
Yahoo Acquires Astrid - bretthellman
http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/01/yahoo-acquires-to-do-app-astrid/
======
general_failure
(from <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5642484>)

I don't want to take anything away from Astrid.

I keeps dismissing my ideas as trivial and already done. When I think I have a
new idea, my friends would dismiss it as trivial and already done. Take
astrid's todo list or task sharing for example. My initial and only thought
would be 'does the world need another todo app', 'another list making app'
really? If I take the idea to my friends, they would bombard me with companies
who do exactly the same thing. And yet here we are with Astrid being acquired.
It seems to have some angel investment/funding even. The founders may not be
millionaires but they definitely made more money than I did.

Note to self: do something. anything. and get acquired.

~~~
robg
"Make something people want" is too esoteric?

Astrid was founded in 2008. If step (a) is above, and step (b) is simply
"Persevere", then such a note to yourself becomes:

 _Make something people want. Persevere._

Somehow that seems far more likely to end in the manner you'd like.

~~~
jacquesm
The perseverance component is often overlooked, I personally believe it is the
single most important factor determining the eventual success or failure of a
business.

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jpatokal
> _The app will remain online for another 90 days before it’s shut down by
> Yahoo. In the meantime, it’s not accepting any new users._

Well, crap. Any migration path or alternatives? I don't even need 99% of
Astrid's bells and whistles, just your basic "add entries and tick 'em off"
todo list along the lines of what the Palm V used to do.

~~~
Paul_D_Santana
How about Google Tasks?

I rely on this with Gtasks on Android every day as my main note taking
vehicle. I find it especially useful for literally instantaneous syncing
between phone, tablet, desktop, and laptop.

Here's a way to access it via its own independent window (I keep this pinned
in my browser):

<https://mail.google.com/tasks/ig>

~~~
Groxx
I would very much recommend trying this one:
<https://mail.google.com/tasks/canvas?pli=1>

~~~
muppetman
What does pli=1 at the end do? I can't see any difference from the same url I
use (yours) but without that.

~~~
Groxx
quite possibly nothing. it just autocompletes from my history that way, and I
forgot to clean it up.

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yumraj
<sarcasm> I thought Yahoo was in trouble and had a glut of employees. Rather,
it seems they have found a pot of gold and don't have enough employees to
execute their plan for world domination. </sarcasm>

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noahmbarr
Astrid ran hard to make an app that millions of people use constantly. As a
startup, they took a risk, ran hard at an idea, and executed their ass off.

We should all be so lucky.

Regarding this "acquihire" talk:

This is something the naysayers like to talk about. Yahoo's scale present an
incredible sandbox for the Astrid team. They are a fully contained, highly
functional team (across product and engineering disciplines). They know how to
build back-end systems, complex web-apps, and cross-platform mobile apps.

The fact that someone found a higher and better use is not a failure on their
part. Yahoo is fortunate to have this team join their ranks.

~~~
mscarborough
I agree. I left Yahoo during the Scott Thompson time, but see the value in
Mayer.

I love Yahoo, always have, but I'm hoping that Mayer cuts out 2-3 layers of
management. When I was there, it was embarrassing to talk to my boss, who
clearly didn't give a shit about my team or our department.

The dude did nothing but suck up to Sunnyvale. Hopefully they fire folks like
him.

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codyps
> Yahoo Acquires 4M-User ‘To Do’ App Astrid, Will Shut It Down In 90 Days

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with what scale Yahoo operates on, but wouldn't it
be more beneficial for them to merge Astrid into whatever their plans are
rather than drop them and alienate people who were already users?

Or was it just seen as a potential resource hole (with the value of the users
seen as negative)?

Can anyone shed some light on what Astrid's business model was?

~~~
gcb0
it's an acquihire. they are not buying any product. (peanut butter spread too
thin, etc)

they just have a lot of money to hire, and nobody wants to work there.

So they do the dumbest thing a company can. Spends 10~30million a head, and
they are out the door as soon as their contract allows. (case in point, your
host. and he was even a case where yahoo wanted to buy the product...)

oh, and they are so sure everyone is leaving, that the new policy (look it up,
was on techcrunch) is to give out annual bonuses instead of pay rises and
promotions.

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georgemcbay
I used Astrid for a while and just switched over to Google Keep a couple weeks
ago. I highly recommend it for people who just want simple synced to-do/notes.

Yes, they could Google-Reader-it at any time, I suppose, but for something
transient like todos I'm not too worried about it.

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shaunxcode
Sweet, maybe they can afford to address some of the insane bugs they have
accreted. I normally defend developers/software when people I know complain
about an app - but this is like a year and a half of really bad/frustrating
bugs. Disappearing tasks, duplicated tasks, inability to enter tasks at
certain times of the day.... And ultimately not responding to emails regarding
these issues. If you are going to provide an app which is in essence an
augmentation of someones mind you should take the responsibility seriously.

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rkda
Just checked and saw that Astrid is open source. Not sure if it's the latest
version though.

<https://github.com/todoroo/astrid>

Now if only someone would adopt it :(

~~~
egypturnash
Are the iOS client, web client, and web backend also open-source?

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jameswyse
While we're suggesting todo apps - I've been using Clear [1] (Mac + iPhone
only) for the past month and love it. The UI is beautiful yet very simple as
everything is done with touch gestures.

[1] <http://www.realmacsoftware.com/clear/>

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aymeric
I run a time management app, and I will develop a Astrid importer if there is
enough interest: <http://weekplan.net/import-your-astrid-tasks-into-week-
plan/>

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mehrzad
It seems companies other than people like 37signals and indie game studios
don't want to be small and independent? I could be wrong about this analysis,
but I find the aquihire trend somewhat depressing.

~~~
dangrossman
How many companies are acquihired a year? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?

Half a million new businesses are started every year in the US (with actual
employees, not self-employed working from home).

Most small businesses stay that way.

~~~
mehrzad
Do you think the numbers are similar in tech?

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egypturnash
Guess I'm picking a new to-do program, then. Honestly I don't spend as much
time with Astrid since I switched to iOS, I really got used to its geofencing
capabilities on Android.

Anyone got any suggestions for an iOS/Mac to-do program that can do geofencing
for entire lists, instead of single todos like Apple's Reminders?

~~~
lepht
Checkmark does exactly this, and is overall pretty great:

<http://builtbysnowman.com/checkmark/>

~~~
egypturnash
That looks pretty neat! Sadly it's missing a bigger requirement for me, which
is syncing. Thanks, though.

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nnutter
The key feature I used Astrid for was the ability to have recurring tasks
based on the date of last completion instead of fixed intervals. Does anything
else out there do that?

~~~
hnha
"regularly" is free of cost and does that. it has no syncing support with I
consider a good thing as it contains very personal data that only concerns
myself.

~~~
nnutter
That looks really good but I forgot to mention that I am looking for an iOS
app.

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joshuagross
Huge congrats to Jon and Tim! I worked with them in 2011 and it's an amazing
team that I'd be honored to work with any day. Yahoo! is lucky to have them.

~~~
saumil07
I did AngelPad with them in Winter 2011 and we worked out of the same office
building for a year. Awesome guys, great passion, sharp technologists and all
around good people. Couldn't have happened to better people.

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jmspring
Congratulations Jon Paris and team. Good to see someone you graduated high
school with having good luck. Super nice guy and good product.

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pbreit
Just goes to show that you shouldn't rely on free apps...oh, wait, nevermind.

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KurtMueller
"Trello trello trello" \- Sung to the tune of Rihanna's Umbrella

