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Imzy is shutting down

imzy.com

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Re: Imzy is shutting down

#81

Post by nebabyte »

r721 wrote: post #26
minimaxir wrote: post #2

Wait, what? They raised a $8M Series A less than a year ago! https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/26/imzy-raises-8-million-seri... That was also the time it was opened to the public. This shutdown appears to be a strong counterpoint against Reddit alternatives becoming an inherently successful business prospect.

>a strong counterpoint against Reddit alternatives becoming an inherently successful business prospect It looks like Voat is not in good financial shape too: https://voat.co/v/announcements/1866053 https://voat.co/v/announcements/1881376

either*, and I wouldn't use voat as a yardstick - it's had its own slew of fairly poor decisions and has likely not evolved out of the "run as a side project" mentality it was founded with (though idk, haven't been keeping tabs.)

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#82

Post by TekMol »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #66

I wish the founders well, but I feel like people nowadays give up too early. And this is one of the most extreme examples of that. Most community sites take a while to grow and you really never know what will happen. Even Reddit was sort of a failure vs. Digg and they sold it off to conde nast. It was only later AFTER the sale when Digg messed up on their own and Reddit enjoyed success as a side effect. You really sh…

    I have never seen a successful community site
    that raised that much money before getting traction.
What are some successful community sites?

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#83

Post by [deleted] »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #66

I wish the founders well, but I feel like people nowadays give up too early. And this is one of the most extreme examples of that. Most community sites take a while to grow and you really never know what will happen. Even Reddit was sort of a failure vs. Digg and they sold it off to conde nast. It was only later AFTER the sale when Digg messed up on their own and Reddit enjoyed success as a side effect. You really sh…

[deleted]

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#84

Post by JBReefer »

TylerE wrote: post #41
minimaxir wrote: post #2

Wait, what? They raised a $8M Series A less than a year ago! https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/26/imzy-raises-8-million-seri... That was also the time it was opened to the public. This shutdown appears to be a strong counterpoint against Reddit alternatives becoming an inherently successful business prospect.

Reddit itself is not a successful business project.

It is not successful for the owners. It has been a very successful project for native advertisers of all stripes, and people that are insane politically (of all stripes).

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#85

Post by cookiecaper »

arkitaip wrote: post #15

"The site will go dark on June 23rd." (1) Two years is too little time to create a Reddit alternative (2) shutting it down in less than 30 days is really bad.

I think both sides on "too little time" are right. It's certainly true that going slow and steady and waiting for the incumbent to show weakness is sometimes a viable strategy, and that it can take a long time for communities to grow from a handful of users to millions.

It's just that when you take $8M+ of VC money, they don't want to wait around. They want "dat hockey stick" within a couple of quarters. I think it's wise and honorable for Imzy to recognize that they're unable to satisfy those conditions and bow out instead of continuing to blow investor money and keep the staff on a dead-end job.

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#86

Post by nebabyte »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #66

I wish the founders well, but I feel like people nowadays give up too early. And this is one of the most extreme examples of that. Most community sites take a while to grow and you really never know what will happen. Even Reddit was sort of a failure vs. Digg and they sold it off to conde nast. It was only later AFTER the sale when Digg messed up on their own and Reddit enjoyed success as a side effect. You really sh…

Honestly, as much as I love them: Imzy in its current form was never going to catch on.

Other sites can get away with some bad choices like login-required because of momentum, but... The culture and userbase they were hoping to attract was more akin to tumblr, and Tumblrites were never going to leave it for Imzy.

Those used to reddit, meanwhile, saw a signup/login screen (or even a "request an invite" screen) and boredly clicked off. Some actively looking for reddit alternatives (like me) waited to get in, but not many.

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#87

Post by joeberon »

kickme444 wrote: post #69
sprt wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you have done differently?

TL;DR - we over built. We were too close to the problem from our experiences at reddit and built WAY too much stuff that only really matters if you are operating at scale. If we had done better with this, we could have gone to market quicker and probably done a better job finding product/market fit. There's of course more, but this is the biggest thing.

>built WAY too much stuff that only really matters if you are operating at scale.

Why do people do this?? Please don't build for mega huge scales before you've gone to market...it's a huge waste of time and money. I guess developers have too much pride to not make the _best_ platform

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#88

Post by mbesto »

TylerE wrote: post #79
exelius wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is if your goal is to control (or at least influence) the Internet zeitgeist without appearing to...

That's a propaganda success, not a business success. Reddit has always lost money, and continues to lose money quarter after quarter.

My theory - Reddit is kept alive by YC and YC-affiliates to keep the "hype" engine around their investments alive. In other words "remember, this is from the smart people that invested in the Frontpage of the Internet™!"

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#89

Post by distantsounds »

nothing on the home page or "learn more" link actually shows anything about the site, just that it's yet another online community. I'm not surprised this shut down so quickly, you're giving almost no details to the user at all about how it works, what it looks like, or any sort of interactive demo. requiring someone to sign up just to see it in action is silly.

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#90

Post by erikpukinskis »

minimaxir wrote: post #29
r721 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a strong counterpoint against Reddit alternatives becoming an inherently successful business prospect It looks like Voat is not in good financial shape too: https://voat.co/v/announcements/1866053 https://voat.co/v/announcements/1881376

Voat never raised millions in venture capital, though. (and can't given their content/userbase)

They will probably have a hard time raising from institutional investors, but my guess is their userbase is primarily single men who spend large amounts of time on the computer, a decent subset of whom have spending cash.

The "goats" are also people who feel like they've been politically badgered into a corner, so I suspect they will spend to maintain their last refuge. Your will to fight goes up as the space you are confined to gets smaller.

I think there's definitely a market for a "social network of last resort" in this age of community guidelines.

Which... I think is a great thing. It's good that Twitter, Reddit, etc, are being aggressive about harassment. That promotes the freer flow of certain ideas (feminism, social justice, etc). But then that necessitates an alternate space for the free flow of opposing viewpoints (harassment filters out the weak, feminism is cancer, this woman should be raped for her opinions, etc).

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