Is there a right way to shut down a business?

A game developer, after raising funding, goes bust as it fails to attract users. However, an internal tool they were able to salvage is worth $18Bn today.

Is there really a right way to even shut down?

In 2010, Tiny Speck raised $7M from Andreessen Horowitz & Accel to develop a game called ‘Glitch’ which launched in Sep 2011.

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In Nov 2011, it was rolled back due to accessibility & depth issues.

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In Dec 2012, it was officially shut down.

The team sat down dejected and lamented at all their effort for over 3 years wasted.

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Their CEO called in the team and gave them the bad news and had to let most of the team go.

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All the while they continued to use their internal communications tool - an internal tool they had built to help them better manage communication & collaboration.

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Someone joked if that tool may have been the most valuable thing they had built.

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Áha!

The tool was called "Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge".

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Or Slack in short.

Slack was launched from the ashes of Glitch in Aug 2013.

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In 2019, when they went public, they surpassed 10 million DAU.

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They listed at a valuation of $23Bn.

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57.5x their ARR.

#venturecapital#privateequity#ipo#slack#salvage#shutdown#failure#insider#business#entrepreneurship#growth#techstartups

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