Meet the New Filepicker Team

http://blog.filepicker.io/post/89024877982/meet-the-new-filepicker-team

by sethbannon • 12 years ago

78 39 12 years ago

blog.filepicker.io

kimba• 12 years ago

Odd. They tell us a new team was necessary, with a little detail but not enough to stop me wondering for more.

Then, despite the title, they don't actually introduce the team. Just some tiny images and only their first names.

alaskamiller• 12 years ago

I've been using Filepicker from day 1. Never gave me trouble. Noticed they raised, tried for an ambitious strategy, since it wasn't part of my wheelhouse I quietly cheered them on.

Yesterday while checking on something I logged in and noticed the Ink side disappeared and now they're introducing a new team.

I love you guys but be honest, be merciless. What went wrong? Why drop Ink? Why the new team? It'll be better than this pablum PR puff.

fown9• 12 years ago

Looks like this YC company burned through 1.8M from Andressen Horowitz, and all of the original founders have left the company to work somewhere else. Sadly, no acqui-hire this time.

pron• 12 years ago

Sadly, no acqui-hire this time.

What are you talking about? This is much better than an acquihire. They've built a good product that people like; it just isn't VC material, as it turns out. So they've found a way to keep their good product going.

vampirical• 12 years ago

It would be great for one or more of the founders to do a postmortem write-up once any dust has settled. I had high hopes for Ink, seems like a shame. I'd imagine this comes at the end of a lot of work to get things transitioned so it is understandable that it is a bit light but it would definitely be good to hear more detail.

tommoor• 12 years ago

Well, this is the most ambiguous post i've read in a while. I think a little transparency here would have gone a long way to inspiring confidence in the new company/team

jc4p• 12 years ago

Eek. I used Filepicker at my last start-up and loved it. In fact, the website's still using it right now. I integrated it before it was called Ink, went through a rebrand, and now I'm left wondering if the old code I wrote is still going to work.

I wish there was more context here and explained if the product was going away or not. On a personal note: I had talked with Brett and Anand repeatedly in the past, it would've been nice to get more details.

toisanji7• 12 years ago

Glad you love the product, everything will work as before. I would extend that and say it will be more robust and faster then ever before.

cschmidt3• 12 years ago

You should understand that your blog post makes us filepicker users nervous. Please tell us more about what it going on. This is normally the feeling I get when I have to start planning a transition. Give us some fact, or plans even.

toisanji7• 12 years ago

Thanks guys! Jason from Filepicker here. You’re right—Ink on mobile was too far ahead of its time. I’m still frustrated I don’t have a filesystem on my iDevices… that said, the core business of handling files for uploading no matter where they live couldn’t be more exciting for us. We’ve a huge roadmap and if you check out the blog you’ll see we’re starting to announce our updates already. Everything from new client libraries, iPhone iOS8 support, Metadata APIs to new transformations, data sources and much, much more coming. We’ll give a deeper update on the business once the dust settles but feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions about our service!

shravvmehtaa• 12 years ago

Hi Jason, What happened to the old team? Why did they quit? What happened to INK?

quickpost• 12 years ago

Off topic, but that sticky navigation at the top is ridiculously large / tall. It seemingly takes up 1/3 of the viewable browser area required for reading the actual "content". Crazy. (NOTE: Browser width must be at least 992px wide to see it).

pyre• 12 years ago

I only see navigation at the bottom, and it's less than 1/3 of the screen, though that may depend on your screen height as it has a fixed height.

fookyong• 12 years ago

The blog post won't load for me (dodgy airport wifi!), but I just want to say that Filepicker is one of the few SaaS services that I got instant value from and when they went from freemium to paid recently, I paid up right away.

I really hope the service doesn't disappear!..

toisanji7• 12 years ago

Jason from filepicker here, Its not going anywhere, we are expanding the service rapidly and have a full featured roadmap. I'm glad you can see the value!

mkal_tsr• 12 years ago

As someone paying for Filepicker/Ink, it's been great to me ... but ... I've got to ask, as a customer...

If I see rebrand, then all founders removed, why should I have confidence that this company is going to be sustainable and not just live off VC funding?

doctorpangloss• 12 years ago

I'm not too worried about a rebrand. Very happy customer here :).

Let me search something other than CC stuff. Just straight up enable Google images (or gasp, even Bing images).

prawn2• 12 years ago

Where have the new team come from? Were they staff? Or did they buy it when the founders wanted to quit? What was Ink? Was that by the original founders or the new team?

Maybe the new team could list their full names? Bit strange to have "meet the new team" but not have their names and where they've come from.

jitl• 12 years ago

Yeah, I feel like I've read only the epilogue to a long story. Would love a quick rundown of what lead to this anouncemnt.

michaelbuckbee• 12 years ago

"Ink" was a rebranding they did when they were attempting to move the service beyond just FileUploadingAsAService.

prawn2• 12 years ago

So FilePicker was replaced by Ink and now FilePicker has returned?

brettcvz• 12 years ago

As the original founder and CEO, I can provide a bit of clarity. As with many startups, ours was a thrilling but ultimately tumultuous journey. At the end of the day, we ended up with a nice profitable lifestyle business (filepicker.io) and a big ambitious change-the-world product that we were not able to get traction with (Ink).

The team decided that the right thing to do was to sell to someone that would: 1. Value and support existing customers 2. Return as much money as possible to investors, and 3. Allow the team to move on to new opportunities. (In priority order)

I have a tremendous amount of respect for the new team, and actually think they will do a better job with filepicker.io, because they are committed to its success as a company and a business rather than some distant vision.

For those who were fans of what we were trying to do at Ink (helping connect the apps and services that people use), I'm still committed to the dream and seeing if we can do it in a slightly different way at IFTTT.

At some point I may do a more full post-mortem, for now if you have any questions hit me up at <my username>@gmail.com

jonny_eh• 12 years ago

As a customer of filepicker.io I've always been impressed by the quality of the product, documentation, and support. So far this seems like a classy way to move on, best of luck at IFTTT!

jaequery• 12 years ago

im really curious to know how much the founders made from the deal.

aytekin• 12 years ago

Filepicker is a much better name. I am glad they are pivoting back to the product people wanted.

toisanji7• 12 years ago

we feel the same way!

gobengo• 12 years ago

We've been a customer for going on two years. Working with Anand and Brett was consistently a pleasure. I wish you all the best of luck!

bby• 12 years ago

Whatever happened to Thomas? Haven't been keeping up with filepicker in a long time.

alphapapa3• 12 years ago

Am I missing something, or is Filepicker solving an artificial problem, namely connecting proprietary services and apps which could instead use standards like HTTP URLs and filesystems? Some industries are built upon being middlemen, but it seems like, as technology develops, the trend is away from middlemen. Why build a new business upon such a strategy? It doesn't seem like a long-term approach.

czbond2• 12 years ago

You're missing something. Filepicker is a great way to integrate on projects where you won't get paid $5-10k alone just for getting S3 secure uploads working. [cost of time]

alphapapa3• 12 years ago

I'm not sure S3 is a good example, since it uses a public API that has multiple, open-source implementations on both client and server sides.

Meet the New Filepicker Team

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