16 ms·

Stitch Labs has been acquired by Square

88 points by simonsarris 6y ago

SellerGrip 6y ago
If you are looking for a multi channel listing, inventory sync, and order management check us out at https://sellergrip.com https://sellergrip.com
cgb223 6y ago
> Longer term, we plan to sunset Stitch Lab’s products so the team can focus on building out Square tools Looks like it was an acqui-hire
- tyre 6y ago
  > We are still in the early stages of this process, but in the future we also plan to share information on how you can migrate to Square, if you choose to do so. They have customers that they hope to move to the acquiring company. It's not just about the talent.
  - kenmck 6y ago
    That's a really odd statement since Stitch's main feature is multi-channel inventory synchronization and Square doesn't do that at all.
    - kh30 6y ago
      It sounds like they’ll be building tools that do stuff like that on core Square product.
casperb 6y ago
That is a bold move. It is not easy as a warehouse to switch for your WMS software. So to give all your customers ~6-8 months to switch to something else is not a nice move. They were pretty big on the Shopify App Store alone and had decent pricing, 500 dollar per month and up. Should be a perfectly nice business. But seems that they did not do any new releases the last 8 months: https://stitch.releasenotes.io/ https://stitch.releasenotes.io/
- kutorio 6y ago
  M&A process is pretty draining, so that could explain the 8 months of inactivity.
  - casperb 6y ago
    Maybe a little, but if you want to acquire the business for the product than it is weird to let your product completely stagnate. If your team cannot keep shipping while other things happening, is it really worth to acquire?
- JaggedJax 6y ago
  There were some rumours floating around for about that long of them potentially shutting down. The rumors didn't mention the acquisition part, but they turned out to be accurate about an impending shutdown. It was also clear from the last 6+ months that the platform was stagnant.
  - MuffinFlavored 6y ago
    any idea why they’d shut down? are they not raking in money hand over fist? are they profitable?
    - JaggedJax 6y ago
      It's a surprisingly crowded space they are in, and I didn't get the impression they were seeing any growth, at least not enough for a VC backed company.
      - MuffinFlavored 6y ago
        how familiar are you with the space they are in? can you name some of their competitors? from what i can tell, they were basically competing at the $999/mo price range for inventory management software to tie into Amazon/eBay/Shopify
ratrocket 6y ago
That's a nice Friday surprise..! My company is in the process of migrating from an in-house ecommerce platform to Shopify and we picked Stitchlabs for ... that piece (inventory mgmt? warehouse mgmt?). Oh well! Any suggestions for a "modern"[1] piece of software that plays the role of Stitch, specifically in a set up with Shopify? 1: I ended up being pretty disappointed with Stitch. My fault for not checking deeper, but I thought they would have an API, at least. Nope, they use sftp for integration to sales channels they don't "natively support". That's what I mean by "modern": does it have an API that you don't have to pay >$2k/mo to access.
- syntaxing 6y ago
  I'm curious as well, their inventory fulfillment + content management seemed pretty awesome. Im curious what alternatives there are out there.
  - disantlor 6y ago
    same, had a really bad experience with Stitch. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of custom middleware connections between Shopify and Shipstation. InfoPlus is another one that was pretty decent when I used it several years ago.
- KyleJune 6y ago
  Finale Inventory is a multichannel inventory management solution that has a Shopify integration. The Platinum plan is $649/month, it includes API access and unlimited integrations. Disclosure: I'm a software engineer at the company, not a business owner that uses the software.
  - chondl 6y ago
    Finale co-founder and CTO here. We've been in the SaaS inventory management space since 2011 and are bootstrapped so you won't have to worry about us disappearing because investors stop supporting the company. If you have any questions about Finale: chris@finaleinventory.com
- 6y ago
syntaxing 6y ago
Is there an alternative to the service from Stitch labs? I didn't hear about them until now and I can see the application of their service. But Im worried with the acquisition, it'll become obsolete and push users to Square.
- kenmck 6y ago
  There are many. Their feature sets vary a lot.
- bmcahren 6y ago
  We've had numerous of their customers flock to us over the last six months due to a lack of customer support and evolving product changes that diverted from customer needs like the removal of scan verification. We're a pretty solid replacement and recently hit a record 30 minute migration for one customer today. If you have any questions about the process we'd be happy to at least point you in the right direction even if it's not us (SKULabs).
MakeUsersWant 6y ago
Stitchdata.com, the maker of the ETL tools Stitch and Singer.io, is a different company (and is not being acquired).
- icebraining 6y ago
  Neither is STITCH, the digital fashion design startup :)
  - umeshunni 6y ago
    Isn't that Stitch Fix?
    - icebraining 6y ago
      Nope, that's yet another Stitch! This one is https://www.stitchdesignlab.com/ https://www.stitchdesignlab.com/
- AustinBGibbons 6y ago
  They were acquired by Talend in late 2018, I think.
- dzonga 6y ago
  same too, at first I reckoned it was stitchdata. alas, so many stitches.
g0rbongler 6y ago
I've heard good things about https://www.finaleinventory.com/ https://www.finaleinventory.com/ but haven't tried them yet.
notatoad 6y ago
i'm sure there will be some people disappointed by this, but it seems like a pretty ideal way to do a acquihire-and-shutdown. there's no bullshit or ambiguity about how the product will continue despite us all knowing it won't, just a clear end-date far enough in the future that nobody can reasonably complain about it.
kareemm 6y ago
Can't say I'm surprised. Been a customer for years. Had many issues, was regularly frustrated by support and by the software rewrites. This feels like if they were more customer-focused and more circumspect about raising money (they raised $23M) they would have had a nice, profitable business.
taurath 6y ago
> "We were drawn to Square’s purpose of economic empowerment." Is a fun way to say "We're rich!!!!"
rwhitman 6y ago
Overall pretty shocking as they were pitching to be an ERP replacement for e-commerce. Anyone who was using Stitch Labs as an ERP-light is going to have a substantial amount of pain migrating in a hurry. I've referred some of Stitch Labs biggest customers to their platform, so I feel particularly guilty about their being sunset in an acquihire like this. If anyone needs advice about what to do, I'm well versed in the area of OMS & ERP migrations. Linkedin is in my profile
- ilikeerp 6y ago
  Stitch labs slag off ERP a lot. What're your thoughts on NetSuite? I know lots of fast growing companies that use it.
  - lrm242 6y ago
    Ran a business that started on stitch. What a painful piece of software that is. We had a heavily custom integration to their api and very high order volume. Moved to NetSuite, built many a customization and integration. NetSuite is great, but expensive and you will find the developer experience painful. As an ERP without investing heavily in customization it does a great job.
    - ilikeerp 6y ago
      SuiteScript has improved, there's now intellij plugins and they've recently upgraded the supported JS version which runs on Graal VM. It's still a little clunky but that's just ERP for you. I'm seeing some customers pay around 50 - 80k AUD per year on 1 - 2 year terms at the moment. What would you consider expensive?
- acwan93 6y ago
  I'd love to hear about your thoughts on where things in this area are going. We provide an in-house, completely customizable ERP system for wholesale distributors, many of which have started selling directly to consumers via Amazon, Shopify, etc. Since joining, I've provided direct integrations between these channels and our ERP (it's an old system installed on-premises). We're in the middle of reinventing the company's attempts at e-commerce to a SaaS model. It seems like Stitch Labs was trying to downplay the role of an ERP, but based on our customers it seems like it's still needed.
BMS5102 6y ago
I work at Brahmin Solutions. Check out Brahmin Solutions https://www.brahmin-solutions.com https://www.brahmin-solutions.com We have worked with dozens of customers over the past 8-10 months trying to migrate from Stitch Labs. We can be an alternative as we cover most of their features and more. If you are a manufacturer we might be an even better fit than having to use Netsuite.
kangaroozach 6y ago
Acquihire? How do these usually work? Who approaches who?
blackrock 6y ago
What do they do? And why are they unique or special?

88 points by simonsarris 6y ago

If you are looking for a multi channel listing, inventory sync, and order management check us out at https://sellergrip.com https://sellergrip.com

cgb223 6y ago

> Longer term, we plan to sunset Stitch Lab’s products so the team can focus on building out Square tools Looks like it was an acqui-hire

tyre 6y ago
> We are still in the early stages of this process, but in the future we also plan to share information on how you can migrate to Square, if you choose to do so. They have customers that they hope to move to the acquiring company. It's not just about the talent.
- kenmck 6y ago
  That's a really odd statement since Stitch's main feature is multi-channel inventory synchronization and Square doesn't do that at all.
  - kh30 6y ago
    It sounds like they’ll be building tools that do stuff like that on core Square product.

casperb 6y ago

That is a bold move. It is not easy as a warehouse to switch for your WMS software. So to give all your customers ~6-8 months to switch to something else is not a nice move. They were pretty big on the Shopify App Store alone and had decent pricing, 500 dollar per month and up. Should be a perfectly nice business. But seems that they did not do any new releases the last 8 months: https://stitch.releasenotes.io/ https://stitch.releasenotes.io/

kutorio 6y ago
M&A process is pretty draining, so that could explain the 8 months of inactivity.
- casperb 6y ago
  Maybe a little, but if you want to acquire the business for the product than it is weird to let your product completely stagnate. If your team cannot keep shipping while other things happening, is it really worth to acquire?
JaggedJax 6y ago
There were some rumours floating around for about that long of them potentially shutting down. The rumors didn't mention the acquisition part, but they turned out to be accurate about an impending shutdown. It was also clear from the last 6+ months that the platform was stagnant.
- MuffinFlavored 6y ago
  any idea why they’d shut down? are they not raking in money hand over fist? are they profitable?
  - JaggedJax 6y ago
    It's a surprisingly crowded space they are in, and I didn't get the impression they were seeing any growth, at least not enough for a VC backed company.
    - MuffinFlavored 6y ago
      how familiar are you with the space they are in? can you name some of their competitors? from what i can tell, they were basically competing at the $999/mo price range for inventory management software to tie into Amazon/eBay/Shopify

ratrocket 6y ago

That's a nice Friday surprise..! My company is in the process of migrating from an in-house ecommerce platform to Shopify and we picked Stitchlabs for ... that piece (inventory mgmt? warehouse mgmt?). Oh well! Any suggestions for a "modern"[1] piece of software that plays the role of Stitch, specifically in a set up with Shopify? 1: I ended up being pretty disappointed with Stitch. My fault for not checking deeper, but I thought they would have an API, at least. Nope, they use sftp for integration to sales channels they don't "natively support". That's what I mean by "modern": does it have an API that you don't have to pay >$2k/mo to access.

syntaxing 6y ago
I'm curious as well, their inventory fulfillment + content management seemed pretty awesome. Im curious what alternatives there are out there.
- disantlor 6y ago
  same, had a really bad experience with Stitch. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of custom middleware connections between Shopify and Shipstation. InfoPlus is another one that was pretty decent when I used it several years ago.
KyleJune 6y ago
Finale Inventory is a multichannel inventory management solution that has a Shopify integration. The Platinum plan is $649/month, it includes API access and unlimited integrations. Disclosure: I'm a software engineer at the company, not a business owner that uses the software.
- chondl 6y ago
  Finale co-founder and CTO here. We've been in the SaaS inventory management space since 2011 and are bootstrapped so you won't have to worry about us disappearing because investors stop supporting the company. If you have any questions about Finale: chris@finaleinventory.com
6y ago

syntaxing 6y ago

Is there an alternative to the service from Stitch labs? I didn't hear about them until now and I can see the application of their service. But Im worried with the acquisition, it'll become obsolete and push users to Square.

kenmck 6y ago
There are many. Their feature sets vary a lot.
bmcahren 6y ago
We've had numerous of their customers flock to us over the last six months due to a lack of customer support and evolving product changes that diverted from customer needs like the removal of scan verification. We're a pretty solid replacement and recently hit a record 30 minute migration for one customer today. If you have any questions about the process we'd be happy to at least point you in the right direction even if it's not us (SKULabs).

MakeUsersWant 6y ago

Stitchdata.com, the maker of the ETL tools Stitch and Singer.io, is a different company (and is not being acquired).

icebraining 6y ago
Neither is STITCH, the digital fashion design startup :)
- umeshunni 6y ago
  Isn't that Stitch Fix?
  - icebraining 6y ago
    Nope, that's yet another Stitch! This one is https://www.stitchdesignlab.com/ https://www.stitchdesignlab.com/
AustinBGibbons 6y ago
They were acquired by Talend in late 2018, I think.
dzonga 6y ago
same too, at first I reckoned it was stitchdata. alas, so many stitches.

g0rbongler 6y ago

I've heard good things about https://www.finaleinventory.com/ https://www.finaleinventory.com/ but haven't tried them yet.

notatoad 6y ago

i'm sure there will be some people disappointed by this, but it seems like a pretty ideal way to do a acquihire-and-shutdown. there's no bullshit or ambiguity about how the product will continue despite us all knowing it won't, just a clear end-date far enough in the future that nobody can reasonably complain about it.

kareemm 6y ago

Can't say I'm surprised. Been a customer for years. Had many issues, was regularly frustrated by support and by the software rewrites. This feels like if they were more customer-focused and more circumspect about raising money (they raised $23M) they would have had a nice, profitable business.

taurath 6y ago

> "We were drawn to Square’s purpose of economic empowerment." Is a fun way to say "We're rich!!!!"

rwhitman 6y ago

Overall pretty shocking as they were pitching to be an ERP replacement for e-commerce. Anyone who was using Stitch Labs as an ERP-light is going to have a substantial amount of pain migrating in a hurry. I've referred some of Stitch Labs biggest customers to their platform, so I feel particularly guilty about their being sunset in an acquihire like this. If anyone needs advice about what to do, I'm well versed in the area of OMS & ERP migrations. Linkedin is in my profile

ilikeerp 6y ago
Stitch labs slag off ERP a lot. What're your thoughts on NetSuite? I know lots of fast growing companies that use it.
- lrm242 6y ago
  Ran a business that started on stitch. What a painful piece of software that is. We had a heavily custom integration to their api and very high order volume. Moved to NetSuite, built many a customization and integration. NetSuite is great, but expensive and you will find the developer experience painful. As an ERP without investing heavily in customization it does a great job.
  - ilikeerp 6y ago
    SuiteScript has improved, there's now intellij plugins and they've recently upgraded the supported JS version which runs on Graal VM. It's still a little clunky but that's just ERP for you. I'm seeing some customers pay around 50 - 80k AUD per year on 1 - 2 year terms at the moment. What would you consider expensive?
acwan93 6y ago
I'd love to hear about your thoughts on where things in this area are going. We provide an in-house, completely customizable ERP system for wholesale distributors, many of which have started selling directly to consumers via Amazon, Shopify, etc. Since joining, I've provided direct integrations between these channels and our ERP (it's an old system installed on-premises). We're in the middle of reinventing the company's attempts at e-commerce to a SaaS model. It seems like Stitch Labs was trying to downplay the role of an ERP, but based on our customers it seems like it's still needed.

BMS5102 6y ago

I work at Brahmin Solutions. Check out Brahmin Solutions https://www.brahmin-solutions.com https://www.brahmin-solutions.com We have worked with dozens of customers over the past 8-10 months trying to migrate from Stitch Labs. We can be an alternative as we cover most of their features and more. If you are a manufacturer we might be an even better fit than having to use Netsuite.

kangaroozach 6y ago

Acquihire? How do these usually work? Who approaches who?

blackrock 6y ago

What do they do? And why are they unique or special?