15 ms·

Grove.io shutting down

125 points by helper 14y ago

gkoberger 14y ago
This is disappointing. Grove.io was really awesome. IRC channels seem easy, but are (relatively) hard to get going: - Finding a server - Registering it properly - Explaining it to non-tech people The last one is way harder than you'd think. With Grove, you just send them a URL and it's easy. It's a shame they're shutting down. I stopped using because it was too expensive for a channel with a few friends (a channel with fewer than 10 friends was costing $25/month).
- chank 14y ago
  Yea, but that last one wasn't worth the cost and the user limit. Most groups using IRC in this fashion probably have a high level of technical experience. Campfire succeeds at this because it wasn't their first product. They essentially brought customers in from their other products and then tied them all together. As a stand alone service, it's fairly useless IMO.
  - dasil003 14y ago
    Campfire is the only 37s service that has been sticky for my team.
- na85 14y ago
  >I stopped using because it was too expensive for a channel with a few friends (a channel with fewer than 10 friends was costing $25/month). Wouldn't it be easier to just register a quakenet channel or even run your own passworded ircd on a spare linux box?
  - saurik 14y ago
    That does not solve the "The last one is way harder than you'd think." problem that was mentioned.
- smhinsey 14y ago
  I set Grove up for my distributed team but it didn't stick. I still think team-level chat is a problem worth solving, but nothing I've tried has gotten any real traction.
  - ajtaylor 14y ago
    We've been using HipChat for several months now and have been quite happy with it. I'm using it to manage several remote contractors. The pricing is very reasonable. And it has an XMPP interface should you need it as well.
  - saurik 14y ago
    What are you currently using? I didn't use Grove, but I use IRC; I've definitely found that some people really take to it, and some people don't; some people even end up using IRC only to watch what other people are saying, and then send PMs as if they were using instant messenger, but never say things in the channel in public, even if they later talk about the things being said on IRC when we are all at dinner.
    - smhinsey 14y ago
      It tends to naturally revert to gchat or aim, which are not awful, but they seem to make it easier to accidentally exclude people.
  - gaoshan 14y ago
    We use standard chat messaging, Skype, Google Hangouts, teleconferencing and a team mailing list. So... clunky, I guess, but it gets the job done. Chat messaging is for quick questions or requests to Skype or Hangout, Skype for 1 to 1 video or extended audio chats, Hangouts for small group video chats (quality is kind of crummy though), teleconference is for larger meetings and the team mailing list is for "hey everybody, check this cool thing out" type stuff. IRC would be too much for our designers and some project managers.
    - ricardobeat 14y ago
dmishe 14y ago
Back to campfire, I guess.
- pbiggar 14y ago
  I'd recommend hipchat.
  - dmishe 14y ago
    Thanks. What's up with Hip in names nowadays?
    - pbiggar 14y ago
      Its very Zen ;)
  - dchuk 14y ago
    We're using Campfire currently, and had used hipchat before that for a few months. Hipchat was fine on desktop, but holy shit their mobile apps are terrible. They were so bad that we had to move away because we're a fairly mobile group. Honestly, the group business chat niche is just riddled with "incomplete" products in my opinion. Some are great in the browser but have no native web apps (Flowdock), some have shitty mobile apps with mediocre web versions (campfire and hipchat). I hope someone with a good set of developers, cash in their pockets, and an eye on simplicity would come in and build a full suite of desktop and mobile apps on the back of a good chat system one day. It's absolutely not a solved problem at this point.
    - pbiggar 14y ago
      To be honest, I expect that team to be hipchat. They've got cash now since their acquisition, and they're making steady improvements to their desktop app. Personally, I wouldn't enter this market, regardless of how good my devs or how much money I had. There are at least 3 polished and loved products. The problems you describe will probably be fixed before another team could come in with a good solution.
kenneth_reitz 14y ago
Shocking.
- whalesalad 14y ago
  I feel/sense sarcasm. I did not see this being useful from day one.
  - kenneth_reitz 14y ago
    It's sarcasm mixed with caremad. I was a huge fan of Pownce, Motion, LeafyChat, Baconfile, Convore, and Grove. All failed. I was really hoping this one would work, but after seeing no improvements in a year, it became obvious it wouldn't. :(
    - webology 14y ago
      It's frustrating to see products die from what seems like as an outsider as attention rot. Then again, I completely understand moving on if an idea doesn't stick.
    - mh- 14y ago
      Would like your opinion: do you think this is still a viable opportunity- serving this niche? (paid team chat) ..or is Campfire/HipChat/whatever-else-is-left "good enough" to make it not worthwhile?
      - heretohelp 14y ago
        Hosted IRC is an awkward place to be. Those that don't give a fuck are using Campfire/HipChat. Those that do give a fuck are usually hosting their own IRC. Find a way to squeeze out both and you have a potentially nice business model. (Hosted IRC + nice web clients for paying customers?)
    - pwang 14y ago
      Yeah, Convore was fun. I'm sad it went away. (Not caremad, though - thanks, Kenneth; urbandictionary owes you a page hit today.) But huge props to Leah for keeping at it... I'm disappointed at the haters on this thread taking personal pot-shots, instead of recognizing that her record shows an admirable perseverance and a true passion for building better messaging technology.
heretohelp 14y ago
This is why I refuse to use external services hosted by small/tiny companies that haven't open-sourced their tech. Even in this moment, they still don't seem to be bothering to open source any of it. There's a lesson to be learnt here in terms of gaining buyer trust when you're small. I continue to use our own setup for IRC.
- pbiggar 14y ago
  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.)
  - robryan 14y ago
    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.
    - pbiggar 14y ago
      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 14y ago
        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.
holgersindbaek 14y ago
How was the ride? How does the team feel about shutting it down?
Rayne 14y ago
It's getting a little difficult to trust stuff by Leah Culver. Everything (that I know of) that she has done so far has either shut down or been acquired and shut down. That said, no hard feelings. It's hard out there. I've never tried to run a company, so I can't judge.
- roryokane 14y ago
  List of projects by Leah Culver: http://blog.leahculver.com/about.html http://blog.leahculver.com/about.html – Hurl, Baconfile, Convore, Pownce, and Grove.
- robryan 14y ago
  Was my first thought to, no real explanation of why they are shutting down either. If something is a low friction consumer app, it is expected that many will evolve and pivot. With something like a business tool though I want something that is going to be around for the long term and it would be a factor on further products she creates. From experience I know a startup is hard and things don't always go to plan so I can sympathise there, just that when choosing tools for business stability is a factor.
- pbiggar 14y ago
  And yet you just did. As a community we praise people for trying, then when it fails we pillory them? A dick move, sir.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - Rayne 14y ago
    If it came off that way, I apologize. I was just expressing the thought that popped into my mind when seeing this. I'm not at all trying to judge her. I think she does excellent work and has just had a few bad apples. I hope her next project is successful.
    - pbiggar 14y ago
BadassFractal 14y ago
On that note, any good guides for hosting your own IRC server on your home network (and safely expose it to the Internet) if you have a spare Ubuntu server box lying around?
- mibbitier 14y ago
  I'd suggest against it personally. Get a $10 linode and setup an ircD there. If your home network gets DDoS'd, it's going to be quite an inconvenience.
twodayslate 14y ago
I strongly recommend using Atheme services for your next IRC project. They have a nice web interface and EGS is a really nice third party web interface.
kenn 14y ago
As a founder of http://lingr.com http://lingr.com, I know firsthand how hard to build a chat app and make it sustainable. I've been working on it since 2006, first as a startup, then as my personal side project. I've learned to not invest too much on the project, staying with the minimum server cost, and that's the only sustainable way for me. In fact it costs me almost nothing and users have built trust on me for running it for 6 years. I'd give her tons of credit for trying to turn it into a real business. That's what I've been failing so far, or maybe I just don't even have the guts to do. I admire her courage and thus feel really sorry. Hopefully I'll find another course, who knows.
- tijs 14y ago
  Looks pretty good actually (from the screenshot), you even have an iPhone app and everything. Why not just charge a small something, even if it's only to get you a nice side income? Somebody mentioned $5/month as a reasonable price for something like this. For me personally that would make me less hesitant to sign up as currently it would seem you could pull the plug any moment. Unless you like the idea of being able to pull the plug at any moment of course, which of course is your prerogative.
  - kenn 14y ago
    Thank you. I think you made a good point - by not charging I may be actually making people skeptical. We even have a vibrant developer community on bots and extensions, but it's barely known (shit, I realized that it's not even mentioned on the top page). I'll have to come up with some turnaround ideas.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
thedjpetersen 14y ago
Grove inspired me to make an open source alternative: Subway https://github.com/thedjpetersen/subway https://github.com/thedjpetersen/subway . And while it is far from perfect it is a start towards opening up IRC to teams.
- jsilence 14y ago
  This is what I love HN for. Thanks.
- twodayslate 14y ago
  Awesome project! I am super impressed. Great work.
- Nux 14y ago
  Good man!
- mh- 14y ago
  that's a hell of a "start." great work.
- mmahemoff 14y ago
  This looks good. Does it keep history? I think one of the benefits of web-based systems like HipChat and Campfire is you can log in and see the previous conversation even if you weren't there.
  - StavrosK 14y ago
    You can use bots for that: http://instabot.stochastictechnologies.com/ http://instabot.stochastictechnologies.com/
  - thedjpetersen 14y ago
    Yes it does keep history if you register a user.
alagu 14y ago
Are there any plans to opensource it? The API hooks were awesome.
jdoss 14y ago
Here is why this failed... Anyone with half a brain is going to be able to: * run their own IRC server * run a XMPP server (cough openfire) * Sign up for another service that has more features (Campfire or Hipchat) Not to be mean, but the pricing on grove.io is stupid for what they offer. I run a XMPP server at work and costs us nothing for the basics, which is group chat and private chat. They could have offered this for far cheaper and maybe they would be alive now... and by cheaper I mean a flat fee, no slot pricing for a hosted solution. IRC has low overhead so really, offer IRC+ features for dirt cheap and people will sign up. Hell, if they wanted a higher end one time fees, they knock out a self hosted solution with high end support on a yearly support contract. If the features are that good for your IRC based service, knock it down to $5/mo unlimited users and get a user base going, find out what they want and then add on value addon features based on that feedback. If you can't offer the service for that cheap, then you have too much overhead (bodies).
- polemic 14y ago
  We were doing this (and still do run our own XMPP servers for other purposes), and opted for grove for the logging, availability and to ease the maintenance burden. Just because anyone can do it, doesn't mean everyone wants to, even (or especially) when you're a highly tech-centric organisation.
  - dools 14y ago
    Yeah I run my own IRC server but when it came to my clients, I didn't want to be responsible for that. Grove is fantastic but wasn't all that reliable. I wish it had taken off, though! I might be forced to fill the void ;)
- pbiggar 14y ago
  > I run a XMPP server at work and costs us nothing for the basics It sounds like it costs at least 1 server, plus your time. Those are not free.
  - smsisgay 14y ago
baconhigh 14y ago
ARGH. I really liked using this service.
stevewilhelm 14y ago
I have never used IRC. How is it better than Google Chat?
- jsilence 14y ago
  Internet Relay Chat is THE archetype of chat protocols. It has been around since the early days of the internets. Hence the protocols and software are mature albeit with some flaws or restrictions that are hard to come by. Google Talk is using XMPP, an XML based presence and chat protocol that has also been there for quite a while. It is widely used throughout the net apart from Google Talk. So both protocols serve their purpose well. IRC is a little more focussed on group chats. While one to one conversations are simple, a presence service is not what IRC was made for. XMPP is strong on presence and one to one chats, with less focus on group chats.
- mibbitier 14y ago
  Many reasons. Mainly though I'd say IRC is extremely battle-worn. There are a ton of mechanisms for dealing with spam/abuse/idiot users.
Uchikoma 14y ago
Great move writing a Python export script.
rorrr 14y ago
Why shut down if you have paying customers? Just let it run. Servers are dirt cheap, there's no way they are losing money at their prices.
- mibbitier 14y ago
  They're hosted with rackspace afaik. So they probably are losing money.
  - simonbrown 14y ago
    So move it to another host?
  - kenneth_reitz 14y ago
    I'm pretty sure YC companies get either free or heavily discounted Rackspace. http://www.rackspacestartups.com/yc/index.html http://www.rackspacestartups.com/yc/index.html
TallboyOne 14y ago
Can I ask a stupid question? What causes a message like this? How many people are involved in the team? Is this a 'startup' or just a few developers having fun? I just started http://pineapple.io http://pineapple.io and when I see messages like this it always makes me wonder. it's not the first time i've seen something like this. It makes me nervours...
mathrawka 14y ago
I remember trying it out when it was free, and then I got a notice about the pricing plans. I emailed and said that the prices were outrageously expensive for just a few users. I never got a reply, but I got an auto-reply a week later telling me to fill out my billing info. They put the service out there, and didn't really listen to much feedback or improve it. I was rather disappointed and find this ending... expected.
DanielRibeiro 14y ago
I wonder what they will do next. Grove.io started out of Convore(YCW11)[1], announced just 249 days ago[2, 3, 4]. [1] http://gigaom.com/2012/01/10/convore-grove-io/ http://gigaom.com/2012/01/10/convore-grove-io/ [2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3449917 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3449917 [3] http://betakit.com/2012/02/20/convore-shutting-down-april-1 http://betakit.com/2012/02/20/convore-shutting-down-april-1 [4] http://blog.convore.com/post/17951919109/convore-shutting-down-april-1st http://blog.convore.com/post/17951919109/convore-shutting-do...
jorde 14y ago
For those who liked Grove and its combination of IRC and web chat, I personally recommend Flowdock which also has an IRC interface https://flowdock.com/ https://flowdock.com/ I know the people behind Flowdock personally and know that they are going to be around for a long time. As a personal note, it's sad to see Grove go away. It was the first bigger service I got to design and I loved working with Leah.
- mh- 14y ago
  can you point me to Flowdock's IRC interface? I evaluated them before we started adopting Grove, and I did not see that option. edit: dunno how I overlooked this before: https://www.flowdock.com/help/irc https://www.flowdock.com/help/irc thanks for making me look again, though!
  - jorde 14y ago
    They added that afterwards
polemic 14y ago
Ugh, I don't understand how Grove.io can just drift apart like that. Surely Grove's costs were relatively low, and my impression was that there was a significant level of uptake. > "..our team has moved on to other projects.." So, unprofitable, or just not the next Facebook? Is there really no one that is happy to keep the service ticking along? I feel like there is a pretty significant problem with tech startups, where everyone is so busy trying to be the next big thing, that everything else is dropped and abandoned in that pursuit.
- heretohelp 14y ago
  The fact that nobody's happy with a profitable, but modest bootstrapped company is causing them to abandon these smaller companies. The abandonment feeds into the consumer mistrust and makes it that much harder to bootstrap the next company. A good example of an industry that was utterly destroyed by a crisis of consumer confidence was the video game industry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash... >Revenues that had peaked at around $3.2 billion in 1983,[1] fell to around $100 million by 1985 (a drop of almost 97 percent). It would be extremely unwise to believe the startup industry couldn't be subject to the same problem. VCs are getting uncomfortable with the valuations, the constant buyouts and abandonment are burning out consumers. Were I not working on a startup of my own, I'd be happy to take upon somebody's profitable but small red-headed stepchild business.
- sbarre 14y ago
  I also wish they would address: 1) why not open source the project? 2) why not look for someone to take it over and run it? I also have a hard time seeing how something like this could be at the very least not break-even (unless they had less than 10 paying customers or something).
  - mutru 14y ago
    Flowdock's similar IRC gateway is already open source: https://github.com/flowdock/oulu https://github.com/flowdock/oulu
  - 14y ago
phmagic 14y ago
noooo! this feels like arrested development.
tanepiper 14y ago
The many pivots of Leah Culver
dabeeeenster 14y ago
What I don't understand is why they dont sell it on Sitepoint or somewhere. The app must surely have several hundred dollars a month in revenue at the very least. Someone would pay several thousand dollars for that.
rdl 14y ago
That has to suck for Leah, especially since there's definitely a worthwhile product somewhere in the team realtime communications space; maybe grove.io wasn't it, but I find team IRC and IM to be incredibly useful, and if there were a good way to combine the two (and some kind of wiki/logging/etc.), with security, it would be great. It would be cool if there were a way to put systems in escrow in case a company tanks or pivots, to protect users. The time to fund and set that up is during development/normal use, not once you've run out of money and decide to shut down, though.
timjahn 14y ago
"...our team has moved on to other projects" That's the part that gets me. I've seen this many times in other startup shutdown posts. They say it so casually. Like this is just another extracurricular activity they do after school. If they're tired of basketball, they're going to stop and try hockey. Except that's not how your customers view it. They're paying you money for a service they're using to presumably save/make money.
kmfrk 14y ago
The writing was on the wall, after they pivoted from Convore. Convore even seemed like a darling at Hacker News at the time.
webology 14y ago
Some friends of mine were trying to kickstart a business with an open source Convore / Grove like service called Helm (http://www.indiegogo.com/helm http://www.indiegogo.com/helm). Daniel's open source work speaks for itself and I think it's an excellent idea and model.
dr_win 14y ago
What to do now? What is a viable replacement for Grove.io?
martindale 14y ago
This is really a shame. Grove.io is a big part of our startup's communications. I really hope Leah considers open-sourcing the project, or turning it over to someone else.
brendoncrawford 14y ago
I recommend FlowDock as a good alternative.
malandrew 14y ago
Instead of shutting down the service with an export option to a data file, how about identifying two or three competitors you'd recommend and working with them to export the content directly into another service. This way you help out both your customers and another startup. For example, if Grove.io content can be made to work with Flowdock, contact the Flowdock team and work with them to put a big "Migrate to Flowdock" button on the shutdown announcement page.

125 points by helper 14y ago

This is disappointing. Grove.io was really awesome. IRC channels seem easy, but are (relatively) hard to get going: - Finding a server - Registering it properly - Explaining it to non-tech people The last one is way harder than you'd think. With Grove, you just send them a URL and it's easy. It's a shame they're shutting down. I stopped using because it was too expensive for a channel with a few friends (a channel with fewer than 10 friends was costing $25/month).

chank 14y ago
Yea, but that last one wasn't worth the cost and the user limit. Most groups using IRC in this fashion probably have a high level of technical experience. Campfire succeeds at this because it wasn't their first product. They essentially brought customers in from their other products and then tied them all together. As a stand alone service, it's fairly useless IMO.
- dasil003 14y ago
  Campfire is the only 37s service that has been sticky for my team.
na85 14y ago
>I stopped using because it was too expensive for a channel with a few friends (a channel with fewer than 10 friends was costing $25/month). Wouldn't it be easier to just register a quakenet channel or even run your own passworded ircd on a spare linux box?
- saurik 14y ago
  That does not solve the "The last one is way harder than you'd think." problem that was mentioned.
smhinsey 14y ago
I set Grove up for my distributed team but it didn't stick. I still think team-level chat is a problem worth solving, but nothing I've tried has gotten any real traction.
- ajtaylor 14y ago
  We've been using HipChat for several months now and have been quite happy with it. I'm using it to manage several remote contractors. The pricing is very reasonable. And it has an XMPP interface should you need it as well.
- saurik 14y ago
  What are you currently using? I didn't use Grove, but I use IRC; I've definitely found that some people really take to it, and some people don't; some people even end up using IRC only to watch what other people are saying, and then send PMs as if they were using instant messenger, but never say things in the channel in public, even if they later talk about the things being said on IRC when we are all at dinner.
  - smhinsey 14y ago
    It tends to naturally revert to gchat or aim, which are not awful, but they seem to make it easier to accidentally exclude people.
- gaoshan 14y ago
  We use standard chat messaging, Skype, Google Hangouts, teleconferencing and a team mailing list. So... clunky, I guess, but it gets the job done. Chat messaging is for quick questions or requests to Skype or Hangout, Skype for 1 to 1 video or extended audio chats, Hangouts for small group video chats (quality is kind of crummy though), teleconference is for larger meetings and the team mailing list is for "hey everybody, check this cool thing out" type stuff. IRC would be too much for our designers and some project managers.
  - ricardobeat 14y ago

dmishe 14y ago

Back to campfire, I guess.

pbiggar 14y ago
I'd recommend hipchat.
- dmishe 14y ago
  Thanks. What's up with Hip in names nowadays?
  - pbiggar 14y ago
    Its very Zen ;)
- dchuk 14y ago
  We're using Campfire currently, and had used hipchat before that for a few months. Hipchat was fine on desktop, but holy shit their mobile apps are terrible. They were so bad that we had to move away because we're a fairly mobile group. Honestly, the group business chat niche is just riddled with "incomplete" products in my opinion. Some are great in the browser but have no native web apps (Flowdock), some have shitty mobile apps with mediocre web versions (campfire and hipchat). I hope someone with a good set of developers, cash in their pockets, and an eye on simplicity would come in and build a full suite of desktop and mobile apps on the back of a good chat system one day. It's absolutely not a solved problem at this point.
  - pbiggar 14y ago
    To be honest, I expect that team to be hipchat. They've got cash now since their acquisition, and they're making steady improvements to their desktop app. Personally, I wouldn't enter this market, regardless of how good my devs or how much money I had. There are at least 3 polished and loved products. The problems you describe will probably be fixed before another team could come in with a good solution.

kenneth_reitz 14y ago

Shocking.

whalesalad 14y ago
I feel/sense sarcasm. I did not see this being useful from day one.
- kenneth_reitz 14y ago
  It's sarcasm mixed with caremad. I was a huge fan of Pownce, Motion, LeafyChat, Baconfile, Convore, and Grove. All failed. I was really hoping this one would work, but after seeing no improvements in a year, it became obvious it wouldn't. :(
  - webology 14y ago
    It's frustrating to see products die from what seems like as an outsider as attention rot. Then again, I completely understand moving on if an idea doesn't stick.
  - mh- 14y ago
    Would like your opinion: do you think this is still a viable opportunity- serving this niche? (paid team chat) ..or is Campfire/HipChat/whatever-else-is-left "good enough" to make it not worthwhile?
    - heretohelp 14y ago
      Hosted IRC is an awkward place to be. Those that don't give a fuck are using Campfire/HipChat. Those that do give a fuck are usually hosting their own IRC. Find a way to squeeze out both and you have a potentially nice business model. (Hosted IRC + nice web clients for paying customers?)
  - pwang 14y ago
    Yeah, Convore was fun. I'm sad it went away. (Not caremad, though - thanks, Kenneth; urbandictionary owes you a page hit today.) But huge props to Leah for keeping at it... I'm disappointed at the haters on this thread taking personal pot-shots, instead of recognizing that her record shows an admirable perseverance and a true passion for building better messaging technology.

heretohelp 14y ago

This is why I refuse to use external services hosted by small/tiny companies that haven't open-sourced their tech. Even in this moment, they still don't seem to be bothering to open source any of it. There's a lesson to be learnt here in terms of gaining buyer trust when you're small. I continue to use our own setup for IRC.

pbiggar 14y ago
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.)
- robryan 14y ago
  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.
  - pbiggar 14y ago
    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 14y ago
      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.

holgersindbaek 14y ago

How was the ride? How does the team feel about shutting it down?

Rayne 14y ago

It's getting a little difficult to trust stuff by Leah Culver. Everything (that I know of) that she has done so far has either shut down or been acquired and shut down. That said, no hard feelings. It's hard out there. I've never tried to run a company, so I can't judge.

roryokane 14y ago
List of projects by Leah Culver: http://blog.leahculver.com/about.html http://blog.leahculver.com/about.html – Hurl, Baconfile, Convore, Pownce, and Grove.
robryan 14y ago
Was my first thought to, no real explanation of why they are shutting down either. If something is a low friction consumer app, it is expected that many will evolve and pivot. With something like a business tool though I want something that is going to be around for the long term and it would be a factor on further products she creates. From experience I know a startup is hard and things don't always go to plan so I can sympathise there, just that when choosing tools for business stability is a factor.
pbiggar 14y ago
And yet you just did. As a community we praise people for trying, then when it fails we pillory them? A dick move, sir.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- Rayne 14y ago
  If it came off that way, I apologize. I was just expressing the thought that popped into my mind when seeing this. I'm not at all trying to judge her. I think she does excellent work and has just had a few bad apples. I hope her next project is successful.
  - pbiggar 14y ago

BadassFractal 14y ago

On that note, any good guides for hosting your own IRC server on your home network (and safely expose it to the Internet) if you have a spare Ubuntu server box lying around?

mibbitier 14y ago
I'd suggest against it personally. Get a $10 linode and setup an ircD there. If your home network gets DDoS'd, it's going to be quite an inconvenience.

twodayslate 14y ago

I strongly recommend using Atheme services for your next IRC project. They have a nice web interface and EGS is a really nice third party web interface.

kenn 14y ago

As a founder of http://lingr.com http://lingr.com, I know firsthand how hard to build a chat app and make it sustainable. I've been working on it since 2006, first as a startup, then as my personal side project. I've learned to not invest too much on the project, staying with the minimum server cost, and that's the only sustainable way for me. In fact it costs me almost nothing and users have built trust on me for running it for 6 years. I'd give her tons of credit for trying to turn it into a real business. That's what I've been failing so far, or maybe I just don't even have the guts to do. I admire her courage and thus feel really sorry. Hopefully I'll find another course, who knows.

tijs 14y ago
Looks pretty good actually (from the screenshot), you even have an iPhone app and everything. Why not just charge a small something, even if it's only to get you a nice side income? Somebody mentioned $5/month as a reasonable price for something like this. For me personally that would make me less hesitant to sign up as currently it would seem you could pull the plug any moment. Unless you like the idea of being able to pull the plug at any moment of course, which of course is your prerogative.
- kenn 14y ago
  Thank you. I think you made a good point - by not charging I may be actually making people skeptical. We even have a vibrant developer community on bots and extensions, but it's barely known (shit, I realized that it's not even mentioned on the top page). I'll have to come up with some turnaround ideas.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

thedjpetersen 14y ago

Grove inspired me to make an open source alternative: Subway https://github.com/thedjpetersen/subway https://github.com/thedjpetersen/subway . And while it is far from perfect it is a start towards opening up IRC to teams.

jsilence 14y ago
This is what I love HN for. Thanks.
twodayslate 14y ago
Awesome project! I am super impressed. Great work.
Nux 14y ago
Good man!
mh- 14y ago
that's a hell of a "start." great work.
mmahemoff 14y ago
This looks good. Does it keep history? I think one of the benefits of web-based systems like HipChat and Campfire is you can log in and see the previous conversation even if you weren't there.
- StavrosK 14y ago
  You can use bots for that: http://instabot.stochastictechnologies.com/ http://instabot.stochastictechnologies.com/
- thedjpetersen 14y ago
  Yes it does keep history if you register a user.

alagu 14y ago

Are there any plans to opensource it? The API hooks were awesome.

jdoss 14y ago

Here is why this failed... Anyone with half a brain is going to be able to: * run their own IRC server * run a XMPP server (cough openfire) * Sign up for another service that has more features (Campfire or Hipchat) Not to be mean, but the pricing on grove.io is stupid for what they offer. I run a XMPP server at work and costs us nothing for the basics, which is group chat and private chat. They could have offered this for far cheaper and maybe they would be alive now... and by cheaper I mean a flat fee, no slot pricing for a hosted solution. IRC has low overhead so really, offer IRC+ features for dirt cheap and people will sign up. Hell, if they wanted a higher end one time fees, they knock out a self hosted solution with high end support on a yearly support contract. If the features are that good for your IRC based service, knock it down to $5/mo unlimited users and get a user base going, find out what they want and then add on value addon features based on that feedback. If you can't offer the service for that cheap, then you have too much overhead (bodies).

polemic 14y ago
We were doing this (and still do run our own XMPP servers for other purposes), and opted for grove for the logging, availability and to ease the maintenance burden. Just because anyone can do it, doesn't mean everyone wants to, even (or especially) when you're a highly tech-centric organisation.
- dools 14y ago
  Yeah I run my own IRC server but when it came to my clients, I didn't want to be responsible for that. Grove is fantastic but wasn't all that reliable. I wish it had taken off, though! I might be forced to fill the void ;)
pbiggar 14y ago
> I run a XMPP server at work and costs us nothing for the basics It sounds like it costs at least 1 server, plus your time. Those are not free.
- smsisgay 14y ago

baconhigh 14y ago

ARGH. I really liked using this service.

stevewilhelm 14y ago

I have never used IRC. How is it better than Google Chat?

jsilence 14y ago
Internet Relay Chat is THE archetype of chat protocols. It has been around since the early days of the internets. Hence the protocols and software are mature albeit with some flaws or restrictions that are hard to come by. Google Talk is using XMPP, an XML based presence and chat protocol that has also been there for quite a while. It is widely used throughout the net apart from Google Talk. So both protocols serve their purpose well. IRC is a little more focussed on group chats. While one to one conversations are simple, a presence service is not what IRC was made for. XMPP is strong on presence and one to one chats, with less focus on group chats.
mibbitier 14y ago
Many reasons. Mainly though I'd say IRC is extremely battle-worn. There are a ton of mechanisms for dealing with spam/abuse/idiot users.

Uchikoma 14y ago

Great move writing a Python export script.

rorrr 14y ago

Why shut down if you have paying customers? Just let it run. Servers are dirt cheap, there's no way they are losing money at their prices.

mibbitier 14y ago
They're hosted with rackspace afaik. So they probably are losing money.
- simonbrown 14y ago
  So move it to another host?
- kenneth_reitz 14y ago
  I'm pretty sure YC companies get either free or heavily discounted Rackspace. http://www.rackspacestartups.com/yc/index.html http://www.rackspacestartups.com/yc/index.html

TallboyOne 14y ago

Can I ask a stupid question? What causes a message like this? How many people are involved in the team? Is this a 'startup' or just a few developers having fun? I just started http://pineapple.io http://pineapple.io and when I see messages like this it always makes me wonder. it's not the first time i've seen something like this. It makes me nervours...

mathrawka 14y ago

I remember trying it out when it was free, and then I got a notice about the pricing plans. I emailed and said that the prices were outrageously expensive for just a few users. I never got a reply, but I got an auto-reply a week later telling me to fill out my billing info. They put the service out there, and didn't really listen to much feedback or improve it. I was rather disappointed and find this ending... expected.

DanielRibeiro 14y ago

I wonder what they will do next. Grove.io started out of Convore(YCW11)[1], announced just 249 days ago[2, 3, 4]. [1] http://gigaom.com/2012/01/10/convore-grove-io/ http://gigaom.com/2012/01/10/convore-grove-io/ [2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3449917 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3449917 [3] http://betakit.com/2012/02/20/convore-shutting-down-april-1 http://betakit.com/2012/02/20/convore-shutting-down-april-1 [4] http://blog.convore.com/post/17951919109/convore-shutting-down-april-1st http://blog.convore.com/post/17951919109/convore-shutting-do...

jorde 14y ago

For those who liked Grove and its combination of IRC and web chat, I personally recommend Flowdock which also has an IRC interface https://flowdock.com/ https://flowdock.com/ I know the people behind Flowdock personally and know that they are going to be around for a long time. As a personal note, it's sad to see Grove go away. It was the first bigger service I got to design and I loved working with Leah.

mh- 14y ago
can you point me to Flowdock's IRC interface? I evaluated them before we started adopting Grove, and I did not see that option. edit: dunno how I overlooked this before: https://www.flowdock.com/help/irc https://www.flowdock.com/help/irc thanks for making me look again, though!
- jorde 14y ago
  They added that afterwards

polemic 14y ago

Ugh, I don't understand how Grove.io can just drift apart like that. Surely Grove's costs were relatively low, and my impression was that there was a significant level of uptake. > "..our team has moved on to other projects.." So, unprofitable, or just not the next Facebook? Is there really no one that is happy to keep the service ticking along? I feel like there is a pretty significant problem with tech startups, where everyone is so busy trying to be the next big thing, that everything else is dropped and abandoned in that pursuit.

heretohelp 14y ago
The fact that nobody's happy with a profitable, but modest bootstrapped company is causing them to abandon these smaller companies. The abandonment feeds into the consumer mistrust and makes it that much harder to bootstrap the next company. A good example of an industry that was utterly destroyed by a crisis of consumer confidence was the video game industry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash... >Revenues that had peaked at around $3.2 billion in 1983,[1] fell to around $100 million by 1985 (a drop of almost 97 percent). It would be extremely unwise to believe the startup industry couldn't be subject to the same problem. VCs are getting uncomfortable with the valuations, the constant buyouts and abandonment are burning out consumers. Were I not working on a startup of my own, I'd be happy to take upon somebody's profitable but small red-headed stepchild business.
sbarre 14y ago
I also wish they would address: 1) why not open source the project? 2) why not look for someone to take it over and run it? I also have a hard time seeing how something like this could be at the very least not break-even (unless they had less than 10 paying customers or something).
- mutru 14y ago
  Flowdock's similar IRC gateway is already open source: https://github.com/flowdock/oulu https://github.com/flowdock/oulu
- 14y ago

phmagic 14y ago

noooo! this feels like arrested development.

tanepiper 14y ago

The many pivots of Leah Culver

dabeeeenster 14y ago

What I don't understand is why they dont sell it on Sitepoint or somewhere. The app must surely have several hundred dollars a month in revenue at the very least. Someone would pay several thousand dollars for that.

rdl 14y ago

That has to suck for Leah, especially since there's definitely a worthwhile product somewhere in the team realtime communications space; maybe grove.io wasn't it, but I find team IRC and IM to be incredibly useful, and if there were a good way to combine the two (and some kind of wiki/logging/etc.), with security, it would be great. It would be cool if there were a way to put systems in escrow in case a company tanks or pivots, to protect users. The time to fund and set that up is during development/normal use, not once you've run out of money and decide to shut down, though.

timjahn 14y ago

"...our team has moved on to other projects" That's the part that gets me. I've seen this many times in other startup shutdown posts. They say it so casually. Like this is just another extracurricular activity they do after school. If they're tired of basketball, they're going to stop and try hockey. Except that's not how your customers view it. They're paying you money for a service they're using to presumably save/make money.

kmfrk 14y ago

The writing was on the wall, after they pivoted from Convore. Convore even seemed like a darling at Hacker News at the time.

webology 14y ago

Some friends of mine were trying to kickstart a business with an open source Convore / Grove like service called Helm (http://www.indiegogo.com/helm http://www.indiegogo.com/helm). Daniel's open source work speaks for itself and I think it's an excellent idea and model.

dr_win 14y ago

What to do now? What is a viable replacement for Grove.io?

martindale 14y ago

This is really a shame. Grove.io is a big part of our startup's communications. I really hope Leah considers open-sourcing the project, or turning it over to someone else.

brendoncrawford 14y ago

I recommend FlowDock as a good alternative.

malandrew 14y ago

Instead of shutting down the service with an export option to a data file, how about identifying two or three competitors you'd recommend and working with them to export the content directly into another service. This way you help out both your customers and another startup. For example, if Grove.io content can be made to work with Flowdock, contact the Flowdock team and work with them to put a big "Migrate to Flowdock" button on the shutdown announcement page.