

Ask HN: Pledges for SaaS startups valuing sustainability and ethics; any interest? - jamesisaac

I&#x27;m sure we&#x27;re all familiar with the regular posts that pop up here about startups shutting down on their users, often with very little notice.<p>As a potential user, this often makes me uncomfortable investing a lot of time into products I come across.  It&#x27;s difficult to tell the difference between a sustainable business model with clear vision and values, vs the typical &quot;hypergrowth&quot; startup which a year from now will probably have either shut down, completely pivoted, or been acquired.<p>An idea I had which could help alleviate this problem: a set of standardised &quot;pledges&quot; which startups can commit to, which outline some mututally agreeable obligations between the service and the end user.<p>This could of course cover many areas, but the ones that I think would make a good start are: Long-term service (X years minimum of guaranteed service), Personal data integrity (no selling data to 3rd parties), No data lock-in, Transparent subscription pricing, and Privacy-first (user data always private unless opting-in).<p>Draft for the more detailed conditions of the pledges here:<p>- https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;jamesisaac&#x2F;pledges&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;pledges.md<p>Advantage for users: easy to recognise at a glance that the company is following agreeable standards (don&#x27;t have to scrutinise marketing copy &#x2F; terms of use &#x2F; privacy policy).  Advantage for providers: clear focus on values could be a USP over competitors.<p>I&#x27;ve created an example of how this could be presented on my product&#x27;s landing page: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nachapp.com (scroll to &quot;Our values&quot;)<p>So, is anyone here interested in this?  I think it would work best as a group&#x2F;community effort where the pledges are finalised by consensus.  So, if you&#x27;re either a user who&#x27;d like to help define what constitutes a good product, or a founder who&#x27;d potentially be interested in committing to these pledges, it would be great if you could drop me an email (contact details in profile) so I can coordinate the effort and keep everyone updated.
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mcintyre1994
You say this could make you more competitive and that might be the case - but
ultimately I get the impression you're less likely to be acquired (fair
enough, maybe you definitely don't want that) and/or/thus more likely to shut
down.

Realistically your pledge means nothing if you go bankrupt and shut down. Your
startup could still fail and nobody really has any recourse in general. You
could probably find ways around that but forcing liability on founders will
probably make this less likely to catch on.

An acquirer is going to be held to these presumably, and they probably can't
just go bankrupt to avoid them - so that's less likely to happen. Maybe that's
what you want but it cuts a big exit path out for founders - and acquisitions
aren't always terrible for users. I wouldn't be surprised if there exist
acquirers for some startup that would keep users happy for >X years but not
commit legally to doing so for X years.

I guess there's a bit of a cycle and it really leads to the pledge being
worthless. Less likely to be acquired + can't pivot for X years -> keep doing
the same product -> but it's losing money -> no viable exit, no pivot -> shut
down.

~~~
jamesisaac
If a company didn't have a sustainable business model yet and was losing
money, then yeah, it wouldn't make sense to pledge for Long-term support. It's
kind of a stamp of "Yup, we've our cashflow under control, happy to keep doing
what we're doing".

Alternatively, the pledges can all be used individually, so you could use some
of the others without a commitment to long-term support. That's a stamp of
"We're not exactly sure how sustainable this idea is yet, but we have ethical
standards so we'd prefer to let the company fold than to screw you over
(privacy/selling data/quietly raising subscription fees etc) to try and reach
profitability".

In both those cases, it would make me feel more confident as a user signing up
(especially if they're an app for managing some private/personal part of my
life).

Yeah, it makes an exit more difficult. Of course if you make no promises to
your users, you can make more money because you're free to sell to the highest
bidder, no matter what their intentions. But that's kind of the point of these
pledges - as a founder it's saying "I care more about maintaining certain
values for my users than making myself rich through the first acquisition
offer than comes my way". I'm sure there are founders that think that way,
even if they're in the minority - that's really who I'm trying to reach.

EDIT: Also, what I've got in the draft is a clause for each pledge about the
correct procedure for retracting the commitment (properly informing users and
giving them time to act), so if an acquirer really wanted to go back on the
pledges they could - but, rightfully so, they may lose some customers who felt
strongly about those values.

~~~
mcintyre1994
I guess what I'm not convinced about is that the pledge really means much. A
company says it has everything under control and will keep on for a few years,
great. But what if it doesn't really? It'll presumably shut down at some point
if it keeps doing badly, and then what? All it really says is they have these
values and think they'll last, but there's nothing really truly backing that.

Making the pledges individually seems to make sense - I don't think long term
support is something many startups can seriously offer and it feels like
selling smoke to try to sell that in the typical case.

Making them retractable with user knowledge also seems fair - although
retracting LTS just before shutting down isn't really meaningful.

I think really my concerns are probably just around LTS, which I think is
really unrealistic for most startups to guarantee - and ultimately meaningless
if they fail anyway. The other pledges just seem to make acquisitions/pivots
less likely and thus shutting down more likely - screwing over the LTS pledge
again.

I can see why it'd give some users confidence but ultimately at least with LTS
it just seems to end up being a buzzword selling point with nothing really
behind it.

~~~
jamesisaac
Yeah, LTS is quite different from the others. It's the only one which can't be
retracted, btw. A startup should only commit to LTS if they're willing to keep
the funds aside to keep the service running for existing users for X years
(they can close off new registrations or whatever - it's just a commitment to
existing users - they could even fully pivot just so long as they keep the
legacy system running alongside).

You're right that the system is no way foolproof, I do think it's an
improvement over the current situation though, and a step towards more
accountability.

It's really just based on trust - like how many people now distrust Facebook
over privacy issues (even though Facebook never really promised anything). If
a founder were to commit to these pledges, then go and break them, they could
probably expect a similar type of distrust in their future ventures.

~~~
mcintyre1994
I've kept thinking about this because I feel like I'm being overly critical of
your idea - but I equally don't think skepticism toward the claims of startup
founders is particularly unhealthy.

I suspect it's a case of messaging - and as you said trust. If I were looking
at a startup of yours, knowing you were OP here, and saw those pledges I feel
like I'd take them seriously. If I saw them on a typical landing page I'd
probably dismiss them. That said I guess a founder who can hope to follow
through on these should probably be able to control their messaging and
convince me.

On another note though I'm not convinced it'd really affect future ventures -
I don't think that outside the SV/HN bubble people really know or care who
founders of startups/companies are. I suspect if you took a typical Series A
startup most of its users would probably have as much chance of knowing its
investors as its founders.

That definitely doesn't make it pointless though - I think it was a mistake
for me to call it that. It's a case of messaging and trust and I suspect most
startups would fail the litmus test of convincing me they mean anything.

