
Twitter acquires Clutch.io - j4mie
http://blog.clutch.io/post/29340796276/clutch-joins-the-flock
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mibbitier
I don't want to moan, but I wish we could get out of this mindset of reporting
"company X acquires company Y" when in fact it's a case of company Y shutting
down and the founders going to work at company X.

Congrats anyway.

~~~
ericflo
We took good care of all our investors

~~~
masukomi
I think mbitter's point might be better explained by an example from outside
the world of computers. Audi (high end cars), for example, recently acquired
Ducati (high end motorcycles). No-one expects Ducati to be shuttered. Instead,
people are expecting both companies to remain and to share their IP and
improve both the cars and and motorcycles as knowledge flows from both
companies.

In the land of computers being acquired tends to mean the acquired co.
shutters their business, and everything they worked on ceases to be available
to the customers who made them a company worth acquiring. I seriously applaud
your allowing customers to set up their own servers. It's quite atypical...
but it's kind of a dead-end thing unless you open-source the code. "Hooray...
We can continue... but things will never improve, bugs will never be fixed,
and our needs will eventually exceed the capabilities of the software that no-
one is working on anymore."

Wouldn't it be nicer if the acquiring company valued the company being
acquired enough to keep it going, or roll its functionality into its own
offerings so that customers can continue being served?

~~~
jasonshen
The difference here is that the greatest asset of Ducati is it's brand as a
high-end motorcycle producer. Thus getting a return on this acquisition from
Audi's perspective means continuing to deliver on that brand's promise of
awesome, pricey motorcycles. (Which incidentally makes good money for Audi as
well)

The greatest asset of Clutch.io is the technical team and their ability to
produce well-crafted code which means getting a return on the acquisition
means deploying that team toward important projects at Twitter which could
help them grow their userbase, engage existing users and monetize those users.

(Disclaimer - I have not spoken to the team about why they were acquired and
what they'll be working on, but my statements are representative of what the
majority of these types of acquisitions are like)

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dotmanish
When this happens, I personally would love to see a blog post by the founders
on how the soon-to-be-shut business was actually doing, so that current
competitors and other startup-watchers can learn. You're anyways leaving the
space open, so better to leave the lessons behind.

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simonw
Congrats to the two Erics - and I love the way you're handling the transition
and existing customers, seems very classy.

~~~
mceachen
It's inline with how those guys are. Classy hackers.

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dave5104
Is it just me, or does there seem to be a plethora of companies named in the
form something.io nowadays? Feels like it's the next version of Flickr and all
the diminutives missing that 'e'.

~~~
oinksoft
.io seems solidified as branding indicating that the business is oriented to
developers, being a niche of "B2B." It may feel like a fad but the TLD is
valuable for reasons other than availability, unlike deliberate misspellings
you cite such as Flickr.

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AndyD1st
We’re a new TechStars company who’ve built a super simple mobile A/B testing
tool. Could be a great alternative to Clutch. If you’d like to try it out, or
give us feedback or ideas, ping us at founders <at> leanplum <dot> com.

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k-mcgrady
Congratulations to the team! They had a really cool product and the way they
are handling the acquisition is great. Glad they aren't just killing it.

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aneth4
While we can't blame any individual team taking an aquihire deal, I have to
wonder if their prevalence these days is undermining future startups and
sending potential customers back to an old school mindset of going with large
vendors who are less likely to shut down.

After all, why work with a company made up of a few 25 year olds testing out a
market, who may "pivot" any time, and will shut down their product when some
big company wants to hire them? Seems like a justifiable choice to go with an
inferior product from a profitable established company which is much less
likely to disappear in two years.

Even as a startup guy, I'm hesitant to build on startup products. YC Startups
may be even worse in this context as they are frequently picked off and shut
down, and the founders are young and not necessarily in the product for the
long haul.

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mikek
Are there any alternatives to Clutch.io?

~~~
zmb
Take a look at our side project Switchboard: easy A/B testing for mobile

<https://github.com/KeepSafe/Switchboard> It's open source

My co-founder Philipp is talking about this project at next week's Silicon
Valley iOS Dev Meetup <http://www.meetup.com/sviphone/events/38752252/>

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brackin
Congrats, this is interesting because Eric Florenzano one of the co-founders
co-founded Convore.

~~~
mulligan
actually, both erics

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Aaronontheweb
If I may ask, what issues were the Cluch.io guys having building a sustainable
business around A/B testing for mobile?

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BaconJuice
Congrats to the Team at Clutch.io :)

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js4all
Congrats and thanks for keeping the idea up; a noble gesture.

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ed
Whoa! Congrats to the Erics, awesome news, guys!

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mahmoudimus
Congratulations to the two Erics!

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indiecore
>We’re happy to announce that over the coming weeks we will make available
everything you need to run Clutch.io on your own servers, so that even after
our hosted service is no longer running, you can continue to operate it on
your own.

Everyone take note. This is how you handle an aquihire correctly

~~~
teamlaft
Agreed. Seems like everyone is a winner given how they are handling things.

