Ventures that come and go
For the founder parade I was going to talk about the founders of ‘Chomp’; a really useful search engine of apps i came across . However, as it was not related to education, I changed my mind. I was going to share the site with you for this week, but it’s gone! Apparently Apple bought it at the beginning of the year, and has now decided to phase it out (. I guess I was right it was a good venture, so much so Apple preferred to buy them out and shelve them to avoid competition for them. Maybe when thinking of ventures, it’s not always necessary to think of something totally new, but rather of something that will compete with something existing. Isn’t that why Facebook bought Instagram?
Posted in: Week 05:
Jonathan 6:33 pm on October 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
It’s sad when the big companies gobble up the small ventures. The one that stick in my mind is Sparrow an Apple mail client for iPhone and Mac desktop. When Google bought it out it was truly for the talent. It’s good that the talent isn’t going away, what makes it sad is that the great apps that they built will no longer be developed. 🙁
Another one that sticks in my mind is one for iOS. It was on a jailbroken iPhone where users could bring down a control panel from the main screen to access many functionalities. Apple offered him a job, he stopped developing his “app” but now we get to see it baked into iOS. It’s a up and down thing but it’s sad to see the small “guys” disappear into the big companies.
Peggy Lawson 3:40 pm on October 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I fully agree adi – sometimes a successful venture is one in which the founders assume they will not have a long, independent shelf-life, instead creating a product or service that either due to usefulness or avoidance of competition is expecting to be bought by a larger fish. I’m not sure, Jonathan, how sad those entreprenuers are when they get gobbled up. Many may continue working on their products in an environment that can provide them with better funding, or they are free to go off and come up with yet another new idea or two. I understand what you suggest about them feeling sad when their original ideas get buried when bought out, but I suspect many (most?) true entreprenurs are more married to the idea of making money than of birthing a viable product.
Peggy