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Comment by Eighth | Hacker News Reader

I'm suprised they're shutting down because of a lack of a buyer/investor rather than making it and keeping it as a successful business. Are the goals these days for a big buy out?

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Once you take seed funding you're locked into a raise and re-raise treadmill until you grow sufficiently to find an exit. VCs/seed shops aren't there to help you build a lifestyle business. They're trying to either fail fast or get a 10x multiple and move on, which means either an IPO or (far more likely these days) an acquisition.

Maybe I'm a rarity in this, but I actually prefer paying for services that are not VC funded. That way I feel like I am less likely to have the rug pulled out from under me.

Geckoboard is an interesting opposite example of this. They took a seed round more than ten years ago and have been slowly and steadily maintaining the business, resisting further rounds. I don't know their finances but they seem to continue to be doing well.

And that does happen occasionally, but they're rare and it doesn't go on forever.

Bandcamp was similarly private for 15 years after taking a few rounds of funding, but they eventually got acquired, and I guarantee you that's because those investors pushed for an exit while the projected future revenues of the company justified a higher valuation.

I myself worked for a company that was private for 12 years after seed funding and five rounds of VC capital. But eventually we were pushed into a (poorly conceived) acquisition.

The merry-go-round always stops. It's just a matter of time.

The subtext is: it wasn't a successful business, so the only option for survival was to try to find a buyer/investor to fund it on the promise of future success

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