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Microsoft Buys German To-Do List Startup 6Wunderkinder
- neokya 11y agoFor the record, 6Wunderkinder (Wunderlist) is one of the the poster boys of (over hyped?) Berlin as startup hub http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-best-tech-startups-in-germany-2015-5#6-6wunderkinder-12 http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-best-tech-startups-in-germ....
- ethanbond 11y agoOverhyped as compared to what, Silicon Valley?
- SwellJoe 11y agoEvery startup hub is overhyped compared to Silicon Valley, but a $100-$200 million exit for a todo list app maker certainly makes it slightly less over-hyped.
- throwaway12357 11y ago$100-$200 million!? I'm dumbfounded with this. How many users did the app have? Granted it's a more than a TODO list. But it looks like an exorbitant amount of money for it.
- neokya 11y agoThey have 10 million users, so it's fair price to pay I guess https://www.wunderlist.com/world-productivity-report/ https://www.wunderlist.com/world-productivity-report/
- SwellJoe 11y agoThat would put their sell price at $10-$20 per user. Is that going rate for something like that? I'm pretty out of the loop on SaaS business pricing. Seems high, to me, since the vast majority of their users are using the free version. Certainly their paid users are worth a lot more than that (at $5/month, they're worth a couple hundred bucks). And, I guess growth also needs to be factored in; if they're on track to have, say, 20 million users next year, then the price starts looking more and more reasonable. So, yeah, I guess it's not that outrageous, even if it is "just" a todo list app (it's a pretty nice one, though; I use it and mostly really like it).
- easytiger 11y ago> They have 10 million users 10 Million active users? Or like me, installed it, abandoned it; like most todo apps.
- pjbrunet 11y agoSame here, I'm back to using a text file. I can access it from all my devices with DroidEdit. For todos, any UI is a distraction, but that's just me.
- disbelief 11y agoI imagine a good chunk of that value is being placed on the team they acquired. They're a proven mobile dev shop with a well recognized name in an "up and coming" Berlin startup scene, who already have a major success under their belts. I'm also sure a sizeable percentage of the amount isn't cash but options with 2-4 year vesting periods. edit: also often the team salaries over the course of that period are included in the amount.
- SwellJoe 11y ago$100 million is not a "buying it for the team" kind of price. This is a pretty small shop and you can hire a lot of top-notch developers for $100 million. They've gotta be expecting some kind of value out of this. The theory that Microsoft is trying to buy their way into being relevant in the mobile market seems pretty sound, especially based on other announcements, investments and acquisitions they've made recently. But, yeah, you're probably right about options being a big part of the price, but Microsoft options are still pretty valuable. Almost as good as real money.
- crucialfelix 11y agoI remember after their initial success with the free app they took investment, and were valued at about $50m (2010?). Then they tried to ship an enterprise product but it never got any traction. They refocused on the Wunderlist again.
- ChuckMcM 11y agoCongrats to the Wunderlist team. And oh crap, one of my favorite startup quotes was "Nobody got rich making a Todo list App." That is in danger of being falsified :-) It is interesting to consider Microsoft's putative strategy here which is that the mobile "OS" is still searching for the right mix of capabilities to completely replace laptops.
- phlyingpenguin 11y ago> And oh crap, one of my favorite startup quotes was "Nobody got rich making a Todo list App." That is in danger of being falsified :-) Ehh, Yahoo bought Astrid a while ago and closed it. The price wasn't announced, but I imagine they did well. My heart still pangs for the long-dead Astrid app, and I'm just that much less likely to use any Yahoo service because of that murder.
- Narretz 11y agoYeah, I tried Wunderlist after Astrid shut down, and I much preferred Astrid. A damn shame it got shut down.
- piyush_soni 11y agoOn the other hand I've been happy with Wunderlist after Astrid was shut down. It's pretty neat in maintaining daily lists/reminders and sharing lists with family/friends.
- NSAID 11y agoYou may be interested in "Tasks", an open source replacement for Astrid. I don't believe it does everything Astrid did, but it has worked wonderfully for my needs. https://github.com/tasks/tasks https://github.com/tasks/tasks https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.tasks https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.tasks
- phlyingpenguin 11y agoHey, neat! Sadly I'm on iOS these days so I've just gone to using todoist.
- ucha 11y agoThey were bought for <2M while they received 24M in funding? Am I missing something?
- byoung2 11y agoThere must be a typo in the article. Maybe it should be $100-$200 million? EDIT: I just emailed the author and it was a mistake. I'm still seeing the old numbers on the site though.
- eps 11y agoYup, this seems to align with earlier speculation - http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/21/microsoft-is-almost-certainly-buying-6wunderkinder-the-company-behind-wunderlist-source-says/ http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/21/microsoft-is-almost-certai...
- radley 11y agoThe actual price is $100M - 200M. https://twitter.com/Amirmizroch/status/605428008611160064 https://twitter.com/Amirmizroch/status/605428008611160064
- troymc 11y agoIf you're a user of DuckDuckGo, here's a quick way to get to the full-text of the WSJ article: !gn "Microsoft Buys German To-Do List Startup 6Wunderkinder" (!gn is the Google News !bang)
- wil421 11y agoIf you Google the title of the article you can find the news source and click on the link without hitting paywalls. The person who submitted the article still had some of the referrer links, mod=yahoo_hs&ref=yfp was at the end of the article's URL submission.
- lawl 11y agoFor everyone not using DDG, click trough here: https://news.google.com/news/search?q=%22Microsoft%20Buys%20German%20To-Do%20List%20Startup%206Wunderkinder%22 https://news.google.com/news/search?q=%22Microsoft%20Buys%20...
- frik 11y agoUS based headquarters cannot transfer money from foreign sister companies back to US without paying tax, so they buy foreign companies. Wunderlist seems like one of many todo list apps: https://www.wunderlist.com/ https://www.wunderlist.com/
- frik 11y agoOfftopic: Speaking about Microsoft, I just noticed a "Windows 10" advertisement in my Windows 7 taskbar next to the clock. Windows update silently installs and launches new applications (two executable) and one of them comes with enabled Telemetry. 23MB big ad-program is located in C:\Windows\System32\GWX\. Check your Windows 7/8 taskbar. Source: http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/31/microsoft-starts-prompting-windows-7-and-windows-8-users-to-reserve-their-free-windows-10-upgrade/ http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/31/microsoft-starts-prompting... https://support.microsoft.com/de-at/kb/3035583/en-us https://support.microsoft.com/de-at/kb/3035583/en-us @downvoters: even if it's offtopic, see at least the source
- knodi123 11y agoAlso offtopic, but everybody really should be brushing twice a day, for a full 2 minutes each time. And flossing.
- afarrell 11y agoFirst floss, then brush. Spend 30 seconds in each quadrant and be sure to get the molars in the back. Don't brush immediately after drinking acidic things like soda.
- Otik 11y agoFlossing is actually less important than most people think. It's far more important to thoroughly brush your teeth, to the extent that most of the time that people spend flossing would be better off used for brushing. Flossing doesn't protect against caries, but can provide some benefits for gum health.
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- jarmitage 11y agoMicrosoft also bought Sunrise calendar recently, who a few weeks ago announced compatibility features with Wunderlist. An interesting play from Microsoft. I wonder if it's one individual within the company who is pushing in this space. I also wonder if they will shutter both companies and integrate, or do what Facebook did with Instagram etc.
- cwyers 11y agoMicrosoft rebranded Acompli, because they already had a strong brand in Outlook, but has left Sunrise alone, presumably because they don't have a strong calendar brand of their own (unless they just plan on making Sunrise into Outlook Calendar). I suspect that Wunderlist will either stay Wunderlist or become Outlook Tasks or somesuch.
- ArekDymalski 11y agoWhile I could understand buying Sunrise calendar for the userbase, this acquisition is surprising in that matter.
- blumkvist 11y agoYou got it wrong. This is for the userbase. Sunrise was for the team and functionality.
- testingonprod 11y agoThe apps that Microsoft has been buying recently are just incredibly top notch. Sunrise, Accompli, and now Wunderlist?!? Crazy good best-in-class products.
- ams6110 11y agoMost startup apps are failures. Buying the ones that have already made it through that initial filter makes sense.
- mttddd 11y agoThey bought a tool called Equivio too, i work in the ediscovery/legal world and it was very rapidly becoming the industry standard. My understanding is Microsoft is going to integrate alot of the functionality into office/outlook, theres a lot of uncertainty as to what will replace it. Maybe time to pick up some stock hah they seem to be making succesful purchases that make sense vs "diworsification"
- tw04 11y agoI have to disagree on best in class. Wunderlist was a pig on desktop, and they killed the desktop app entirely for Windows7. I far prefer todoist. I also think Tempo is head and shoulders above Sunrise after spending significant time with both. I can't find the value in a calendar app that lacks the ability to dial a conference call number in 2015.
- orangechicken 11y agoUnfortunately you'll only be able to use Tempo until June 30th. They've been acquired by Salesforce and are discontinuing Tempo (at least in its current form…)
- spyder 11y agoYea, Minecraft for sure was a top Notch ;)
- return0 11y ago"Cortana, tell me my wunderlist"
- dmix 11y agoMicrosoft backing Cyanogenmod, bringing Cortana to Android, and now acquiring productivity apps... Looks like they are making a strong play to compete with Siri/Google Now which will be critical to the future of these big tech corps. Once AI gets better, everyone will want a 'smart assistant' helping them organize their day. That will likely heavily influence which OS customers choose in the future as the data sensors need to sync across platforms to be really effective (desktop->mobile->watch->car etc).
- helyka 11y agoAs a Windows user with an iPhone I am very happy that they are bringing Cortana to iOS. I like unifying my environment, but I don't want to buy a new device to do that.
- bad_user 11y agoGiven the shitty experience I've been having with OneCloud on OS X, or with Office on Android, I kind of doubt that the experience will be any good.
- mark_l_watson 11y agoDo you actually use OneCloud on OSX and the mini office on Android? I find OneCloud to be very smooth: I only have a 128GB SSD drive on my old MacBook Air and the selective sync lets me keep most of my videos, pictures, backups, etc. offline. I don't use Office on the Android too much, but it seems OK enough. BTW, I went with Office 365 as a price/cost decision. For $99/year my wife and I both get 1 TB of cloud storage, and if we want them the latest office suite. We both just use the web versions of the Office 365 apps on out MacBook Airs though. EDIT: a bonus: the web based Office 365 apps are very useful on my Linux laptop - I stopped using Libre Office.
- bad_user 11y agoYes, I went through a one mongth trial of Office 365 because the price seemed good and I really wanted to like it. On OS X the OneDrive client had problems synchronizing my 80 GB archive - refused to synchronize files containing characters not accepted on Windows (like ":"), crashed several times and it was also saturating my network bandwidth. To make matters worse, OneDrive doesn't have basic functionality, like a log of what happened (files added, removed), let alone a 30 days version history. So I have to trust that their shitty client is doing the right thing. The way I see it - yes, the Family pack is cost effective, but I'll never store 1 TB of my data on OneDrive without having logs, versioning and a client that does not suck for both OS X and Linux. I also think people get to be irrational about pricing - the price of 1 TB on Dropbox or Google Drive is as much as 2 Starbucks coffees. On Android, Office wasn't available for my Nexus 6 (Android L) until 2 or 3 weeks ago when it was finally released. Gave it a try and it's too bare-bones, plus it had problems displaying documents from work. I expected it to work well as a viewer, but it doesn't.
- josep2 11y agoBy far my favorite To-Do List app. Microsoft purchased my favorite Calendar app a few months ago. What will be next?
- creativityhurts 11y agoThey also bought Acompli and then released Outlook for iOS. They're on a roll.
- robotresearcher 11y agoSolitaire.
- theallan 11y agoHow do big companies make the initial approach? Do you get a phone call out of the blue from someone at Microsoft saying "We are interesting in acquiring you - how does x million sound?" (I know I've grossly over simplified!).
- QuercusMax 11y agoPretty much how it worked with Mojang. Notch joke-tweeted that he was ready to sell, and the Mojang CEO got a call from Microsoft within minutes. http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/3/8144453/minecraft-sale-microsoft-notch-tweet http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/3/8144453/minecraft-sale-micro...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Nicholas_C 11y agoFrom talking with the corp dev guys at my company it sounds like they (the corp dev guys) get pitched via email and make calls to companies they're interested in.
- rgovind 11y agoSomeone from big C(M&A division?) typically calls you and says "We would like to explore if it is possible to we can work together". As part of it, they may ask you to do a small project for them, asap (This is to test your speed of execution. I believe it happened in case of Google Docs). If they like it, they will ask for company financials/Growth numbers etc Source: Reading many articles
- nedwin 11y agoRecently went through this. They first reach out for some kind of "we're looking to do something in this space and wanted to discuss working with you". Our first conversation was along the lines of "We're not sure whether we're going to build this, partner with someone or buy something. Keen to find out more about what you guys are doing and see if we can work together". Next meeting it went to "We're clearly not going to build this ourselves, and it doesn't make sense to partner but let's talk about what it would look like if we acquired you. How do you think your tech/team would work inside our company". Took maybe 6 meetings in total to get to a price though we probably could have forced that sooner.
- bkurtz13 11y agoThere should really have to be a (paywall) warning added to the titles of posts like this.
- satyajeet23 11y agoI really liked this app. One of my fav. RIP Wunderlist.
- Yhippa 11y agoWhen I started using Sunrise I saw all these things you could connect to it one of which was Todoist. I really love what Todoist has done for to-do lists. I am less of a fan of Wunderlist because it doesn't have quite the features of Todoist that I'm looking for and fear that they're going to be doing better integration with Wunderlist.
- vegashacker 11y agoIt would be nice if this results in the Pro features becoming free.
- jkcl 11y agoHow would it be run as a sustainable business then? Sorry, but I really fail to understand how we can expect quality for free. Free means that it's either run as a hobby (you shouldn't make it part of your workflow as it might disappear one day) or run on ads (lower quality by implication). Why not support your favourite apps by paying a little so the good folk can continue working on it!
- grmarcil 11y agoOr option 3, be a goliath sized company (eg Microsoft) and run the app as a loss leader to consolidate/establish a position as a market leader in mobile.
- tormeh 11y agoThat's actually the worst option for the consumer long-term.
- derefr 11y agoThe same way OneNote is free: as a loss-leader that hooks you into the Office ecosystem.
- pavlov 11y agoWhen they integrate it into OneNote, they can rename it OneDerlist. <ba-da-ching>
- edvinbesic 11y agoWundernote for Microsoft Phone 10 for Business
- mynameisvlad 11y agoWindows Mobile 10* (Which is completely different than the old Windows Mobile brand, obviously)
- pcunite 11y agoIf you're reading this post, and you work with Microsoft ... contact me.
- kpennell 11y agoDang, I really love Wunderlist. Hope MSFT only makes it better! I wish I could drop a list in it more easily. I use it as a shopping list.
- jdhendrickson 11y agoWunderlist is integral to our companies business processes and it was a fight to get everyone moved onto it, I can only hope Microsoft has a hands off approach to the app and continues to let them create a best in class application.
- sk8ingdom 11y agoThis is sadly the cost of using non open source technology. Once it sells to a larger company, the fate is uncertain and your data is locked in.
- downandout 11y agoEverytime I run into the WSJ paywall I want to throw things. Yes it is easy to get around but no we shouldn't have to. Because advertising. Anyway does anyone know approximately how many users this app had? Seems like a pretty rich valuation for a to-do list app.
- robhu 11y agoIf you're often running in to the WSJ paywall that means their content is often good, and they fund that content through subscriptions. Their competitors, who you're not running in to very often are not funded through subscriptions. Maybe subscriptions lead to higher quality content?
- dragonwriter 11y ago> If you're often running in to the WSJ paywall that means their content is often good, Doesn't follow. It does mean its often get linked in places that I read, but that doesn't mean its good. > Their competitors, who you're not running in to very often That was never stated and is an unreasonable assumption. Just because one isn't running into competitors paywalls (because other sources often don't have such a thing) doesn't mean one is not running into the competitors far more often than the WSJ.
- robhu 11y agoI'm assuming there is a filtering function occurring at HN which means that high quality sources are being linked to more often than low quality sources. I think that's a reasonable assumption, and is why WSJ is getting linked to a lot here. It's also pretty reasonable to believe that they make more money from subscriptions than they would from advertising, and that they're more likely to be able to afford to produce high quality articles with more money than with less.
- Nicholas_C 11y ago>Anyway does anyone know approximately how many users this app had? 10M
- easytiger 11y agoCan we please stop posting paywalled content? http://www.slashgear.com/microsoft-tipped-to-buy-6wunderkinder-for-to-do-lists-galore-01386160/ http://www.slashgear.com/microsoft-tipped-to-buy-6wunderkind...
- downandout 11y agoA happy medium might be to post a link to the Google search for the title. Clicking on the WSJ link from the result will bypass the paywall. Also I'm not necessarily trying to knock the poster or suggest spamming on the part of WSJ, but he or she has an awful lot of WSJ paywalled posts here [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=abetaha https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=abetaha
- danw3 11y agoLooks an awful lot like spam to me.
- tomkin 11y agoI said a similar thing a few days ago, but was ridiculed for it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9625769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9625769
- manis404 11y agoBut now who's having the last laugh, EH?
- why-el 11y agoI guess you are not using "Wait! Google Sent Me" chrome extension? (assuming you are using chrome)
- mparramon 11y agoHere's how you can get your data out of Wunderlist, in case you're thinking on migrating: http://www.developingandstuff.com/2015/03/export-list-from-wunderlist-even-if.html http://www.developingandstuff.com/2015/03/export-list-from-w...
- leejoramo 11y agoWanderlust did recently release an API, looks like you can now access lists in a more formal way: http://developer.wunderlist.com/documentation/endpoints/list http://developer.wunderlist.com/documentation/endpoints/list
- bsg75 11y agoI hope that MS treats these acquisitions seriously. Sunrise is lagging a bit on the Mac dekstop - it still cannot connect to Exchange - and the mobile first craze is starting to look like desktop becoming a never reached second. Desktop and mobile integration is where I believe success lies, and hope that Wunderlist (and Sunrise) continue to be universally usable.
- rgovind 11y agoHonest question : I thought there are many ToDO list startups Why is this still an unsolved problem?
- dragonwriter 11y agoBecause a 'todo list' isn't a problem, its a piece (but only a piece) of a solution to a variety of problems, which don't all have the same solution (even for any given user that has multiple of the problems that todo lists are a component of a solution for.)
- prawn 11y agoAgreed. And it's why, even though it's another play in a crowded space, a friend and I built yet-another-to-do-app. I've tried loads of them, but go back to pen and paper every time. However, for one subset of the to-do world (regular habits), I think an app can consistently help. I've been using our beta for a couple of months and have stuck with it. (Link in profile if you're interested.) I think us pen-and-paper types might finally be swayed when AR/VR is stronger and we can interact with our to-do items quickly in a more organic way - moving them around, easily prioritising, associating sketches, etc.
- ylem 11y agoI actually really liked their user interface. I wonder if the app will continue to exist or if it's time to migrate...
- amelius 11y agoHow much revenue did they generate last year?
- Artemis2 11y agoI'm so happy for the guys at 6Wunderkinder! I have seen them struggle with Wunderkit, which was eventually dropped as a product. Time for payback!
- amelius 11y agoCan anybody enlighten me on the technical difficulties of writing a todo list manager?
- tdietrich 11y ago"The idea is to get users hooked on great apps and services made by Microsoft, with the hope those people will eventually make the jump to Windows computers, phones, and tablets." Good luck with that.
- xer0x 11y agoCongrats wunderkinder. You guys are awesome. gg ms.
- justinmayer 11y agoIn case this news makes you feel like it's time to move on, here's a link describing how to delete your Wunderlist account: https://support.wunderlist.com/customer/portal/articles/1641120-how-can-i-delete-my-wunderlist-account- https://support.wunderlist.com/customer/portal/articles/1641...
- jimmygraham 11y agoMicrosoft is quickly acquiring an impressive suite of apps.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- coldtea 11y agoOne thing I don't see mentioned here that might be of interest to some people. James Duncan Davidson had left SF to work in Berlin for Wunderlist a year or so ago, so is part of the team that was acquired. For those not familiar with the name, he was quite famous for us working in Java land back in the day. He worked at SUN and created the first versions of Tomcat and Ant. He was also an O'Reilly author, with books such as Learning Cocoa with Objective-C, Cocoa in a Nutshell (and also wrote the Agile Web Development with Rails book for the the Pragmatic Programmers editions). He's also quite famous as a photographer (his other job), covering many O'Reilly conferences, Apple events, TED and such. Some very iconic tech related pictures from such events are his. [EDIT] Another thing I don't see mentioned. This is not just a TODO list app. It's more of like MS buying their own "Slack".
- sleazebreeze 11y agoI believe Chad Fowler of the Passionate Programmer is the CTO at Wunderlist as well.
- vivekian2 11y agoI love Wunderlist especially because it works on my work Linux desktop, home Macbook, iPhone and what not. I wonder what does this entail for users like me? Is MS going to leave the app as it is or is it going to be integrated into something else?
- ing33k 11y agoI use Wunderlist on daily basis, hope they will maintain its simplicity.
- TomAnthony 11y agoLikewise. I tried a lot of different todo list and organiser apps out over the years and finally Wunderlist was the one that really stuck. I love it and recommend it frequently. Losing it would be a bummer. On the flip-side: maybe they'll make a tile for my Microsoft Band now! :)
- TomAnthony 11y agoLikewise. I tried a lot of different todo list and organiser apps out over the years and finally Wunderlist was the one that really stuck. I love it and recommend it frequently. Losing it would be a bummer. On the flip-side: maybe they'll make a tile for my Microsoft Band now! :)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- raindev 11y agoOkay. I'm migrating my Wunderlist lists to plain text now.