13 ms·

Frontback Shutting Down

83 points by eknight15 11y ago

mattikus 11y ago
Apropos of nothing relevant to the actual content of the page, the sand effect easter egg on the logo was really cool. One of the more lifelike effects I've seen.
- amadeusw 11y ago
  It's really cool and heartbreaking at the same time. Brilliant!
- mfkp 11y ago
  I also thought it was very cool - extracted the source from the minified JS if anybody is interested in taking a look how it works: https://jsfiddle.net/powers/cy5fhLnk/ https://jsfiddle.net/powers/cy5fhLnk/
- tcfunk 11y ago
  It actually really evoked some emotion in me, which I would not have felt without being able to erase their logo.. It made me feel connected to the emotions the founders are likely going through right now.
kevinkimball 11y ago
that's too bad. it was cool. on the other hand I didn't use it often so I guess I'm part of the problem ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- curiousjorge 11y ago
  I've never heard of them. Almost all of the "xxx is shutting down" threads on HN is always the first time I'm finding out about the company. Only exception was Homejoy but if I hadn't watched the startup lesson videos I would've had no idea what it was about.
  - kenferry 11y ago
    That does seem reasonable, doesn't it? If they were succeeding well enough to be known in the larger world, they probably wouldn't be shutting down!
  - Animats 11y ago
    Even from the shutting down message it's not clear what they did. It sounds like a service for organizing your selfies.
    - steckerbrett 11y ago
      The app took two photos simultaneously, one with the front camera and one with the back. It allowed you to show a combination of where you are and what you are doing in the same instant.
moonlighter 11y ago
What's interesting is that they were able to raise $4 million, and rejected a $40 million acquisition by Twitter (according to http://www.businessinsider.com/frontback-app-shuts-down-2015-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/frontback-app-shuts-down-2015...)
- downandout 11y ago
  This should be somewhat instructive to founders of companies that get far enough to receive a buyout offer. Try to realistically evaluate your startup's place in the world; in most cases, a buyout offer is something that should be seriously considered. Your company is almost certainly not the next Facebook or Snapchat.
  - drcross 11y ago
    This is a specious comment because you now have the value of hindsight. I suppose you also probably advised Mark Zucherburg to not sell?
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      > This is a specious comment because you now have the value of hindsight. No it isn't. The problem is to accurately put a value on your company and it's future. It isn't rare at all to find founders that are in the most literal sense of the word delusional about what the value of a company is. I've had this with one of my co-founders who held out for a much larger buy-out offer than one that we had on the table and then subsequently ended up being extremely upset when after blocking that particular deal he could not find a better one and ended up taking much less from the company than the offer that had been on the table already. I'm sure that his hindsight told him that maybe his valuation wasn't all that accurate after all. Hindsight being what it is - 20/20 - if you remember that a price is never right (sell it: you're too cheap, don't sell it: you're too expensive) that there is room on both sides and overlap between the ranges is required to make a deal. If you always hold out for better you will never make a deal. So knowing when an offer is 'good' is the key and being realistic about valuations will help you to figure out what is good. > I suppose you also probably advised Mark Zucherburg to not sell? Mark Zuckerberg (not Zucherburg) never intended to sell at all, that's a key difference.
kumarm 11y ago
When I first saw the Interview (Mike Arrington did the Interview at Tech Crunch Disrupt), I was really disappointed with their answer to something like "So When is Android Version scheduled?", CEO went on saying how great iPhone is. This was 2 years back. How can you not be working on Android version by then?
- kenferry 11y ago
  I have sympathy for the idea of focusing on one platform until you've got something people actually want. You'll move faster that way. Sounds like they never quite got there.
  - HappyTypist 11y ago
    I disagree for social apps that rely heavily on the network effect. Cutting out a major mobile platform doesn't just cut your userbase by half, but it also significantly reduces the utility for the other half too. If you're making an app where it's value heavily stems on how many of your friends use it, then only working on one platform is a great way to "never quite get there".
    - thecupisblue 11y ago
      > doesn't just cut your userbase by half Even more, considering Android takes up about 80% of the market share. Focusing on iOS first is a well known strategy, but if you gain any traction - Android release should be out quickly. There is no excuse to ignore that big amount of market share.
    - jexe 11y ago
      I agree with that. Because of the network effects of social apps, it's not really 2x for launching on another large platform - we got about 10x results from launching Dasher on Android. We probably waited too long to do it.
  - Sujan 11y ago
    Ummm...? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.checkthis.frontback https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.checkthis....
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
gorena 11y ago
What was the business model for this? Get a lot of users and get bought like Instagram? $40m for $4m seems like a great return for something that doesn't have revenue.
- anthony_franco 11y ago
  I doubt the $4m was for 100% of the company. It's unknown what the ROI would've been for the investors. But still probably something the founders are regretting.
  - gorena 11y ago
    Yeah, wasn't implying that - basically, if the investors have a controlling stake, it's a pretty okay return for something that seemingly had no business model besides "maybe sell ads/filters?". If the investors didn't have a controlling stake, then the founders would be pretty damn rich.
    - pbreit 11y ago
      Anything that can accumulate attention can be easily monetized. The hard part is accumulating attention. Wondering about business models is exceedingly tired.
      - LoSboccacc 11y ago
        I disagree. With ads revenue in free falling monetizing eyeballs without any sort of premium service attached makes hard to get any return. Players who suceede in this space have either 100x the eyeballs and/or their internal ad network with better revenues.
      - stingraycharles 11y ago
        Can you please tell me how to convert attention into money? Genuine question, since it seems like the business model of a lot of B2C startups out there.
prawn 11y ago
Their thing seems to have been that they recorded (video or image I guess) the subject as well as the publisher at the same time, recording with both cameras. Nice idea. Image preview here: https://pando-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2013/10/frontback1.jpg https://pando-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2013/10/frontb...
- swang 11y ago
  You took one with the front facing camera, then one with the back facing camera (or vice versa but not at the same time). AFAIK (haven't used it in the past year+) you couldn't shoot both at the same time.
  - niico 11y ago
    You're correct
- oniony 11y ago
  That's pretty cool. How do I sign up? ;)
lifeisstillgood 11y ago
Barely one month to be able to download your stored photos - that seems ... Short. Especially for a service that was not used often enough. I don't clearly have any details but keeping an AWS account up for another 3-6 moths seems ... Not unreasonable. I understand it's a crushing time for the founders, but one of the things I seem to see on HN is the more respectably you wind down your startup, the more respect (and future deal flow) you seem to get. Just 2c
- shopinterest 11y ago
  Jeebus dude, why exactly you need 3-6 months to get your photos from a service you didn't use often enough? AWS cost real money. How long of a warning do you need to exit a service? A year?
  - LoSboccacc 11y ago
    dunno the s3 isn't really that expensive, if they fold to micro instances for delivering the photos in a reduced service mode they could probably extend the service life otoh it's hard to justify this kind of investment in a folding company, also I don't think people who can't download photo in a month magically can given three months. anyway if those photo were important to the owner and him used an internet startup as his sole backup well, shame on him :D
  - lifeisstillgood 11y ago
    the exact period of time was not my concern - the perception of calm and orderly shutdown is. What matters is how the founders are seen to handle that last few moments. Doing nothing would be bad. Doing this is fine and decent. Even better would be to say "hey it did not work, but even so our last act is to <maintain high perceived value coz we are the good guys>." It might be download your contacts, it might be grab your dogs' friends circle. Whatever - if it was important enough for users to give it to you for safekeeping that should be treated with kid gloves. This is sadly one of the more high profile moments a start up has - Handle it well, the founders will be seen as a safe pair of hands, do the equivalent of dropping the casket into the ground and walking off, maybe not so much. It's not great that this is a metric, it's not great that more VCs will see how they shutdown than saw how they started up - but this is just another startup. The founders have 30+ year careers ahead. Good for them for making something, good for them for trying, and good for trying to land it at all. Many just told up tents and steal away. We as a community are trying to learn the dos and donts of startup life cycles - seems to me this is one of the more high profile and often ignored donts.
pbreit 11y ago
It's a cute feature but hardly something that you could build a company around. Like Yo. In a case like this, do they ever transfer the service over to someone who might be interested in having a go at it (without any money exchanging hands)? Always seems like people would rather shut something down than hand it over which is unfortunate.
- fab1an 11y ago
  A 'cute feature' does become a company once enough people are using it. In a parallel universe you could have said the same about a shutdown notice of Twitter or Snapchat.
  - weavie 11y ago
    A lot of people still do say the same about Snapchat. It just goes to show that it is really really hard to predict which ideas will catch on and which won't.
  - pbreit 11y ago
    Twitter is foundational communications. The first time I saw Snapchat's ephemeral messaging I thought it was brilliant and a huge and important differentiator in messaging. There's some sort of selfie-ish value in Frontback but otherwise looks fadish and tiring.
pbreit 11y ago
I wonder how much it costs to keep this type of thing running? There's really no one out there stepping up to take it on? Edit: after reading the shutdown notice, it was a little vague about what's happening. It says the iOS app will convert to a camera app. Does that mean they are gonna try to retain connections to all the existing users and roll out out some new concept?
- enra 11y ago
  I understood it in a way that they will convert the app so that it will still have the "front+back" functionality, but only save the images to your camera roll. Basically an offline frontback.
BilalBudhani 11y ago
I'm an active user of this app. I really enjoy scrolling through app feed and discover people around the world by not just their selfies but also a proper image context attached with it. I'm in love with the idea of this app. Really sad to see they are shutting down the service :'(
pbreit 11y ago
The shutdown notice seems to suggest that this feature is available elsewhere. Anyone know where?
Kiro 11y ago
What was it?
- corobo 11y ago
  This was my question too.. I wish deadpool sites would keep something up there about what they did in their "So long and thanks for all the fish" statements Edit: Ah. From what I can tell, snapchat/instagram/genericPhotoApp except it takes a picture with both cameras http://web.archive.org/web/20150715211337/http://www.frontback.me/ http://web.archive.org/web/20150715211337/http://www.frontba...
thobakr 11y ago
One useless social media site less, how this can be bad?
mdevere 11y ago
Sorry to read about this. I too regarded Frontback as a feature rather than a new messaging paradigm. But I can see how you might say the same about Snapchat.
- nstart 11y ago
  Honestly, Snapchat felt more like a feature till they brought in stories. That interaction has been a game changer for them. In fact it's unique from the entire plethora of networks around. Especially when centered around an event or a country (their UFC mega stories are incredible).
rootlocus 11y ago
I love how you can destroy the logo / title by playing with the mouse over it.
- talltofu 11y ago
  Me too..wonder how it can be done. Is this a javascript library?
  - robotnoises 11y ago
    Doing a little digging, there is a handler attached to the mousemove event on the canvas element. There is a credit here: Thanks to Giovanni Difeterici (http://www.gdifeterici.com/ http://www.gdifeterici.com/) ... but it's minified and I can't hunt down the source.

83 points by eknight15 11y ago

Apropos of nothing relevant to the actual content of the page, the sand effect easter egg on the logo was really cool. One of the more lifelike effects I've seen.

amadeusw 11y ago
It's really cool and heartbreaking at the same time. Brilliant!
mfkp 11y ago
I also thought it was very cool - extracted the source from the minified JS if anybody is interested in taking a look how it works: https://jsfiddle.net/powers/cy5fhLnk/ https://jsfiddle.net/powers/cy5fhLnk/
tcfunk 11y ago
It actually really evoked some emotion in me, which I would not have felt without being able to erase their logo.. It made me feel connected to the emotions the founders are likely going through right now.

kevinkimball 11y ago

that's too bad. it was cool. on the other hand I didn't use it often so I guess I'm part of the problem ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

curiousjorge 11y ago
I've never heard of them. Almost all of the "xxx is shutting down" threads on HN is always the first time I'm finding out about the company. Only exception was Homejoy but if I hadn't watched the startup lesson videos I would've had no idea what it was about.
- kenferry 11y ago
  That does seem reasonable, doesn't it? If they were succeeding well enough to be known in the larger world, they probably wouldn't be shutting down!
- Animats 11y ago
  Even from the shutting down message it's not clear what they did. It sounds like a service for organizing your selfies.
  - steckerbrett 11y ago
    The app took two photos simultaneously, one with the front camera and one with the back. It allowed you to show a combination of where you are and what you are doing in the same instant.

moonlighter 11y ago

What's interesting is that they were able to raise $4 million, and rejected a $40 million acquisition by Twitter (according to http://www.businessinsider.com/frontback-app-shuts-down-2015-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/frontback-app-shuts-down-2015...)

downandout 11y ago
This should be somewhat instructive to founders of companies that get far enough to receive a buyout offer. Try to realistically evaluate your startup's place in the world; in most cases, a buyout offer is something that should be seriously considered. Your company is almost certainly not the next Facebook or Snapchat.
- drcross 11y ago
  This is a specious comment because you now have the value of hindsight. I suppose you also probably advised Mark Zucherburg to not sell?
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    > This is a specious comment because you now have the value of hindsight. No it isn't. The problem is to accurately put a value on your company and it's future. It isn't rare at all to find founders that are in the most literal sense of the word delusional about what the value of a company is. I've had this with one of my co-founders who held out for a much larger buy-out offer than one that we had on the table and then subsequently ended up being extremely upset when after blocking that particular deal he could not find a better one and ended up taking much less from the company than the offer that had been on the table already. I'm sure that his hindsight told him that maybe his valuation wasn't all that accurate after all. Hindsight being what it is - 20/20 - if you remember that a price is never right (sell it: you're too cheap, don't sell it: you're too expensive) that there is room on both sides and overlap between the ranges is required to make a deal. If you always hold out for better you will never make a deal. So knowing when an offer is 'good' is the key and being realistic about valuations will help you to figure out what is good. > I suppose you also probably advised Mark Zucherburg to not sell? Mark Zuckerberg (not Zucherburg) never intended to sell at all, that's a key difference.

kumarm 11y ago

When I first saw the Interview (Mike Arrington did the Interview at Tech Crunch Disrupt), I was really disappointed with their answer to something like "So When is Android Version scheduled?", CEO went on saying how great iPhone is. This was 2 years back. How can you not be working on Android version by then?

kenferry 11y ago
I have sympathy for the idea of focusing on one platform until you've got something people actually want. You'll move faster that way. Sounds like they never quite got there.
- HappyTypist 11y ago
  I disagree for social apps that rely heavily on the network effect. Cutting out a major mobile platform doesn't just cut your userbase by half, but it also significantly reduces the utility for the other half too. If you're making an app where it's value heavily stems on how many of your friends use it, then only working on one platform is a great way to "never quite get there".
  - thecupisblue 11y ago
    > doesn't just cut your userbase by half Even more, considering Android takes up about 80% of the market share. Focusing on iOS first is a well known strategy, but if you gain any traction - Android release should be out quickly. There is no excuse to ignore that big amount of market share.
  - jexe 11y ago
    I agree with that. Because of the network effects of social apps, it's not really 2x for launching on another large platform - we got about 10x results from launching Dasher on Android. We probably waited too long to do it.
- Sujan 11y ago
  Ummm...? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.checkthis.frontback https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.checkthis....

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

gorena 11y ago

What was the business model for this? Get a lot of users and get bought like Instagram? $40m for $4m seems like a great return for something that doesn't have revenue.

anthony_franco 11y ago
I doubt the $4m was for 100% of the company. It's unknown what the ROI would've been for the investors. But still probably something the founders are regretting.
- gorena 11y ago
  Yeah, wasn't implying that - basically, if the investors have a controlling stake, it's a pretty okay return for something that seemingly had no business model besides "maybe sell ads/filters?". If the investors didn't have a controlling stake, then the founders would be pretty damn rich.
  - pbreit 11y ago
    Anything that can accumulate attention can be easily monetized. The hard part is accumulating attention. Wondering about business models is exceedingly tired.
    - LoSboccacc 11y ago
      I disagree. With ads revenue in free falling monetizing eyeballs without any sort of premium service attached makes hard to get any return. Players who suceede in this space have either 100x the eyeballs and/or their internal ad network with better revenues.
    - stingraycharles 11y ago
      Can you please tell me how to convert attention into money? Genuine question, since it seems like the business model of a lot of B2C startups out there.

prawn 11y ago

Their thing seems to have been that they recorded (video or image I guess) the subject as well as the publisher at the same time, recording with both cameras. Nice idea. Image preview here: https://pando-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2013/10/frontback1.jpg https://pando-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2013/10/frontb...

swang 11y ago
You took one with the front facing camera, then one with the back facing camera (or vice versa but not at the same time). AFAIK (haven't used it in the past year+) you couldn't shoot both at the same time.
- niico 11y ago
  You're correct
oniony 11y ago
That's pretty cool. How do I sign up? ;)

lifeisstillgood 11y ago

Barely one month to be able to download your stored photos - that seems ... Short. Especially for a service that was not used often enough. I don't clearly have any details but keeping an AWS account up for another 3-6 moths seems ... Not unreasonable. I understand it's a crushing time for the founders, but one of the things I seem to see on HN is the more respectably you wind down your startup, the more respect (and future deal flow) you seem to get. Just 2c

shopinterest 11y ago
Jeebus dude, why exactly you need 3-6 months to get your photos from a service you didn't use often enough? AWS cost real money. How long of a warning do you need to exit a service? A year?
- LoSboccacc 11y ago
  dunno the s3 isn't really that expensive, if they fold to micro instances for delivering the photos in a reduced service mode they could probably extend the service life otoh it's hard to justify this kind of investment in a folding company, also I don't think people who can't download photo in a month magically can given three months. anyway if those photo were important to the owner and him used an internet startup as his sole backup well, shame on him :D
- lifeisstillgood 11y ago
  the exact period of time was not my concern - the perception of calm and orderly shutdown is. What matters is how the founders are seen to handle that last few moments. Doing nothing would be bad. Doing this is fine and decent. Even better would be to say "hey it did not work, but even so our last act is to <maintain high perceived value coz we are the good guys>." It might be download your contacts, it might be grab your dogs' friends circle. Whatever - if it was important enough for users to give it to you for safekeeping that should be treated with kid gloves. This is sadly one of the more high profile moments a start up has - Handle it well, the founders will be seen as a safe pair of hands, do the equivalent of dropping the casket into the ground and walking off, maybe not so much. It's not great that this is a metric, it's not great that more VCs will see how they shutdown than saw how they started up - but this is just another startup. The founders have 30+ year careers ahead. Good for them for making something, good for them for trying, and good for trying to land it at all. Many just told up tents and steal away. We as a community are trying to learn the dos and donts of startup life cycles - seems to me this is one of the more high profile and often ignored donts.

pbreit 11y ago

It's a cute feature but hardly something that you could build a company around. Like Yo. In a case like this, do they ever transfer the service over to someone who might be interested in having a go at it (without any money exchanging hands)? Always seems like people would rather shut something down than hand it over which is unfortunate.

fab1an 11y ago
A 'cute feature' does become a company once enough people are using it. In a parallel universe you could have said the same about a shutdown notice of Twitter or Snapchat.
- weavie 11y ago
  A lot of people still do say the same about Snapchat. It just goes to show that it is really really hard to predict which ideas will catch on and which won't.
- pbreit 11y ago
  Twitter is foundational communications. The first time I saw Snapchat's ephemeral messaging I thought it was brilliant and a huge and important differentiator in messaging. There's some sort of selfie-ish value in Frontback but otherwise looks fadish and tiring.

pbreit 11y ago

I wonder how much it costs to keep this type of thing running? There's really no one out there stepping up to take it on? Edit: after reading the shutdown notice, it was a little vague about what's happening. It says the iOS app will convert to a camera app. Does that mean they are gonna try to retain connections to all the existing users and roll out out some new concept?

enra 11y ago
I understood it in a way that they will convert the app so that it will still have the "front+back" functionality, but only save the images to your camera roll. Basically an offline frontback.

BilalBudhani 11y ago

I'm an active user of this app. I really enjoy scrolling through app feed and discover people around the world by not just their selfies but also a proper image context attached with it. I'm in love with the idea of this app. Really sad to see they are shutting down the service :'(

pbreit 11y ago

The shutdown notice seems to suggest that this feature is available elsewhere. Anyone know where?

Kiro 11y ago

What was it?

corobo 11y ago
This was my question too.. I wish deadpool sites would keep something up there about what they did in their "So long and thanks for all the fish" statements Edit: Ah. From what I can tell, snapchat/instagram/genericPhotoApp except it takes a picture with both cameras http://web.archive.org/web/20150715211337/http://www.frontback.me/ http://web.archive.org/web/20150715211337/http://www.frontba...

thobakr 11y ago

One useless social media site less, how this can be bad?

mdevere 11y ago

Sorry to read about this. I too regarded Frontback as a feature rather than a new messaging paradigm. But I can see how you might say the same about Snapchat.

nstart 11y ago
Honestly, Snapchat felt more like a feature till they brought in stories. That interaction has been a game changer for them. In fact it's unique from the entire plethora of networks around. Especially when centered around an event or a country (their UFC mega stories are incredible).

rootlocus 11y ago

I love how you can destroy the logo / title by playing with the mouse over it.

talltofu 11y ago
Me too..wonder how it can be done. Is this a javascript library?
- robotnoises 11y ago
  Doing a little digging, there is a handler attached to the mousemove event on the canvas element. There is a credit here: Thanks to Giovanni Difeterici (http://www.gdifeterici.com/ http://www.gdifeterici.com/) ... but it's minified and I can't hunt down the source.