3 ms·
Are Customers the Losers in the Startup Game?
With Groupon's acquisition of Pelago:
http://www.groupon.com/blog/cities/groupon-acquires-pelago/
And the quick closure of Whrrl, I get the sense from reading the email that Pelago sees this as a victory because they got their exit, and that's cool.
http://cl.ly/2a1V1v2E022H2r0t393X (the email)
But what about the people like me or you that invested time in this service and helped them build it? Why even bother if we're only pawns in the acquisition game?
Why bother being an early adopter at all? It just doesn't feel right to me.
- onan_barbarian 16y agoThis wouldn't be the first time that a startup - including recent YC-funded one I can think of - went from "hooray, we're absolutely psyched to be coming into 2011 with our AWESOME new stuff, stay tuned" to "sorry, we're ditching all our customers and completely dropping the product because we've been 'talent acquired', bye", all in the space of about a month. This is a real problem with the notion of startup as a portfolio item for a talent acquisition.
- bdclimber14 16y agoI personally was very bummed when etacts got acquired. What a great product that never really saw the light of day.
- wmf 16y agoI guess you should judge a service based on how much current value it provides you and discount its future value.
- mapster 16y agoExecutive team is/was a group of tech insiders with connections. Think they are career Pelago-ists? 1st big lucrative buy out not a surprise. Its a lovely MBA inspired model.