

Workfu is shutting down. - diwank
https://workfu.com/the-end

======
mherdeg
Visiting their front page at <http://workfu.com/> yields a lightboxed "UPDATE
31/08/2012: We are currently in discussions regarding the possibilities of
keeping WorkFu alive and will update as soon as we have more information."

~~~
da_n
Announce imminent closure of nascent service, submit to HN

Get more traffic than you ever had in 9 months previous combined

...

Profit

(colour me sceptic)

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yllus
Is nine months really enough time to make a determination whether a company is
viable? It seems a little on the short side, and I recall reading in a number
of places that you can only truly know how it's going a couple of years in. Is
the issue here that resources/finances weren't adequately planned for?

~~~
thibaut_barrere
Determining if a company is currently viable is pretty easy maths in most
cases.

But most likely you could have written it "whether a company could become
viable soon"?

~~~
ovi256
>Determining if a company is currently viable is pretty easy maths in most
cases.

That sounds very interesting, could you care to elaborate please ?

~~~
thibaut_barrere
Is that a real question?

In this case, income and its recurrence, expenses and their recurrence,
current cash reserve and trends give you a pretty good picture to figure out
if you can pay the 4 families behind workfu or not.

I'm not talking about complicated monster companies with heavy fiscal tactics,
more about classic companies where you sell something.

~~~
ovi256
Oh, I see, I was thinking more about a startup project and expecting a thumb
rule of viability à la lean startup. Of course income - expenses is easy :)

~~~
thibaut_barrere
Exactly :) It can be applied to B2B startup projects easily too.

Well - startups waiting to be acquired and/or do not charge the users is
another story :)

------
sgdesign
I'm somewhat in the same space with Folyo (<http://folyo.me>), and I know it's
not an easy market.

But Workfu was one of the competitors I was most impressed with. They had a
great team and great execution, so I hope they find a way to pull through
somehow.

I guess this is the only time being a single founder is actually an advantage.
Since I run Folyo by myself I have very few expenses, and can always feed
myself by taking on client work if need be.

~~~
znq
> Since I run Folyo by myself I have very few expenses, and can always feed
> myself by taking on client work if need be.

I believe that's also true if you're a team. In my opinion even more, because
you don't have one person being distracted by too many things, but can
distribute tasks to various people, where each of them can focus on those that
are related.

~~~
smoyer
One of their blog posts states "4 wives placated" ... your life situation
tends to determine what risk and austerity you can afford so this particular
team might find it harder than other teams would to also do side projects to
pay the bills.

------
chefsurfing
I read a quote recently that "most startups get interesting around 18 months".
I think you guys are giving up too soon. Workfu has enormous potential. Either
way, kudos for making it as far as you have.

------
robinwauters
From the looks of it, this announcement dates back to August 8?
<https://twitter.com/workfu/status/233143828503224320> \- and as mherdeg
points out, their most recent update is to be found on the homepage.

------
bdcravens
Took a look at the home page, did a double take when I saw the "FU Score".
Maybe that resonates poorly with potential users? I get that we're supposed to
use cutesy Web 2.0 names, but if what makes a hacker smile doesn't lead to
revenue, it has no place.

------
brittohalloran
It's a beautiful site. I'm thinking someone is in the process of buying it.

~~~
thibaut_barrere
My thoughts exactly. It's really polished for something bootstrapped. Were
there designers in the founders?

------
brackin
Interesting, I saw one of the founders talk about the company a couple of
weeks before this was announced and they were heavily promoting the company,
felt like things were going well for them.

~~~
adgar
See the other front page story about startup founders and bullshitting.

~~~
brackin
Sure but it wasn't a big startup event but a small event for teens looking to
get into tech. He had little incentive to lie and put that much effort into
personally conversations.

~~~
wahnfrieden
Sometimes the truth hits suddenly.

------
veyron
I'm actually launching something in the same space on Labor Day
(<http://codewren.ch>). This is not a particularly good omen ...

~~~
callmevlad
Off topic, but I'm very curious... why did you decide to launch on Labor Day?
Aside from the slight symbolic connection to your product, aren't you
concerned that you'll have a much smaller audience due to the holiday?

~~~
veyron
I literally conceived of this idea a month ago. My day job is in finance, so
this break is the first contiguous block of time I could find to put it
together. As far as audience is concerned, its true that the audience is
smaller but that's good insofar as emergent problems can be addressed before
people come back on Tuesday :)

------
medinismo
any other insights as to why they are shutting down? did they raise anything
after being featured on the TC London Web Summit in March? how were they
bootstrapping?

------
johnmurch
Wonder if they will open source the code they built

------
wensing
What were they missing? Distribution?

~~~
scott_meade
They were missing two, directly related things: a revenue model and paying
customers. (Not meant to be snarky or to point out the obvious, but simply
factual.)

~~~
noinput
Why not spend the afternoon figuring out a freemium vs. paid model, 15 minutes
to setup Stripe, a few days setting up an LLC/Inc + Banking account all the
while integrating?

Worst case you're out a few hundred bucks for the company formation, best case
you start making money.

~~~
thibaut_barrere
Maybe they did the maths and it turns out even with many clients, the current
costs are too high (just an hypothesis)?

Or it would take much more time than allowed, even with some outside funding?

For sure, I find the site is really, really beautiful and polished for a
bootstrapped venture. It could maybe have helped to have something less
polished but focusing on selling subscriptions earlier on? (no sarcasm really
here, real question).

If one of the founders is reading, as a bootstrapper myself, I'd love to hear
more about the underlying reasons to close.

------
mongrelion
Why don't they just sell the company?

~~~
rwhitman
Have you ever tried to sell a web app with no traction or revenue? Its not
easy

~~~
matt1
Can you elaborate on what your best courses of action are if you are in this
spot and would like to sell?

~~~
TillE
You could probably get a small chunk of change on Flippa.

