[innonate]

I'm sorry, but I think these startups just give other startups a bad name.

I'm the CEO of Picturelife and I wouldn't dream of rolling over like this so easily. We have thousands of customers and just killing our service would be such an assault on their trust.

All these services you mention are just taking the easy way out. There's a long road ahead for us and we'll going to keep making the product and experience better for people, no matter what.

[enjo]

"I'm the CEO of Picturelife and I wouldn't dream of rolling over like this so easily."

I'm sorry, but I don't believe you. If someone waves $10M in front of you, you're going to take it. I think that's ok and I don't think it's (exactly) giving anyone a "bad name" (in the moral sense). It does mean that I'm going to be hesitant to put my photos into a startup again.

Are you willing to put out a guarantee? Are you willing to refund 100% of the money I paid in the last year if you sell and the service is shutdown? I'm betting there is some kind of legal instrument available to me, as a user, to soften the blow when this inevitably happens.

[innonate]

Hi @enjo, see the reply I gave @pnathan to answer some of this.

But in general I can tell you that we really are driven by much more than money here. A few times we've gotten to consider the idea of having a small financial outcome, and we keep coming back to the same thing: if we all became millionaires and then went out to start another company, what would we do?

If we're being truthful with ourselves, it's still doing Picturelife. There's just not another idea we're passionate about, and working on something we're not passionate about sounds like a terrible, terrible time. So we're just not going to take any easy roads here. If it ever gets tough, we're going to toughen up. When things get really good, we're going to dream bigger.

Maybe it's that we've all been around the block a bit -- both of my co-founders have already had great companies (OMGPOP and Threadless) -- but we really don't want to be doing anything else.

We love our customers, we love our work, we love the challenge. Selling out for 10M to Dropbox frankly sounds like a shit time to us, and we wouldn't do it.

[zzzmarcus]

As a Picturelife customer with over 200gb of pictures backed up, and as an Everpix refugee, I really hope this turns out to be the case. If Picturelife disappears, I'm not going to start over somewhere else.

[tnorthcutt]

I recently became aware of Picturelife, and the Everpix shutdown prompts me to ask: is Picturelife profitable?

Everpix looked really great, and I was very close to signing up, but then they shut down. I'm glad I didn't just to see them shut down.

I know you say you wouldn't roll over so easily (which is great!) but it ultimately comes down to whether you have a viable business, which Everpix clearly did not. If I sign up for Picturelife, will it survive without outside investment or some miracle? Is it on a stable trajectory?

Thanks for any insight you can provide. Your service looks great :)

[innonate]

Thanks and great question. Picturelife is not yet profitable but is headed in that direction. If all goes to plan, we can get to profitability by the end of the year. Nothing is a done deal, but that's the plan and I have a very, very high degree of confidence, based on current and history growth trends, that we can pull it off. Hope this helps!

[subdane]

I wonder if it's possible to do an AMA or something here? There's clearly a market need and a lot of folks have felt burned. I bet HN would be interested to know that you taught yourself to code and have been one of the main devs on Picturelife.

[innonate]

I would love to do an AMA sometime. To be honest, I've just been a long-time lurker on HN (6.7 years a member!), but I sorta wouldn't know the best way/time to go about doing one. Any tips?

[subdane]

If you write a blog post about the state of photo storage and post it back here it could spark the right dialog?

[pnathan]

Can you promise in writing enforceable by a court that Picturelife or whoever might buy it will supply services, guaranteed, or face up to penalties?

Because you - like me - will probably be happy to be bought out for sums of money over a certain number. (let's say, 1 billion). And unless you have a fairly hardcore contract with me, I'm not willing to bet your service won't be wound up by the acquirer.

So my pictures are on my hard drive and an external drive.

[innonate]

It's a good question and something I've thought about.

I have a half-written blog post from a few months ago (proof: http://note.io/1lde2HC ) that tries to address this. My idea was that every SAAS startup should start with an exit plan for its customers that would be legally viable in the case of acquisition, being shut down, or any other scenario. Basically a set of software tools and policies that are clear from the get-go, so you aren't waiting to see what they'd do in that case.

We're working on some pretty major releases here so I haven't gotten a chance to finish the post (and publish a plan ourselves) but it's something I think about a lot.

It's a SAAS problem beyond the photo space.

[bjeanes]

Very very very happy Picturelife user here. Your S3 support is the icing on the cake — but please charge me a flat fee for using your software with my own storage. I want to pay for this great storage but your pricing model only prices on usage.

You're not selling me a utility — you're selling me your fantastic product. Let me pay for it!

[shblt]

I just signed for Picturelife to take a look at the interface. I said to myself "I'd use this if I could host the images myself" and closed the tab... then I came back to HN and saw your comment that it does support S3. A "host your own" plan would have been an instant purchase for me if it was available.

[timdafweak]

I'd like to second that opinion. It is a FANTASTIC product, and I would be more than happy to pay to use my own storage. Thank you innonate!

[innonate]

Ha! Thanks -- love that you're asking to pay for it. For now our custom S3 support is a gift. In the future we may change that (and grandfather folks in). In any case, thanks for being a fan.

[cschmidt]

I'm sure he is serious, and I'd actually take him up on it. That's out of self interest - if people can freeload, then it means you are less likely to survive in the long run. So how about a license fee? Maybe $39-69?

That's kind of the point of this thread, in fact. If you don't charge enough, then you won't survive, and your users lose. I would be uneasy using an important service without paying for it (but I do like the idea of my data living in my own s3 bucket).

[innonate]

Well, our company's PayPal address is linked to [e-mail] -- if anyone wants to pay us for the custom S3 service they are already using, and we are giving away for free, they can feel free!

Like I said, as we take another look at pricing (we are in the middle of it now) we will think about what to do on a more formal level.

Thanks for the feedback.

[bjeanes]

I can't wait. I wouldn't expect to pay a fee related to the size of my library (I am doing that to S3) but wouldn't hesitate to pay a moderate monthly or one-time fee for the product.

[bjeanes]

I also once phone interviewed with Picturelife but it was cut off because the recruiter organizing our interaction was an asshat. I'm very happy where I ended up (Heroku), but would have loved to work on Picturelife, fwiw.

[phmagic]

Picturelife looks great! Why haven't I heard of you guys sooner? Just like my mom said: the right photo sharing service is out there.

[innonate]

Thanks! We never "launched" -- just one day we had a website and our beta friends started inviting other friends, and then we just grew from there. Looking back, though, that was a dumb idea. We shoulda done a mega big PR launch :)

[pearjuice]

I hope you realize comments cannot be deleted after a hour or so. So you either speak the truth or will hurt your public image so bad in a few months/years.

Speaking of your promise... What is "so easily"? Does it have 6 or 9 trailing zeros?

[innonate]

I am totally fine with this. I've been living on the Internet for a long time. I've always been comfortable saying exacting how I feel and what I believe and letting there be a permanent record of it. There are definitely comments on blogs from 7 years ago that I wish I never said, but I'd never dream of deleting them. It's part of being an open, honest person in the 21st Century.

As for what's "So easily," it's not just about money. What I mean is this... if something's not working, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. What you'll see from Picturelife in the next few months is us hustling like crazy, putting out major releases and taking risks. "So easily" to me is trying one thing, seeing that it's not working, and then taking someone's offer to make the pain go away. It's like watching someone get dunked underwater and not fight to get free. If someone wants to get free, you could tell, because you'd see a lot of splashing and fighting to survive.

So "so easily" to me means fighting. And that's what we're doing, and that's what you're going to see us do a lot of from now and into the future.

[cschmidt]

Your service looks quite improved since I last took a look. You even have Aperture support, which is important for me. I'll have to give it a whirl.

Glad to hear you at least want to be in it for the long haul.

[zippergz]

I just looked at your site, and I couldn't find answers to a couple of key things. First, what if I have more than 300GB of photos and videos (I do)? Second, what platforms do you support syncing on?

[innonate]

We have plans up to 1TB -- we need to update our marketing site. Check out https://picturelife.com/settings/subscription (once you're signed in).

We support Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android. And then imports from Dropbox, Facebook, Smugmug, Flickr, Instagram, Foursquare, and a few more...

[anon808]

serious question: is this your sole decision to make? what about investors/other owners? I respect that may be your personal opinion, but the company's opinion may not necessarily match it. just being real. btw, did you go along with the sale of omgpop?

[innonate]

Totally not my sole decision. If there were an offer on the table it would be my fiduciary responsibility to let the Board know, and we as a group would vote along with other shareholders with voting rights.

It's a bit more complicated than that, though, and management always has the most control. For instance, it's because of this mentality we're not just shopping ourselves around for little exits -- and so offers like these never have to be decided on. We also chose Spark as a VC because we knew they wouldn't want a small outcome either. They invested in Twitter, Tumblr, and more. We, and they, are looking to build something big and meaningful. A VC like Spark is going to have a lot more patience than some other VCs -- and so it increases our chances of staying independent.

As for the OMGPOP question, I was never a part of it. My co-founder Charles Forman founded it and left the company a year before its sale... so he could start Picturelife with me and Jacob. As it turns out, 3 of our core team members were also at OMGPOP and later joined us at Picturelife, after the company sold to Zynga.