
Cue is Shutting Down - christangrant
http://cueup.com/
======
citricsquid
Formerly Greplin. For those that don't know what it/they did:

[http://www.crunchbase.com/company/cue](http://www.crunchbase.com/company/cue)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/30/technology/apps-that-
know-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/30/technology/apps-that-know-what-
you-want-before-you-do.html) (July 2013)

~~~
stargate87
Thanks for this - I has no idea it was the same team. It's a shame, but that
smart of a team is probably doing it for the right reasons.

------
orbitur
There were Cue job postings here on HN close to a month ago. :/

~~~
ratsimihah
And these were really attractive.

~~~
Stately
I applied to one... their Jam Room looked amazing.

~~~
ratsimihah
So they've actually been acquired. I guess they didn't _just_ look amazing.

------
treskot
TechCrunch posted this update: We are hearing from additional sources that
they did raise that extra funding, so this is looking like a product pivot or
a sale rather than a full shutdown of the company.

Source: [http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/02/cue-
greplin/](http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/02/cue-greplin/)

------
gojomo
Their initial product was impressive and useful. Hope we get more information
about what went wrong, and that the team lands somewhere good.

~~~
sonier
Agree, would love to see a post-mortem blog post. I would also be interesting
in finding out what they will do with the technology they created, it would be
great if they open sourced it!

~~~
nevvkid
here you go. [https://github.com/Cue](https://github.com/Cue)

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ballard
It's sad, I remember greplin had a lot of things going for them.

In general re: shutdowns:

If the economics aren't red ink or a white elephant, why not find a buyer or
merge with a frenemy instead of throwing away value and customers?

Most shutdowns appear to me like putting 30 packs of $100 bills on a table,
pouring gasoline over them and throwing a lit match while rationalizing
"Everybody does it, so it's okay. Look at 'em go!"

For apps, building things that cost basically nothing[0] to run and letting
them have sufficient time to grow on their own. Rinse. Lather. Repeat faster.

[0] auto-scaling & revenue covering costs.

\--

"A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds." \- Sir F. Bacon

~~~
MaysonL
Then again, it has been reported that Apple bought them.

~~~
NKCSS
Yup: [http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/03/cue-acquired-for-
over-40m-l...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/03/cue-acquired-for-
over-40m-likely-by-apple-to-compete-with-google-now/)

------
nathancahill
Much sadness. Greplin was an amazing idea, but the execution was a little off
for them to reach mass adoption (although I think it was ideal for a niche
group of people). I think they tried to change that with their pivot to Cue,
but obviously it was not successful.

I'll certainly remember their programming adventure challenge fondly. I hope
they at least open source that, if they can't open source other parts of their
software for whatever reason.

------
element_4
Is this the company that had that cool terminal adventure programming
challenge?

~~~
snewman
Yes they were, and yes it was cool. Seems to be down now though -- part of the
rather sudden Cue-shaped hole in the Internet.

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user-id
Wow, I really thought their initial value proposition (originally as Greplin)
was of great utility.

~~~
mintplant
Yeah, I was kicking myself for not have thought of it when I first heard of
them. Sad to see the company go out like this.

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madisonmay
I'd be very interested in learning why Cue is calling it quits -- I really
loved the concept behind their service. Has anyone managed to find their
contact information?

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dquail
Cue (shutdown), Don.na (pivoted), Tempo, Sunrise, Google Now, others.
Fascinating space with a lot of competition. But has any of these products
gotten close to a revenue model?

~~~
canistr
Throw in some of the mail clients and other apps like Sparrow, Mailbox, and
Fantastical and from the outside, it seems more like acqui-hires to absorb the
product and team into a bigger company is the way to go.

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OoTheNigerian
Quite unfortunate.

I liked Greplin and it really helped me several times to find 'missing' tweets
and FB posts. When they pivoted and changed the name, the search part became
below par. So I stopped using it entirely.

I do not know why they changed the previously good generic name and the
original focus. I am sure they probably had more info than I do.

As we create more content scattered all over, personal search is becoming more
useful. I hope something good comes again.

Best of luck to the team on what ever they do next.

------
defen
Maybe they got an NSL - sudden shutdown, all data deleted...

~~~
dingdingdang
NSL?

~~~
adcuz
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Letter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Letter)

------
afontaine
I think this is definitely a pivot, judging by the founder's YC experience
([http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2011/03/05/greplin-
founde...](http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2011/03/05/greplin-founder-
daniel-gross-on-his-amazing-story-behind-building-the-company-interview/)).

They're very smart, I'm sure whatever they build next will be even better.

------
romeonova
Is this the same Cue that Apple bought?

[http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/03/why-did-apple-buy-cue-
becau...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/03/why-did-apple-buy-cue-because-
google-now-eats-siris-lunch/)

~~~
aditij
Yes, I believe so.

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sudomal
It would be nice when a company is shuttered or acquired for it to briefly
state what it did in the announcement. I saw one business last night that had
been acquired by Google with no mention of its purpose.

------
joshdance
I used Greplin quite a few times to find where I had heard something or seen a
link. It was useful in that respect. But not useful enough to pay for. I never
saw much of a monetization model going for them.

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miguelrochefort
Why?

They were in my top 5 favorite startups. Were they killed by Siri and Google
Now?

------
saumil07
This is a real bummer - our company's first office was right next to Greplin
and they were amazingly smart and quite nice. Good luck to the team.

------
joeblau
I find it weird that this company would be shutting down just as everyone is
raving about Shel and Roberts book: Age Of Context. I might reach out to the
guys at cue and see what they noticed that is leading them to shutdown/pivot
to a new business.

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matthewbaker
Was sad to see what happened to Cue. It's another example of a great idea with
terrible timing. How do you compete when the biggest players in the game join
the race?

Cheers guys, there was obvious talent on your team! Interested to see what
comes next...

------
flashblu
Sad to hear, as I had discovered them recently and was interested in the
problems they were tackling. I guess this isn't a complete surprise, with
their Twitter account looking inactive as of late.

~~~
flashblu
Wow, not such a sad ending after all. It looks like they got acquired by Apple
for between $40 million and $60 million; no wonder their shut down message on
their website didn't state that they ran out of money or something.
[http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/03/cue-acquired-for-
over-40m-l...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/03/cue-acquired-for-
over-40m-likely-by-apple-to-compete-with-google-now/)

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vingt-2
Cuedown.com you mean ?

------
jdross
From what I can tell, and what I've heard from friends of the company, they
shut down Cue the product, not the company.

The team is likely working on a new product.

~~~
treskot
They would have done a pivot if they were indeed working on a new product.
Like they did with Greplin.

------
mmayberry
Did Cue every receive any buyout / exit options?

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TinyBig
Wow, sad to hear this. They had an outstanding service.

Until I read the message on their homepage, I never realized they had a
premium service!

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agibsonccc
That's a shame, very cool concept. I wish them all the best. What was their
actual business model though? Anyone know?

~~~
rmrfrmrf
Freemium. You could get basic functionality for free, but certain tasks would
cost money. I seem to remember thinking that the balance between what was free
and what was paid was a bit off.

~~~
agibsonccc
I see now. So they were trying to go off of in app purchases? That's not a bad
way to do it. I think the problem is monetizing a service like that WITH
competitors like google now is just a hard problem in general. I could see
where it would be a good idea if they had some good lockin. It was definitely
worth an attempt.

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arthurcolle
Why can't they open source their code?

~~~
dougaitken
[https://github.com/Cue](https://github.com/Cue)

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rparet
ah, how unfortunate! as a user, would love to see some / all of their stuff
become open sourced, if possible.

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bjonathan
I was using their product, I paid for their product and they shut it down
without notice ? Classy move !

------
priley
We have essentially the same functionality coming out soon. Register at
ark.com

~~~
zmitri
Interested to know what you think about them shutting down then. Seems like
they were quite far along... Any insight on what changed their mind or what
you will do differently?

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oldgregg
Why?

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olegp
For those of you that will miss Cue and Greplin, there is hope. We are about
to release our cloud search feature at StartHQ.

Here's a screencast - search is towards the end:
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/04rrwxuuvkzpyrp/starthq.mp4](https://www.dropbox.com/s/04rrwxuuvkzpyrp/starthq.mp4)

You can sign up here: [https://starthq.com](https://starthq.com)

Please use the Feedback form to let us know which services you'd like us to
support and we will prioritize them for launch.

PS. For a bit of background on us, here's a blog post that was on the front
page of HN on Monday [http://www.arcticstartup.com/2013/09/30/starthq-
capitalizes-...](http://www.arcticstartup.com/2013/09/30/starthq-capitalizes-
on-googles-change-of-the-new-tab-page)

PPS. Sad to see Greplin go, loved the service but was too afraid to give
access to my data at all times, so ended up building our federated search
which doesn't require that. Would be very interested to know more about what
happened.

~~~
miguelrochefort
This has nothing to do with Cue/Greplin.

~~~
olegp
Did you watch the screencast to the end? i ran a search and got personalized
results from all my web apps like Gmail and AngelList. How is this not like
Greplin?

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mbreese
I know you're just trying to promote your company, but it feels a little like
handing out business cards at a funeral. Sure, you can do it, but it seems
little tacky. This post is still in the mourning phase. It will probably move
on to the post-mortem, what is a replacement for it phase tomorrow or Friday.

