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The end of Airplane.dev

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Re: The end of Airplane.dev

#81

Post by czhu12 »

I'm always puzzled by stories like this:

Why not just cut staffing to a minimal number of people -- go back to existing customers, and renegotiate existing contracts down (due to reduced support), and try to balance out the revenue with costs to get back to some level of profitability.

2-3 person indie hackers that bring in 400k in revenue are considered wildly successful. I have to imagine airplane.dev was bringing in enough revenue to support a team of 10 - 15 people who could forever be a thorn in the side of companies like retool. Maybe there could even be an exit one day for the people staying behind.

Even the founders could leave, just hand it off to a group of employees who are still interested in working on the problem, will have more control over the company, get better work life balance, etc. Rather than just scrapping it all

I'm sure it isn't this easy, since that seems to never actually happen, but can anyone illuminate me on why?

Re: The end of Airplane.dev

#82

Post by Havoc »

If the sole purpose was to get the CEO they could have just made him an offer he can't refuse, stick some other new CEO into airplane and call it good.

Would effectively be a risky, but free bet on a growing company.

Re: The end of Airplane.dev

#83

Post by warthog »

Thanks for the clear explanation. Had wondered at the time why this would happen.

Not to play the blame game but sounds like it comes down to cofounders just losing interest in their own company. Rest was just a side effect.

Unfortunately this is becoming more and more common. The cult of the irrational, warrior founder/CEO who takes the startup journey as literal life or death is even rarer.

What is even more weird to me is that I know founders who sleep 2-3 days in the office trying to make their startup work and grow, year after year.

They are hiring for people like you. They always get rejected for some reason.

Yet Silicon Valley natives get their way easily with great engineers like the ones in your team. I don't mean to offend anything, I have been just really curious what makes great people like your team go with founders who give up eventually. Cos I used to think you can sort of sense a founder who is not in it for life and death.

Re: The end of Airplane.dev

#84

Post by mring33621 »

semanticc wrote: post #51

Why was the employees' common stock worth $0? Liquidation preference for the outside investors? Related: How can a regular employee joining a startup know beforehand that there isn't a high chance of their equity (which is probably a significant part of their total comp) being worthless even if a big acquisition is made?

assume it's worth zero

sadly, founders who are hiring don't want to hear that and typically don't want to compensate fairly for the high probability that their precious offering of equity is worth zero

Re: The end of Airplane.dev

#85

Post by oliyoung »

semanticc wrote: post #51

Why was the employees' common stock worth $0? Liquidation preference for the outside investors? Related: How can a regular employee joining a startup know beforehand that there isn't a high chance of their equity (which is probably a significant part of their total comp) being worthless even if a big acquisition is made?

> How can a regular employee joining a startup know beforehand that there isn't a high chance of their equity (which is probably a significant part of their total comp) being worthless even if a big acquisition is made?

You don't.

I've walked into every startup with big promises of stock compensation highly cynical about seeing any of that equity, ever.

Unless the cash is sitting in your account, it doesn't exist.

Re: The end of Airplane.dev

#86

Post by gnicholas »

semanticc wrote: post #51

Why was the employees' common stock worth $0? Liquidation preference for the outside investors? Related: How can a regular employee joining a startup know beforehand that there isn't a high chance of their equity (which is probably a significant part of their total comp) being worthless even if a big acquisition is made?

Sounds like they raised tens of millions and had only $10M or so in the bank. Assuming the sale price wasn't in the tens of millions or greater, no common shareholders would have received anything.

> How can a regular employee joining a startup know beforehand that there isn't a high chance of their equity (which is probably a significant part of their total comp) being worthless even if a big acquisition is made?

Ask to see the cap table to understand what the company would have to be sold for in order for your shares to be worth anything.

Re: The end of Airplane.dev

#87

Post by ponector »

siliconwrath wrote: post #35
rdtsc wrote: post #5

> These colleagues had all been at the company for a while and all had legitimate reasons for resigning unrelated to the revenue slowdown Obviously not familiar with the particulars, but people don't always say why they are moving on. There is not much of an upside to revealing any negative issues, so it's usually presented as "really wanted to stay, but just found a new exciting opportunity". If all of the sudden 4…

I always think of this article in these situations: https://randsinrepose.com/archives/shields-down/ It's an apt metaphor.

>>> The departure cost is always exponentially higher.

And yet no one is going to give you a substantial salary rise unless you sign a resignation letter.

All that questions about the reason why someone wants to leave during recruitment or exit interview are a ceremonial, and people are answering with polite bullshit.

Yes, I'm looking for a new job to get more experience, to grow, to get new challenges. Not because I want more money and we all know it is the easiest way to get it. Not because I have an idiot manager. Etc..

Re: The end of Airplane.dev

#88

Post by gnicholas »

czhu12 wrote: post #81

I'm always puzzled by stories like this: Why not just cut staffing to a minimal number of people -- go back to existing customers, and renegotiate existing contracts down (due to reduced support), and try to balance out the revenue with costs to get back to some level of profitability. 2-3 person indie hackers that bring in 400k in revenue are considered wildly successful. I have to imagine airplane.dev was bringing…

Yeah, it would be interesting if a company like this could be sold to a handful of employees. But I imagine part of the reason this happened is that the CEO felt responsible for finding a landing spot for the Airplane team (pun intended). An acquihire accomplishes this, and is probably better for his resume and/or ego as well. But for customers, yeah it would be better if this were kept as a going concern.

Re: The end of Airplane.dev

#89

Post by tshaddox »

> He then explained that the Airplane product would be shut down, but that most of us would be getting “extremely strong” offers from Airtable. However, we’d have to do interviews for leveling purposes, and the financial details wouldn’t be made available to us until later.

That's a layoff, right?

Re: The end of Airplane.dev

#90

Post by gnicholas »

carabiner wrote: post #69

I really hope this trend of non-informative, common noun names for software comes to an end. Airplane, seriously? Why not Skateboard or Plywood or Shovel? I guess I have noticed it's a signal that the actual product is yet another boring productivity tool.

"Airplane" starts with "AI", and it sounds like their work involved AI (I have never heard of them, so don't know).
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