
Frontback Shutting Down - eknight15
http://www.frontback.me/
======
moonlighter
What's interesting is that they were able to raise $4 million, and rejected a
$40 million acquisition by Twitter (according to
[http://www.businessinsider.com/frontback-app-shuts-
down-2015...](http://www.businessinsider.com/frontback-app-shuts-down-2015-7))

~~~
downandout
This should be somewhat instructive to founders of companies that get far
enough to receive a buyout offer. Try to realistically evaluate your startup's
place in the world; in most cases, a buyout offer is something that should be
seriously considered. Your company is almost certainly not the next Facebook
or Snapchat.

~~~
drcross
This is a specious comment because you now have the value of hindsight. I
suppose you also probably advised Mark Zucherburg to not sell?

~~~
jacquesm
> This is a specious comment because you now have the value of hindsight.

No it isn't.

The problem is to accurately put a value on your company and it's future.

It isn't rare at all to find founders that are in the most literal sense of
the word delusional about what the value of a company is.

I've had this with one of my co-founders who held out for a much larger buy-
out offer than one that we had on the table and then subsequently ended up
being extremely upset when after blocking that particular deal he could not
find a better one and ended up taking _much_ less from the company than the
offer that had been on the table already.

I'm sure that his hindsight told him that maybe his valuation wasn't all that
accurate after all.

Hindsight being what it is - 20/20 - if you remember that a price is never
right (sell it: you're too cheap, don't sell it: you're too expensive) that
there is room on both sides and overlap between the ranges is required to make
a deal.

If you always hold out for better you will _never_ make a deal. So knowing
when an offer is 'good' is the key and being realistic about valuations will
help you to figure out what is good.

> I suppose you also probably advised Mark Zucherburg to not sell?

Mark Zuckerberg (not Zucherburg) never intended to sell at all, that's a key
difference.

~~~
mgkimsal
> It isn't rare at all to find founders that are in the most literal sense of
> the word delusional about what the value of a company is.

Agreed. Example:

him: "Got an idea!"

me: "Let's hear it..."

him: 'splains idea

me: "neat - hold on"

me: build quick mvp to get initial users - 2 days

him: "oh but it needs xyz"

me: "not until you talk to customers"

him: weeks later, a bit of traction

me: "cool - you know, if you/we can get some more users in this area, maybe up
and down the coast, this would be a nice little acquisition from someone like
4square"

him: "what?? i'd never sell"

me: "we'd probably be looking at a couple million for less than a year of
work, assuming you can get the traction"

him: "this is going to be _bigger than Facebook_ \- this will be everywhere!
don't you understand the _value_ here?"

me: "you're serious, aren't you?"

Yes, he was deadly serious. Over the years, he's mellowed a bit in that
intensity, but still seemed to hold on to the notion that having an idea and
someone building an MVP = ownership of billion dollar marketplace. The notion
that other people considered the idea and deemed it not worth pursuing, or
perhaps have _actually tried it_ and learned it's not the market that was
assumed... genuinely never crossed his mind. Ever.

------
kumarm
When I first saw the Interview (Mike Arrington did the Interview at Tech
Crunch Disrupt), I was really disappointed with their answer to something like
"So When is Android Version scheduled?", CEO went on saying how great iPhone
is.

This was 2 years back. How can you not be working on Android version by then?

~~~
kenferry
I have sympathy for the idea of focusing on one platform until you've got
something people actually want. You'll move faster that way.

Sounds like they never quite got there.

~~~
HappyTypist
I disagree for social apps that rely heavily on the network effect. Cutting
out a major mobile platform doesn't just cut your userbase by half, but it
also significantly reduces the utility for the other half too.

If you're making an app where it's value heavily stems on how many of your
friends use it, then only working on one platform is a great way to "never
quite get there".

~~~
thecupisblue
> doesn't just cut your userbase by half

Even more, considering Android takes up about 80% of the market share.
Focusing on iOS first is a well known strategy, but if you gain any traction -
Android release should be out quickly. There is no excuse to ignore that big
amount of market share.

------
mattikus
Apropos of nothing relevant to the actual content of the page, the sand effect
easter egg on the logo was really cool. One of the more lifelike effects I've
seen.

~~~
mfkp
I also thought it was very cool - extracted the source from the minified JS if
anybody is interested in taking a look how it works:
[https://jsfiddle.net/powers/cy5fhLnk/](https://jsfiddle.net/powers/cy5fhLnk/)

------
gorena
What was the business model for this? Get a lot of users and get bought like
Instagram? $40m for $4m seems like a great return for something that doesn't
have revenue.

~~~
anthony_franco
I doubt the $4m was for 100% of the company. It's unknown what the ROI
would've been for the investors.

But still probably something the founders are regretting.

~~~
gorena
Yeah, wasn't implying that - basically, if the investors have a controlling
stake, it's a pretty okay return for something that seemingly had no business
model besides "maybe sell ads/filters?".

If the investors didn't have a controlling stake, then the founders would be
pretty damn rich.

~~~
pbreit
Anything that can accumulate attention can be easily monetized. The hard part
is accumulating attention. Wondering about business models is exceedingly
tired.

~~~
stingraycharles
Can you please tell me how to convert attention into money? Genuine question,
since it seems like the business model of a lot of B2C startups out there.

~~~
pbreit
Ads, sponsorships, in-app purchases, membership, suscription, pro features,
sell the data, premium features, etc, etc, etc.

~~~
stingraycharles
i consider membership, subscription, pro features, in app purchases and
premium features to be almost equal. Same for ads and sponsorships. In other
words: that leaves you with ads, premium featues or selling the data. Which
can be quite hard to sell, depending on your audience (I consider Twitter a
good example).

------
prawn
Their thing seems to have been that they recorded (video or image I guess) the
subject as well as the publisher at the same time, recording with both
cameras. Nice idea.

Image preview here:

[https://pando-
assets.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2013/10/frontb...](https://pando-
assets.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2013/10/frontback1.jpg)

~~~
swang
You took one with the front facing camera, then one with the back facing
camera (or vice versa but not at the same time). AFAIK (haven't used it in the
past year+) you couldn't shoot both at the same time.

~~~
niico
You're correct

------
rootlocus
I love how you can destroy the logo / title by playing with the mouse over it.

~~~
talltofu
Me too..wonder how it can be done. Is this a javascript library?

~~~
robotnoises
Doing a little digging, there is a handler attached to the mousemove event on
the canvas element. There is a credit here: Thanks to Giovanni Difeterici
([http://www.gdifeterici.com/](http://www.gdifeterici.com/))

... but it's minified and I can't hunt down the source.

------
pbreit
I wonder how much it costs to keep this type of thing running? There's really
no one out there stepping up to take it on?

Edit: after reading the shutdown notice, it was a little vague about what's
happening. It says the iOS app will convert to a camera app. Does that mean
they are gonna try to retain connections to all the existing users and roll
out out some new concept?

~~~
enra
I understood it in a way that they will convert the app so that it will still
have the "front+back" functionality, but only save the images to your camera
roll. Basically an offline frontback.

------
pbreit
It's a cute feature but hardly something that you could build a company
around. Like Yo.

In a case like this, do they ever transfer the service over to someone who
might be interested in having a go at it (without any money exchanging hands)?
Always seems like people would rather shut something down than hand it over
which is unfortunate.

~~~
fab1an
A 'cute feature' does become a company once enough people are using it. In a
parallel universe you could have said the same about a shutdown notice of
Twitter or Snapchat.

~~~
weavie
A lot of people still do say the same about Snapchat. It just goes to show
that it is really really hard to predict which ideas will catch on and which
won't.

------
BilalBudhani
I'm an active user of this app. I really enjoy scrolling through app feed and
discover people around the world by not just their selfies but also a proper
image context attached with it. I'm in love with the idea of this app. Really
sad to see they are shutting down the service :'(

------
pbreit
The shutdown notice seems to suggest that this feature is available elsewhere.
Anyone know where?

------
Kiro
What was it?

~~~
corobo
This was my question too.. I wish deadpool sites would keep something up there
about what they did in their "So long and thanks for all the fish" statements

Edit: Ah. From what I can tell, snapchat/instagram/genericPhotoApp except it
takes a picture with both cameras
[http://web.archive.org/web/20150715211337/http://www.frontba...](http://web.archive.org/web/20150715211337/http://www.frontback.me/)

------
mdevere
Sorry to read about this.

I too regarded Frontback as a feature rather than a new messaging paradigm.
But I can see how you might say the same about Snapchat.

~~~
nstart
Honestly, Snapchat felt more like a feature till they brought in stories. That
interaction has been a game changer for them. In fact it's unique from the
entire plethora of networks around. Especially when centered around an event
or a country (their UFC mega stories are incredible).

------
lifeisstillgood
Barely one month to be able to download your stored photos - that seems ...
Short. Especially for a service that was not used often enough. I don't
clearly have any details but keeping an AWS account up for another 3-6 moths
seems ... Not unreasonable.

I understand it's a crushing time for the founders, but one of the things I
seem to see on HN is the more respectably you wind down your startup, the more
respect (and future deal flow) you seem to get.

Just 2c

~~~
shopinterest
Jeebus dude, why exactly you need 3-6 months to get your photos from a service
you didn't use often enough? AWS cost real money. How long of a warning do you
need to exit a service? A year?

~~~
lifeisstillgood
the exact period of time was not my concern - the perception of calm and
orderly shutdown is. What matters is how the founders are seen to handle that
last few moments. Doing nothing would be bad. Doing this is fine and decent.
Even better would be to say "hey it did not work, but even so our last act is
to <maintain high perceived value coz we are the good guys>." It might be
download your contacts, it might be grab your dogs' friends circle. Whatever -
if it was important enough for users to give it to you for safekeeping that
should be treated with kid gloves.

This is sadly one of the more high profile moments a start up has - Handle it
well, the founders will be seen as a safe pair of hands, do the equivalent of
dropping the casket into the ground and walking off, maybe not so much.

It's not great that this is a metric, it's not great that more VCs will see
how they shutdown than saw how they started up - but this is just another
startup. The founders have 30+ year careers ahead. Good for them for making
something, good for them for trying, and good for trying to land it at all.
Many just told up tents and steal away.

We as a community are trying to learn the dos and donts of startup life cycles
- seems to me this is one of the more high profile and often ignored donts.

------
kevinkimball
that's too bad. it was cool. on the other hand I didn't use it often so I
guess I'm part of the problem ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
curiousjorge
I've never heard of them. Almost all of the "xxx is shutting down" threads on
HN is always the first time I'm finding out about the company. Only exception
was Homejoy but if I hadn't watched the startup lesson videos I would've had
no idea what it was about.

~~~
Animats
Even from the shutting down message it's not clear what they did. It sounds
like a service for organizing your selfies.

~~~
steckerbrett
The app took two photos simultaneously, one with the front camera and one with
the back. It allowed you to show a combination of where you are and what you
are doing in the same instant.

