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:
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, desire for an acquisition, etc.).
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.
I think the definition of viable depends a lot on how you started the business. For a bootstrapper the definition is totally different than if you have taken millions (or tens or hundreds of millions) in VC money. In general, VCs not only aren't interested in small-but-steady earners, they will be happy to destroy one if they think it gets them a chance at a big payout.
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.
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
I've worked for larger corps for most of my career but have certainly cultivated the desire to be the maker of my own success. That being said, I've had remarkably little luck in finding any side effort enough traction to get off the ground, and hit my stride the most when I can improve a system with a proven value prop. (Without sugarcoating it, I'm a terrible "idea guy")
Later in my life if I get a degree of financial stability, I'd like to buy or work for a proven small company (working for would be hard but not impossible given the aforementioned desire to be the driver and recipient of the fruits of my labor) and taking over from someone in your situation sounds almost ideal.
Migrating customers away from a one-man band is a pretty thorny issue. Unless you happen to know another one person operation who can take over no other vendor will offer the same level of personalized, hands on service or the same level of trust that comes from always dealing with the same person.
The experience of dealing with "Jane the programmer" Vs dealing with "Outsourced software agency incorporated" is dramatically different.
maybe instead of saying that you are 'raising money' say that you have sold part of your company to another company because they expect to get more money from you later
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, desire for an acquisition, etc.).