[buro9]

I never used Balanced, but I want to really commend this announcement.

It is the first announcement of such a kind that comes with a well-considered and already provided migration plan for customers to ensure no loss of service.

That's a great standard to work to... leave yourself enough runway to look after your customers.

The Balanced team should feel incredibly proud of managing such a co-ordinated shut down whilst under the stress and emotional turmoil of closing a company. It speaks volumes.

[pnathan]

Yes, they should! This is a very mature and responsible shutdown (I'd also expect it to be mature and responsible, since payments are Very Important, but, on the other hand...).

+1 to the Balanced executives for being mature.

[Pyxl101]

Definitely a mature approach, and it's definitely better for Balanced customers to have a migration plan. However, I don't think we can assume that Balanced "[left itself] enough runway to look after [its] customers" or that the primary motivation is maturity.

Balanced may have offered to sell their customer base to Stripe (or sell the company to Stripe, which presumably was refused). If Stripe accepted a deal to purchase Balanced's customer base, then it might have provided as payment, in part, an injection of cash to keep Balanced running for 90 days to implement the migration and hold up their side of the deal. Balanced might have suspended operations already if not for the hypothetical cash payment.

I'm not saying it would be wrong for Balanced to make that decision -- it's certainly better than shutting down! I'm just pointing out that Balanced may have other/more complex motivations for doing this than maturity, altruism, and leaving behind a good legacy. Balanced might be equally looking after its own shareholders by selling its (perhaps) most valuable asset: the customers. (The value of that asset crashes once Balanced ceases operations or announces its intention to do so, since its customers will immediately move to a competitor. Thus, this asset can only be sold while Balanced is still operating.)

I have no data - I'm just speculating. However, would a responsible board allow a company to continue to operate and burn cash for 90 days solely for the purpose of migrating customers to a competitor, and taking further losses in the process, when it could shut down instead and disburse its remaining assets to shareholders and creditors? (I do not intend to cast asperions on Stripe or Balanced. There's nothing wrong about this if it's what happened - it's rational and in everyone's interest.)

[judk]

Doing the right think for a fair price is pretty much the definition of maturity.

[amirmc]

The concept of 'doing the right thing' is a matter of perspective. In other words, people may have vastly different ideas about what the 'right thing' is, in s given situation.

[amirmc]

I had similar thoughts and wondered if Stripe had agreed to cover operating costs and a skeleton crew for the transition period. Nothing wrong with this and it speaks highly of all involved that they reached that agreement.

I did also wonder if there were some kind of regulatory requirements around managing the shutdown of a finance company (appropriate warning periods, etc).