

Ask HN: Does the acqui-hire-shutdown trend limit your use of startups? - bsg75

Another startup has been acquired and scheduled for shutdown (Moped), and this seems to be a regular occurrence of late.<p>While I understand in some cases there is not a financial interest in keeping some products running, especially if there is no revenue to offset costs, it makes me hesitant to base any business functions on new products when I have no control over their longevity.<p>There are a lot of great tools out there, but for those with no premise option, a &quot;cloud only&quot; option controlled by the vendor seems less and less attractive. Even with data export options, lacking a local backup service does not lessen the risk much.<p>Does anyone have a counter-view that makes inventing time, effort, or money in tenuous startups attractive?
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tptacek
Most startups do not get acqui-hired, even if they have users. So shouldn't
you instead be asking, "does the fact that most startups fail limit your use
of startups?"

That's a valid question. But it's also one of the oldest questions in
technology marketing; it is among the top 3 objections to sales new enterprise
companies face. There's a billion dollar business (escrow) built around the
problem.

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bsg75
> So shouldn't you instead be asking, "does the fact that most startups fail
> limit your use of startups?"

Valid point. I think there is something more frustrating to "We were bought,
so our customers need to go away" vs "We tried but it did not work out."

