I was making the list of people to thank for my time on HN and when visiting ticketstumbler I came across this message. It makes me both happy and sad, sad that ticketstumbler died, happy to see that Tom has moved on and is doing something new (and a great idea too!).
Wow, thanks Jacques! I'm not convinced I've ever done something worth being thanked for, but I definitely appreciate it a lot!
Closing down TS was tough (and I squandered a few thousand dollars putting it off), but in the end I'm really glad that particular weight is off my back. Now I just need to get Swaptitude to be more of a weight, and we'll be set ;)
Good luck with Swaptitude, it definitely appears to fill a need...
I'm sorry to hear about the TicketStumbler situation; out of curiosity, did you consider selling before shutting down? If so, it would be interesting to hear why you chose to shelve it instead.
As someone in a similar situation, I gotta give you props. You lasted longer than I did. A bank would tell you that 90% of businesses in this situation fold within a few months. Add that to our already-high tech startup failure rates and you've turned a slim fighting chance into something nearly impossible to do.
Mix in the emotional motivations, and well, it's just a tough situation to be in. I applaud you for moving on and for keeping your entrepreneurial spirit alive in a new project.
Yes, I was. I left the company in early December after a year of creating / maintaining the web infrastructure and e-commerce and analytics products. I accepted a co-founder title in mid-2010 but decided it wasn't a good fit shortly after and began transitioning out in late 2010.
Probably more than you wanted to know (and barely a sliver of the story), but there it is!
