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I bootstrapped the company for years before raising. I raised because I felt that I had to go after the bigger vision, which required resources ($$). In short,

I bootstrapped the company for years before raising. I raised because I felt that I had to go after the bigger vision, which required resources ($$). In short, I wanted to accelerate the pace of learning, because if I didn't, I would always kick myself for not stepping on the gas pedal. I don't regret my decision either TBH.

bspear 4y ago
Were you profitable before you raised? Just curious if you wanted a bigger outcome or the smaller scale wasn't sustainable either
mhitza 4y ago
If you're shutting it down, why not offer the source code under an OSS license for your users to be able to migrate to self hosted?
- paxys 4y ago
  Even if the founder wants to do that, it would involve every single investor signing off on it, which seems like an uphill battle.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    > Even if the founder wants to do that, it would involve every single investor signing off on it, which seems like an uphill battle. Would it? Don't owners of companies general cede day-to-day business decisions to those running the company (i.e. the CEO)?
    - paxys 4y ago
      Well giving away all company IP for free isn't a "day-to-day business decision". If the company is shutting down the assets go to the investors, and they can choose what to do with it.
    - jrochkind1 4y ago
      The issue isn't who gets to make "day-to-day business decisions" (i'm not sure how you characterize licensing source code as open source as such, but it doens't matter). The issue is that shareholders literally own the property owned by the company, that's what it means to be a shareholder. Including intellectual property. Announcing you are shutting down a company, and then, without board approval, the CEO giving away what assets remain... is super sketchy and probably illegal, probably stealing from the shareholders (or even more likely other creditors, if they exist), who would probably like to partially recoup their losses from sales of any remaining assets. What those assets are you are giving away are, say, a fleet of cars, or the intellectual property of source code, legally the same. Imagine if a car service company announced it was shutting down, and then gave away all it's cars, instead of selling them in an orderly fashion and distributing profits to anyone who was owed money, including creditors and shareholders. Given that with a company going out of business a lot of people are going to be losing money and wanting to get what they can out of any assets... the time to release as open source is really before you go out of business.
      - namecheapTA 4y ago
        Maybe put the source code on eBay up for bids?
- kodah 4y ago
  Someone in the business likely is in-scope for licensing decisions and on the facade this sort of decision probably looks noble and altruistic. To answer your question, "is it possible" - yes. Ethically, however, it doesn't really check out for me. If the software is a core part of your business and the (or one of the) primary reasons an investor has joined your business then it's at the very least a bait and switch to make such a decision without their involvement. To a big VC or private equity firm this may infuriate some but have little monetary impact; at a much smaller firm this could be highly damaging. I'm also fairly certain that whatever harm comes from this decision would put the CEO in personal liability, potentially all the way up the decision chain.
- Kiro 4y ago
  I get the same question every time I shut down something. No, I don't want people to see my embarrassing spaghetti code. With that said, I haven't shut down any critical products so it has been more like "would be nice if you made it open source" but my point is that there are many non-obvious reasons not to open source something. Another is that I've randomly put credentials in the source code that I don't want leaked (again, my code is an ugly mess full of shortcuts and hacks). Yet another is that it would be impossible for someone to host themselves because I don't even understand it myself.
  - interactivecode 4y ago
    Agree, I think the fear of someone finding a vulnerability and the original author being held accountable is high enough for almost nobody to open source their code.
  - onelovetwo 4y ago
    That's a terrible way to think and oddly an excuse I hear a lot. If that's the case, there would be no OSS software, every OSS starts off crappy and full of bugs and usually not even close to finished. The goal of OSS is not to show off your skills as some elite programmer.
    - Kiro 4y ago
      Easy to say, harder to do. I get anxiety just thinking about it. What's the goal? You make it sound like I have an obligation to do it for some utilitarian reasons, while in reality maybe one or two previous customers would use it while migrating to something else. It's crap software with much better OSS alternatives already. It either dies with me or dies as an abandoned repo I need to be ashamed of.
      - someone7x 4y ago
        My dude, who is ashamed of open source repo?
      - MrMan 4y ago
sharps_xp 4y ago
It isn't unprecedented to ask the investors to write off their investments. Would it be too late to revert back to a private business?
- carimura 4y ago
  It's already private, I presume you mean some form of restructuring the cap table so the founders/team have fresh ownership to work with. A noble thought, but then what? skeleton crew the business at a snails pace while still being unclear how to actually make money?
  - simulate-me 4y ago
    Gumroad successfully negotiated something with its investors and still exists and is profitable.
    - carimura 4y ago
      there are certainly numerous success stories. i have friends who "recapped" and went on to be quite financially successful, but that is likely the exception, not the rule.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    His story on https://www.failory.com/interview/friday https://www.failory.com/interview/friday suggests it's making 10-25k MRR. If he can run it on autopilot with just occasional bugfixes and support queries, he's still got a very nice "lifestyle business" that will probably keep yielding for a couple years.
    - birken 4y ago
      I think your idea fails for at least a couple key reasons. First, a lot of customers will probably migrate to competitor if they know the product isn't in active development anymore, so the MRR will likely drop over time. Second, investors are not going to just give up their equity while the owner directly profits off their investment, there would have to be some type of buy-back, and the owner probably doesn't have that kind of money.
ttty 4y ago
I’d be interested to buy your website. I have some ideas on how to improve and I’d like to take a chance.

bspear 4y ago

Were you profitable before you raised? Just curious if you wanted a bigger outcome or the smaller scale wasn't sustainable either

mhitza 4y ago

If you're shutting it down, why not offer the source code under an OSS license for your users to be able to migrate to self hosted?

paxys 4y ago
Even if the founder wants to do that, it would involve every single investor signing off on it, which seems like an uphill battle.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nicoburns 4y ago
  > Even if the founder wants to do that, it would involve every single investor signing off on it, which seems like an uphill battle. Would it? Don't owners of companies general cede day-to-day business decisions to those running the company (i.e. the CEO)?
  - paxys 4y ago
    Well giving away all company IP for free isn't a "day-to-day business decision". If the company is shutting down the assets go to the investors, and they can choose what to do with it.
  - jrochkind1 4y ago
    The issue isn't who gets to make "day-to-day business decisions" (i'm not sure how you characterize licensing source code as open source as such, but it doens't matter). The issue is that shareholders literally own the property owned by the company, that's what it means to be a shareholder. Including intellectual property. Announcing you are shutting down a company, and then, without board approval, the CEO giving away what assets remain... is super sketchy and probably illegal, probably stealing from the shareholders (or even more likely other creditors, if they exist), who would probably like to partially recoup their losses from sales of any remaining assets. What those assets are you are giving away are, say, a fleet of cars, or the intellectual property of source code, legally the same. Imagine if a car service company announced it was shutting down, and then gave away all it's cars, instead of selling them in an orderly fashion and distributing profits to anyone who was owed money, including creditors and shareholders. Given that with a company going out of business a lot of people are going to be losing money and wanting to get what they can out of any assets... the time to release as open source is really before you go out of business.
    - namecheapTA 4y ago
      Maybe put the source code on eBay up for bids?
kodah 4y ago
Someone in the business likely is in-scope for licensing decisions and on the facade this sort of decision probably looks noble and altruistic. To answer your question, "is it possible" - yes. Ethically, however, it doesn't really check out for me. If the software is a core part of your business and the (or one of the) primary reasons an investor has joined your business then it's at the very least a bait and switch to make such a decision without their involvement. To a big VC or private equity firm this may infuriate some but have little monetary impact; at a much smaller firm this could be highly damaging. I'm also fairly certain that whatever harm comes from this decision would put the CEO in personal liability, potentially all the way up the decision chain.
Kiro 4y ago
I get the same question every time I shut down something. No, I don't want people to see my embarrassing spaghetti code. With that said, I haven't shut down any critical products so it has been more like "would be nice if you made it open source" but my point is that there are many non-obvious reasons not to open source something. Another is that I've randomly put credentials in the source code that I don't want leaked (again, my code is an ugly mess full of shortcuts and hacks). Yet another is that it would be impossible for someone to host themselves because I don't even understand it myself.
- interactivecode 4y ago
  Agree, I think the fear of someone finding a vulnerability and the original author being held accountable is high enough for almost nobody to open source their code.
- onelovetwo 4y ago
  That's a terrible way to think and oddly an excuse I hear a lot. If that's the case, there would be no OSS software, every OSS starts off crappy and full of bugs and usually not even close to finished. The goal of OSS is not to show off your skills as some elite programmer.
  - Kiro 4y ago
    Easy to say, harder to do. I get anxiety just thinking about it. What's the goal? You make it sound like I have an obligation to do it for some utilitarian reasons, while in reality maybe one or two previous customers would use it while migrating to something else. It's crap software with much better OSS alternatives already. It either dies with me or dies as an abandoned repo I need to be ashamed of.
    - someone7x 4y ago
      My dude, who is ashamed of open source repo?
    - MrMan 4y ago

sharps_xp 4y ago

It isn't unprecedented to ask the investors to write off their investments. Would it be too late to revert back to a private business?

carimura 4y ago
It's already private, I presume you mean some form of restructuring the cap table so the founders/team have fresh ownership to work with. A noble thought, but then what? skeleton crew the business at a snails pace while still being unclear how to actually make money?
- simulate-me 4y ago
  Gumroad successfully negotiated something with its investors and still exists and is profitable.
  - carimura 4y ago
    there are certainly numerous success stories. i have friends who "recapped" and went on to be quite financially successful, but that is likely the exception, not the rule.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  His story on https://www.failory.com/interview/friday https://www.failory.com/interview/friday suggests it's making 10-25k MRR. If he can run it on autopilot with just occasional bugfixes and support queries, he's still got a very nice "lifestyle business" that will probably keep yielding for a couple years.
  - birken 4y ago
    I think your idea fails for at least a couple key reasons. First, a lot of customers will probably migrate to competitor if they know the product isn't in active development anymore, so the MRR will likely drop over time. Second, investors are not going to just give up their equity while the owner directly profits off their investment, there would have to be some type of buy-back, and the owner probably doesn't have that kind of money.

ttty 4y ago

I’d be interested to buy your website. I have some ideas on how to improve and I’d like to take a chance.