

Xobni - a waste of money - bosshog
http://greatapps.blogspot.com/2008/04/xobni-what-waste-of-money.html
Gee, and people wonder why UK startups hate the VCs over there.
======
jamess
I tend to agree. It was worth having a go at buying the company, but now
they've been rebuffed their next best option is simply to clone the
interesting bits in house.

It'll take them six months to produce a reasonable facsimile , but then they
probably don't have another feature release planned for that amount of time
anyway.

Personally, I think the Xobni guys are fools for refusing the offer. If
Microsoft are interested in acquiring the technology, then they're almost
certainly going to become a competitor now the offer is refused. They could do
far worse than selling out for 20 odd million in cash and stock, spending a
couple of years working for Microsoft while their stock vests and then going
on to the next big thing. Instead they've got themselves an uphill battle in
which they are running very barely ahead of a corporate juggernaut.

Well whatever happens, it should be entertaining.

~~~
henning
Yes they were foolish to turn down the offer, but competing against a culture
as meeting-centric and slow as Microsoft's is less challenging than you might
think, IMO.

(I can't believe they turned down the offer!)

~~~
fleaflicker
There are a lot of factors to weight when considering a sale. It's not as
simple as weighing the (rumored and potentially inaccurate) purchase price.

You can't say it was foolish unless you know everything--payment schedule
(cash/stock/milestones), ambition of founders, post-acquisition employment
requirements, future direction of the product.

~~~
jamiequint
not to mention that a sub $20M sale on $4.2M investment would not be seen
favorably at all by the investors sitting on the board.

~~~
mattmaroon
Right. I don't know what their premoney was, but it had to be in the 8-10
range I'd guess. VCs don't approve 2x returns.

------
greatapps
Dear All, as the originator of the blog post that has sparked this thread may
I begin by apologising for my sloppy spelling errors on the post, which I've
corrected and thanks for highlighting them. However, to correct some of the
misunderstandings and prejudices of other contributors to this thread

\- I was testing the add-in using BUSINESS email and sadly have too many
attachments on incoming emails from people who don't use online collaboration
services.

\- I've never tended to use an email inbox to store documents, preferring
windows file folders instead. Hence the attachments get saved off on receipt.
Personally I always found Outlook quite flaky as a file storage system and
would also hate to rely on remembering who sent which document.

\- I had to test Xobni on a family desktop as I've migrated away from Outlook
for all my work activities and Xobni only works in Outlook. Why pay licence
fees when you can use identical services online for free and access them from
anywhere? Hence, I simply downloaded business emails onto the home machine to
test over a couple of weeks.

\- Google desktop search is what I use to find anything on a PC, albeit most
of my docs get stored in the "cloud" these days. Hence, Xobni "search", which
is restricted to Outlook content, was superfluous.

\- As for the photo comments, sadly it's the face I was born with and the
photo was taken by Ian Forrestor of BBC Backstage fame at the London BBC
Backstage & Geek party in 2006. That my opinion is diminished coz you don't
like my picture...........wow, tough crowd

\- Oddly enough, I was writing as a past Xobni user and of my experience of
the product - my comments had nothing to do with being an investor.

\- I'm delighted that some people could derive use from this product.
Evidently we have considerably different needs or have settled on alternate
solutions.

~~~
yters
I regret that you've had this experience here. For some of us, the success of
startups is quite understandably an emotional issue, though that doesn't
excuse bad behavior like insulting your photo.

For the most part though, we primarily value respectful rational discussion
and I apologize again for catching some of us on a bad day.

~~~
edw519
Ditto.

One of the things I noticed at Startup School was that people were so busy
talking about substance (hacking, business, etc.), that there was little time
for fluff.

In any large group there are outliers. You found a few.

OTOH, I noticed you referred to us as "groupies" on your blog, but omitted
that sentence in this reply. I'm guessing you knew it would be inflammatory
here.

Nerds. Geeks. Weirdos. Bipolar obsessive compulsive basket cases. Fine.

But groupies? (Throws pocket protector at pg on stage.)

~~~
yters
Yeah, I'm not a groupie. pg has said time and again how he doesn't want us to
be groupies and I don't want to disappoint pg!

------
tx
I didn't care about social aspect at all, there were two absolutely crucial
features in Xobni that I absolutely loved:

1\. Ability to instantly see all attachments sent by a given person.

2\. Outlook's own search is unusable, I never mastered it, Xobni was a
godsend.

Take any product: some people like it and some won't. I liked Xobni and this
guy didn't. God knows why, perhaps he didn't have enough attachments or didn't
bother to search anything because of his phenomenal memory or something :)))

~~~
angstrom
I still use LookOut which solved the search issue 4+ years ago. Ironic that
Microsoft should buy LookOut. Bury it. Then look at buying a company that
solved the same problem again, even after not integrating the previous
acquisition (which mind you was fast and never slowed down Outlook).

Unfortunately, I saw the attachment lookup as the only thing useful.

~~~
nreece
That was my first impression too. Xobni is LookOut, only more social. LookOut
used Lucene to index the email's and allow flashing-fast searches. Too bad MS
killed them.

~~~
angstrom
Yeah, from what I understand it was buried to avoid competing with windows
live desktop search.

------
zkinion
I can just feel the angst and envy in this thread. Despite being a silly
product, they still worked very hard on it and built up enough spin and hype
to get it to that point. It brings up the argument that a startup can do any
kind of shenanigans as their business, but with hard work, resourcefulness,
determination, and perseverance, they can still be successful. Go read their
blog from years ago when it was just a couple of guys driving out to the
valley, all the way up till now with seven digit offers coming in.

Xobni will make off like bandits despite how "worthless" the product is. The
next offer will be for way more than the original $20 million. I wish them the
best of luck.

~~~
mynameishere
_The next offer will be for way more than the original $20 million._

You could be right. But when I saw that "20 million" I could hardly believe
it. If I was a MSFT exec, I'd simply say, "we'll give you 1.5 million (or
whatever), take it or leave it." If they left it, I'd have a couple interns
replicate the thing.

------
gruseom
Here's an example of how the context-freeness of the web can work against you.
I've never seen this guy's blog before. The headline was just interesting
enough to get above my click threshold. But when I got to the post, all I
noticed was how badly written it is:

 _perhaps it was quickly than trying to replicate_

 _some Microsoft underlying thinks that they will make the old boss happy_

If I knew the writer to be a frequent source of good insights, this wouldn't
have much effect. But I don't, so it does.

~~~
Tichy
Dismissing comments because of spelling errors? Not sure where it would lie in
PG's categories (ad hominen?), but anyway. I remember the other saying, that
sometimes you can learn more from your enemies than from your friends, because
they are more likely to tell you the truth. How many people here on HN will
dare to criticize a YC startup?

Personally I don't need or use Xobni, so I can't comment. And anyway, I
probably make a lot of spelling mistakes, too, because English is only my
second language. So feel free to ignore my comments.

~~~
dunn
>> How many people here on HN will dare to criticize a YC startup?

You said it. Doing so is grounds for ruthless downmodding on here.

PG said there are 30 editors now. People are getting accounts marked dead at
the drop of a hat, if they don't drink the kool-aid.

~~~
pg
_People are getting accounts marked dead at the drop of a hat, if they don't
drink the kool-aid._

That's false, as anyone can see by looking at the dead comments and
submissions. There have always been people on here criticizing YC and YC-
funded startups. And there have always been about 30 editors, for that matter.

~~~
mixmax
"There have always been people on here criticizing YC and YC-funded startups"

And so there should be. Disagreeing on merits, and doing so in a good tone
makes interesting conversation and broadens everyones minds. There's a lot of
great disagreeing on YC news.

------
Prrometheus
So, someone that doesn't usually use Outlook doesn't like Xobni's Outlook
plug-in? How is this newsworthy?

Many of the things he said he never did in Outlook were things I did when I
used Outlook four dozen times a day. He could have saved time by writing "I am
not in the target audience" and been done with it.

~~~
greatapps
The observations I made about Xobni on my blog post were reflective of a)
having formerly used Outlook for many years in large corporate settings b) my
assessment of the functional usefulness of the add-in to me. I'm happy to hear
about your personal experiences of the add-in in order to better understand
the killer features/purposes I've apparently missed and the value it has given
you.

~~~
wumi
this implies you consider the native Outlook search, message threading, and
attachment handling better than Xobni's. i'd be surprised if you used Outlook
for that long and really thought so.

------
vlad
The only person I can think of who is a level above anybody else is Patrick
Collison. Everyone else is just in the game, and that's the most important
thing. It's easy to think, why the hell did a startup get funded? However,
VC's have to invest--it's their job--because the money will be lost due to
inflation. And they can't invest in one company, they have to diversify. So if
a group of young people with a revenge of the nerds attitude and no other
commitments are willing to move to California and work harder than anybody
else, and in the software field, no less, then what other choice do VC's have
than to invest?

Young people (less commitments, more optimism) make up a small portion of the
population. Good programmers make up a small portion as well. Those willing to
relocate (California), also. Those who are willing to dedicate themselves to
doing a startup for multiple years, tiny. So when you find an individual who
has all of these qualities, and as part of a bigger group, you're now talking
a very tiny, tiny portion of the country. And VC's have no choice but to
invest in you.

------
okeumeni
I have not used Xobni myself, but I think if I have implemented a plug in for
Outlook, offered $20M by Microsoft for it, I will take the money and run as
fast as I can. Outlook is a Microsoft product, they have unlimited resources,
they understand Outlook itself better than anyone outside. Hey this guys can
replicate the plug in really fast time trust me. I’m a consultant and done
stuff for them I know some of the people there; a bunch of really smarts
hackers.

~~~
Tichy
Plus, Microsoft is dead, and hence Outlook is dead, too.

------
sharpshoot
This isn't actually a 'vc' in the UK who has any standing either

~~~
greatapps
Sumon, thanks for your kind comment on my "standing". I look forward to seeing
you again in London in person, perhaps at Open Coffee, and maybe we can
compare our respective CVs. Meantime, perhaps you can elaborate on what
relevance my employment has to my comments on my user experience of this
Outlook add-in?

~~~
jgrahamc
> I look forward to seeing you again in London in person,

> perhaps at Open Coffee, and maybe we can compare our

> respective CVs.

The CV of the commentator is irrelevant. He's not claiming to be more
experienced/well known than you; he is claiming that you are not a well known
UK VC.

------
tocomment
What relationships does Xobni uncover? How does it do it?

I was thinking to make a web app where people could upload their cell phone
records and it would find relationships, but I'm not sure what to look for
exactly. Any ideas?

~~~
angstrom
I would start with very trusting people. The kind that would be gullible
enough to upload their private phone records.

Seriously though. This is just like what Facebook tried to do with the
purchase history thing last fall. It didn't go over too well. There's good
reason that some things should never be made public.

The problem I see with the social networks is that in order for them to
capture any truely valuable relationship data they have to tread on First
Amendment rights. Google can luckily stay in the annonymous territory and reap
the rewards. The social networks aren't going to be as lucky.

