They're giving a whole two days of notice to their customers before shutting down--customers who might be on precisely the kind of trip right now where they're relying on their service. I think that might be an impressive new low.
This is a very myopic startup view of the world. In both cases the customer is left behind.
Refresh.io: "We’ve decided that as of today we’ll no longer accept new users, and the Refresh app will be shut down on April 15"
Nebula: "It is with an extremely heavy heart that we announce that today, April 1, 2015, Nebula is ceasing operations."
On both cases there is no "expect great things from us!" message for the customers. Are you a Nebula or Refresh.io customer? Sorry, not anymore. You paid something? Awww, sorry.
You depended on Nebula? Too bad, their management team cannot plan a day ahead and warn customers that it's running low on resources and will close in the near future. A 1-day notice is what you get. A 3-month notice would be much better but I guess that wouldn't play well with their possible buyers (they would lose all their leverage in the negotiations).
You depended on Refresh.io? Too bad, got a few days to find a replacement. Their management team did not have the decency to keep the service up a bit longer.
Both situations are game overs. I don't understand what you mean with "A customer might understand the second case, while it'll definitely hold a grudge for the first one.". So a company is stupid enough to decide a day ago that it cannot keep running anymore and the customer might understand that? Like "oh darn! sorry for you guys.. don't worry about the money I already spent.. take some time off, you deserve it! what a cruel world".
There is no difference. In both cases the customer is screwed. If the founders got money or not does not matter a single bit (unless that, in case Refresh.io case, you didn't care much in the first place and can _hope_ that LinkedIn will, who knows, offer something similar).
> Good things happen when you treat your colleagues, vendors, partners, and customers like your family. All of us want to thank our customers for supporting us and providing invaluable feedback.
This acquisition might be great for the staff at Refresh, and the short shutdown window lets LinkedIn get value from the team quickly, but if you really treat your customers like family I think there should be more than 2 weeks notice of shutdown. This amounts to "so long, and thanks for all the fish".
The recently announced acq. of Lynda seems to indicate LinkedIn trying to penetrate other markets. If the revenue source from the main product is waning, they could diversify revenue streams or purchase a value-add company making their overall offering more competitive.
Maybe they are trying to reposition as a credentialing institution, where people can network, build skills, and manage their professional calendars.
I am not sure if this is the case here, but numerous acquisitions outside of core competencies could point to a strategic shift in positioning, possibly in an effort to shore up declining revenue and relevancy in the core business.
Sure. However, there are two things that seem to support this:
1. Social networks seem to decline over time as newer alternatives or substitutes arise. Specifically, it seems LinkedIn is not as strong as it once was, and growth can no longer be sustained on the percentage basis.
2. Generally, a company that has amazing product market fit and strong growth in an offering would reinvest the lion-share of capital back into the business.
I don't purport to know what is the case here, just providing the counterpoint.
I'm only seeing a blog post from 2013. Site is busted on mobile? Chrome/iPad.
Edit: Upon reloading, I briefly see an article about LinkedIn which gets quickly replaced by successively older blog posts. Scrolling doesn't seem to work. Permalink for those experiencing the same: http://blog.refresh.io/post/115300546551/announcement
