That said, no hard feelings. It's hard out there. I've never tried to run a company, so I can't judge.
I'm sure she would have loved to have all of her projects succeed.
Grove.io is a high quality service. We love using it at Leftronic and are very sad to read this news. I wish Leah and her team the best.
It is in no way a shot at Leah or her work. It's just a recognition of history.
He had a chance to edit his post to better reflect his position, but chose not to take it. I wish he had.
(And to complete this, lets not forget that Rayne is also a person who just made a mistake. It is the action which is bad, not the person).
I don't see how this is any different than picking up women and telling them you think they're serious girlfriend material in a context (business services) where that's the expected standard, then dropping them for the new hot thing.
Why is it suddenly acceptable to do this just because they called themselves a startup?
Why do you assume the worst of this company? The rest of your statements in this thread are really aggressive, and rely on very negative assumptions, which do not seem to have a basis in fact.
Because that's what happened to her last six projects?
Are you completely incapable of inductive reasoning or are you being obtuse so that you can make the total unaccountability of SV founders a moral crusade?
With something like a business tool though I want something that is going to be around for the long term and it would be a factor on further products she creates.
From experience I know a startup is hard and things don't always go to plan so I can sympathise there, just that when choosing tools for business stability is a factor.
As a community we praise people for trying, then when it fails we pillory them? A dick move, sir.
You say "supposedly" but you just assumed it was "valid". So without evidence or context, you took him at face value and now assume bad things about the person in question. That's why it's a dick move.
I think the guy is really just telling facts. Unfortunately, it means that the next project may have users worrying about when it'll be shut down. (There were actually comments to that affect when grove was announced on HN).
Also, I think the underlying issue here is that none of those services cost anything to run, so they seem to have been shutdown because of other factors - perhaps a lack of ability to see things through.
pil·lo·ry [pil-uh-ree] noun
a wooden framework erected on a post, with holes for securing
the head and hands, formerly used to expose an offender to public
derision.
I have no opinion on this specific startup. Perhaps they've provided enough time to migrate; that's for their paying customers to judge. But it's naive to think failures doesn't affect your reputation. It does, and it should. Do you really think savvy users won't take your track record into account when deciding whether to use your service? It goes against their interests, and nothing is more darwinian than a startup.
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Here in silicon valley we say that failure is ok. And yet accountability is also good. There's a tension here.
Perhaps failed startups are fine for investors, who might have diversified into many different vehicles. They're more problematic for customers who rely on a product. And paradoxically, the closer a startup gets to solving a hair-on-fire problem, the more careful they need to be about how they treat their customers on the way out.
Even if investors claim failure is ok, is that always the case? I suspect past track record does play a role somehow, even if it's subtle and hidden behind the scenes.
Even if failure is sometimes ok, there are failures and there are failures. A lot depends on how the wrap-up was carried out, and how people feel about it.
When startups are few and creation is to be encouraged, failure can be ignored. When startups are plentiful and failure starts to be taken for granted, perhaps it's time to emphasize accountability.
The grandparent is the opposite of what this community is about.
And attaching their name to it is worse. Saying "I'm starting to not trust this startup" would have been much more acceptable in my opinion.
It gives me little new knowledge, and makes the move seem sudden and strange. From the outside, Grove looks quite successful.
A simple "we only had 20 paying customers and we think SaaS IRC doesn't work for reason X" would be fine. That she hasn't said that, to me implies there is something else going on.
Hope she's OK!
(uber, taskrabbit notwithstanding..)
heh. can someone recommend an alternative that also supports connecting via standard IRC protocol?