal / tax obligations?

YC provides assistance but unlike starting from zero, shutdown is unique for each company.

My latest company started the same as all the others but ended up registered to varying degrees in four states, each with its own dissolution procedures. Never mind financing, vendor, customer, and other agreements that may be in play.

Re: On Shutting Down

#64

Post by DonHopkins »

>Because of this difficulty, we’ve evolved a set of terms that often mean “shut down” without saying “shut down.” In no particular order these are: pivot, hard pivot, rebrand, strategic shift, change customer focus, and platform switch.

How about "serialize"? As in "I'm a serial entrepreneur, so I'm serializing my current project, and spinning up a new one!"

Re: On Shutting Down

#65

Post by DonHopkins »

FooHentai wrote: post #53
eropple wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blizzard released Hearthstone in 2014, Heroes of the Storm in 2015, and Overwatch in 2016. It's very difficult to characterize that as "milking". And Bethesda has Starfield in the pipeline, though it's a next-gen title at this point.

You can bring in some fresh cows while continuing to milk the older ones, which is what both appear to be doing (e.g. WoW, Fallout) ;)

Rockstar certainly is milking their Red Dead Redemption franchise.

https://youtu.be/cfTnsqNuDg8?t=137

Re: On Shutting Down

#67

Post by chiph »

I once called a friend that I hadn't talked with in a while, only to find out that he was helping load their office chairs into a U-Haul for their new owner. Awkward.

Re: On Shutting Down

#68

Post by lotsofpulp »

rightbyte wrote: post #44
TeMPOraL wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dreaded by everyone except the users/customers, who come to depend on the service the startup provides.

... and the people it employs? I see alot of winners in "zombie" startups. I wonder what the ROI of the average business is. Pizza places, AI shops alike.

Problem is when someone bigger comes and puts you out of business. Like a fancy new pizza place with modern decor or a Costco or amazon or Uber. You need the ROI to keep placing other bets to increase your chances of survival.

Re: On Shutting Down

#69

Post by boznz »

philip1209 wrote: post #8

YC has talked about how startups die of suicide, not homicide. Shutting down is a hard decision, and there always seems to be pressure to do it. Raising money looks like success to others - so it's tough to declare later that you have made nothing of value and will close shop. Here were my shutdown articles after I closed Staffjoy: https://blog.staffjoy.com/staffjoy-is-shutting-down-39f7b5d6... https://blog.staffjoy.…

I guess retirement is a form of suicide. I run a successful one-man programming business but it too will need to shut-down as I would like to retire in 4-5 years.

It is especially hard as the company is totally viable, in a great location in the world and has great customers who are really happy to keep giving me work, this means I cannot really shut-down until they are taken care of by either selling off the company to another programmer who will support them or transitioning them (very expensively I guess) to another system

I wonder how many people in the same position are thinking this far ahead

Re: On Shutting Down

#70

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

claudiulodro wrote: post #36
clarkevans wrote: post #9

What to do when a company has found a market, reached sustainability with regard to its employees and customers, yet probably will not be providing the anticipated return for its investors? I'd like to hear about ways this has been bridged. Have there been any SV "exits" to a ESOP? Unfortunately, an ESOP requires at a minimum 30+ people to be legitimate exit option and quite a bit of administrative attention and expe…

If you/investors are not satisfied with the current growth of the company but the company is profitable and not in danger of shutting down, it seems like it would be a wise move to invest the profits towards R&D to create some sort of product that may have better growth. You'd have the benefit of "infinite runway" for your next product and the investors have a chance at getting their money back.

On the other hand, there was recently and article in Forbes about a tech billionaire who saw this pattern (small tech companies with one main successful product that were then pouring money into other speculative as-yet unsuccessful products) and built a fortune doing the exact opposite: he'd buy the companies, basically stop all investment in new products (meaning lay most people off and outsource the maintenance to cheaper countries) and milk the maintenance revenue stream until it basically died. I think of it as "the world's most depressing business model", but it was definitely highly profitable.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2018/11/19/how-a-my...

Post reply on HN