[pbiggar]

Its a self-fulfilling prophesy. You can't get big without customers, but customers won't use you because you're small.

How do we overcome this?

(Edit: I was asking a rhetorical question to counter the parent. But great discussion below.)

[crag]

No NO.. it's not because they're small. It's because tech start-ups have a history of shutting down or selling, and leaving their users in the dust.

The list is long. Another recent example was Sparrow. I broke my rule about buying/licensing software from small companies (unless I got the source) with Sparrow. I didn't just buy 1 copy, I (we) brought 15 (for the office). And of course, I got burned. Again.

It will not happen again. Period. Unless you tell me up front your plans - what you plan to do for me, the user, when/if you fail or sell.

[throwa]

It is not only tech start-ups that do that. Big tech companies regularly kill or sell off divisions or product lines. Most times, a start-up might still be on its first product line, which makes you think selling off their single product line or single division in this instance the whole company to be different from what the tech giants do when they sell or kill off product lines or divisons.

Start-ups with more than one product line, sometimes sell off one product and keep the rest acting thesame way big companies do. So, Yext a start-up sold their Felix product line to IAC eg:

http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/20/iac-buys-yexts-pay-per-call...

An example of a giant doing thesame thing:

http://techland.time.com/2012/04/26/google-sells-sketchup-wa...

I have shown above, an example of start-ups and giants selling a product line. You can Google around for example of tech giants and start-ups with more than one product, killing off a product line.

[jonursenbach]

Did you really get burned with Sparrow though? You bought software, not a service. Them being bought, and shut down, by Google has zero effect on you given that you can continue to use their software. Forever.

[_neil]

According to a friend, the most recent version of Sparrow is essentially broken (100% CPU and crashes). I haven't upgraded in a while for this reason, and I'm not expecting that issue to be fixed, ever.

That said, I'm still using Sparrow on my laptop and desktop machines as well as my iPhone. But probably not for a whole lot longer.

[hzy]

I don't know about your friend, but I'm happily using the latest version of Sparrow with no issues whatsoever, maybe he has some other unrelated problems...

[tijs]

"Forever" being until Google changes their service which is probably about every few months.

[pilif]

Sparrow is essentially an IMAP client. I don't see Google turn off IMAP support any time soon. Way too many clients are actively using that.

[tijs]

Well yes, but doesn't it's usefulness come from the tight integration with gmail only features? disclaimer; i only used Sparrow for a bit a long time ago so perhaps they've made these features work in regular IMAP as well..

[madflo]

I don't know exactly the protocols behind Exchange (IMAP ? MAPI ?), but it seems to me that it is, for now, Google's prefered way of accessing emails & calendars from a mobile device (at least from iOS).

[pilif]

Yes. But we were talking about Sparrow and Sparrow is an IMAP client.

[tylermenezes]

You paid $150 for software which still works, which had no promise of updates forever anyway, and you're upset?

Not that your point is invalid talking about Grove - suddenly everyone who used it has to move in under a month. But I don't get the upset over Sparrow. If it helped you at the time, it should help you now.

[crag]

I don't want to rehash Sparrow. But, if they'd had fixed long standing bugs, and added the features they promised I would not be so upset about it. But they didn't. They dropped the project and went on to Google.

Leaving with with a ridiculous "feel-good" blog post.

My point though, this isn't uncommon. And this kind of user treatment is one of the big reasons many tech start-ups have a tough time making the sale.

Now of course, if said company manages to get momentum (like a Dropbox, Github, FB - to name a few) - I guess they are no longer startups.

[flatline3]

Sell software and a service. Make it so I can install your code and run it indefinitely. Provide your source to paying customers.

See Atlassian for an example.

[ericingram]

Open source with a service is an exciting model, a lot of network effects but also greater up front investment. We are doing this with getfwd.com

[joe_the_user]

Did you miss the "that haven't open-sourced their tech" part in the parent?

[mibbitier]

You overcome it by offering something valuable for users that they can't easily setup themselves.

As far as I can see, Grove.io didn't do this. They didn't have any easy means to grow quickly.

Also perhaps they're paying a lot for hosting (At rackspace). I don't know, but there's no reason they shouldn't be making some profit if they have a few paying customers. Shame they can't build on that.

[iamdave]

You overcome it by offering something valuable for users that they can't easily setup themselves.

Why can't traditional IRC services be used for this? I'll preemptively counter the end-user configuration side of this by saying it's increasingly easier in a managed workstation environment to deploy images with software required for that worker's tasks preconfigured. Even in a non-managed environment, an IT staff willing to build the packages and make the configuration edits can make accessible an installation candidate stored for access in an infrastructure library so users can save (after proper credentialing and auth checks have been satisfied), install and login.

Security, perhaps? That's always a valid concern to have, but if that's the case I would hope that an adequately planned and designed audit of any service not being managed internally gets the same look. Corollary: perhaps one should not be using anything not managed internally for sensitive matters to begin with; collaboration and non-secure communication where a failure of this system wont halt production or cause the company to incur significant loss however are par.

If I'm off base here, I'm willing to discuss it further. While I loved IT, I had to run for the door after getting burned on multiple opportunities to manage programs and create user friendly but secure policies. And by burned I mean hired to do exactly that, only to end up in hyper-glorified purchasing support roles. shudders

[robryan]

It takes time. Some kind of competitive advantage over everything else in the marketplace will help to. People need a reason to bet on your company which overcomes the risk in instability.

As time passes and your service stays solid more people will come on board. Something like github is a good example. I doubt many big companies would have considered relying on them early on, but their track record has changed that now.

[crag]

Yeah but, Github is a different sort of product. You don't lose much if it shuts down (assuming you have your code). You can push your code someplace else.

[robryan]

I disagree, maybe that might have been a point that allowed more people to give it a try in the early days. A lot of companies have integrated APIs and built workflows around the github specific way of doing things.

[mibbitier]

Surely most of the value of using github is the web UI?

[frabcus]

You're totally locked into the issue tracker.

[pbiggar]

I really meant my point to be a counter to its parent.

But since we're on the topic, presenting social proof is also pretty useful. Show customers that people know, show the press that featured you, show them who you are, who your advisors/investors are, show them whose tweeted about you.

(Maybe writing this will be a catalyst to take my own advice for CircleCi)

[ricardobeat]

But that's hacking trust. It's opposite to just being honest and having a publicized contingency plan, or open-source code.

edit (since I can't reply): logic being that social proof is good for business, but has no substance. It doesn't make it any better for users when it comes to shutting down.

[dchuk]

The substance of social proof is that it shows that a lot of people have faith in your product and trust you enough to pay you to use it. It's not just a gimmick, it's a concrete psychological trigger.

[ricardobeat]

Yes, of course social proof has substance as marketing strategy. But gaining trust is orthogonal to actually being reliable. (this is still about the top comment)

[dchuk]

I disagree about trust and reliability being orthogonal. Unreliable products burn their bridges rapidly. Social proof can take many forms, from raw total user numbers to user testimonials. You're not going to collect testimonials if you have a shitty product.

[pbiggar]

I would like to hear the logic behind that assertion.

[heretohelp]

>I really meant my point to be a counter to its parent.

I don't believe I've ever seen you do anything else on HN. I know you to be a reliable person, no reason to think you'd suddenly get fickle and take something I said seriously.

Do you mean to tell me that if somebody rolled up with a check written out for your price you wouldn't light the servers on fire and run for the hills? Realistically the only people who are cared after in any acquisition are the investors so that no bad-blood is in the water for the next acqui-hire. Customers are always left in the dark.

If you want any credibility to the contrary, you'd better start presenting your customers with an SLA that guarantees a detailed transition with a timeline in the case of company failure/acquisition.

Or you can just play PR games. Whatever bare minimum your sense of honesty necessitates.

I'd rather just sit on a happy customer base, but I never thought I'd become a millionaire anyway.

I just want to help people.

[pbiggar]

> check written out for your price you wouldn't light the servers on fire

> I'd rather just sit on a happy customer base

So everyone else is just in it for the money, but not you? If you can believe it about yourself, perhaps you'd be willing to extend some of that credulity to others?

[heretohelp]

The track record of everyone else is very poor :)

[zhoutong]

There are always early adopters that are passionate about every new product they can find, and there are also skeptical customers that refuse to use anything provided by startups. That's actually how sustainable startups grow.