You might have read it already on the Tagcrumbs blog: we decided to close Tagcrumbs. A hard decision but we felt we had to move on.
It was a fun ride with many ups and downs. In the end, the problem was that it was too hard to make a living with the service. Of course we thought about alternative ways of making money besides an ad-based revenue model. But further bootstrapping was not an option, as we were running out of money, so we decided to write a business plan based on the most promising alternative we saw in making money in the mobile LBS space that allowed us to leverage as much of our previous work as possible. We were not able to raise enough money to execute our plan. Was the plan based on a bad idea? The founders too young and inexperienced in the mind of the investors? Was it bad to try a split between consumer and business services? Were we too impatient or at the wrong place of the earth? We don’t know and we will probably never find out.
Nevertheless, it was a great experience to bootstrap a company ourselves and I learned so much in the process, that I don’t regret doing it at all. Some might consider this a “failure”, for me it was just a large experiment and a huge learning experience. I am pretty sure the day will come where I will found another company. And that next time, I will know many things already that will improve chances of financial success.
It will take some time until the next startup is due. I need to shift to a lower gear first for some time to recharge myself and my bank account. Working so hard and long on Tagcrumbs every day hurt my personal health and fitness. That’s why I will work as a freelancer for some months or maybe even years before committing to anything else. I have the startup fiver, but freelancing as a technology consultant or software engineer will be a good replacement drug, as I really value being independent. I will write more about my future plans in upcoming posts.
Finally, I want to say thank you. First of all a big thanks goes to Ben and Cornelius for founding the company with me, sharing all the ups and downs, and for the many sessions we had on all kinds of different topics. The next thank you goes to all our partners that supported us during the time. Last but not least I want to thank all of our users and other supporters.
