All things come to an end. At least this is what people think and this is exactly what happened with Social Whale. We are very sad to make this announcement but as it looks there is no alternative option at the moment.
How our little story started
We’ve started back in 2008 with the vision of creating a complete social media client. In fact we were just creating a product for ourselves but as it seemed many people liked it. This way we became a team very fast and Social Whale transformed from a pet project to a full time business for everyone involved.
The experience was fantastic. We were one of the first tools that added so many networks, we were picked up by geek VIPs, we won a few contests and in general our little team from Greece was ready to reach the skies. But…
We’ve failed. Many many times
And failure was fantastic too. We’ve learned so many things, and as people were still loving us after each and every of those failures we were happy. And we were keep going, and we were keep on failing.
But finally we understood that we had to stop chasing this vision. At least for the time being. After all it’s all about the team, not the product. And some times you need to let go.
Below are the main reasons we finally shut down the service:
1. Startups need a lot of money
Keeping a team of great talented people requires money. Of course we had no problem sacrificing anything in order to keep our vision alive, but after a point it was obvious that Social Whale would never had the chance to bootstrap and take care of our financial issues. On the other hand raising funds for a crazy idea like this is very hard, especially in a place like Greece.
2. The “open web” is old news
Since the last years an observer of the big social media players can see that all the openness that created monsters like Twitter and Facebook is fading away.
Suits now need money so everyone is closing their platform in order to make some. We really hope that this trend will stop when social networks find a way to monetize their growth, or maybe when other networks emerge that deal with the problem. But until then we can’t risk our efforts.
We are really sad that Twitter actually banned clients, social backup services and in general they are restricting access to their API. This is a reality that should keep every cool team out of their ecosystem.
3. Startups are about the people who create them
The ultimate lesson we got from this experience was the importance of our team. We really like working on cool things that can help people, and in order to do that we need to… well exist. So we decided to start another product that can actually have some impact, and in the same time help us have our costs covered.
It was a fantastic journey. We really feel grateful to all those people who have supported us, and we hope we can do something with our beloved whale later.
Kind of a sad story, but we should keep in mind that the end of something is usually the beginning of something else 🙂
well startups have always been tough, and we’ll always be.
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“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people!” – Randy Pausch
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No, it’s not a sad story, it was a great journey! Learning new tricks, bending the rules, bonding with fellow co-workers. Failing can be a blessing. Everyone in the startup community (should) knows that already.
Best of luck on your new endeavours!
Hi there, just wanted to say ‘Chapeau’ for that honest ‘goodbye’ letter. Also, I’ve checked out your new idea and will definitely test as we will be selling digital products soon for http://www.krysalis-publishing.com – so far we thought we would go with Payloadz but if your offer is easier to use…very fine with me.
Best regards from Bonn, Germany
Kristin
Thanks Kristin, we really appreciate that 🙂
Stunning story there. What occurred after?
Good luck!
Hopefully there will be an update at some point, so stay tuned 😉
Pity to see the reality hitting hard .Exactly as you describe in your post,internet is not free anymore,in any sense…Time we rethink our social communication,time we step away from the kids who designed this ecosystem with sole motivation the profit.The kids that today have the power to shape our future,based on their wisdom from grabbing opportunities…If this is what progress is all about,i d rather we stay a bit primitive….Maybe we ve gone a bit faster than we should have done,maybe its time to return to this ancient thing the Greeks called “balance”