Komoot Acquired: History Says This Won't End Well
And now things start to make a bit more sense. Earlier this week I posted on the news that Komoot …
Get ready for "enhancements" and look out for alternatives.
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The buyer "Bending Spoons" also bought Evernote in 2023, for those who remember that downfall.
from the article:
Evernote: Acquired in January 2023, in July 2023 Bending Spoons laid off all Evernote staff and transferred the operations to Bending Spoons HQ.
Mosaic Group: Acquired in January 2024, immediately laid off all 330 staff members, folded operations into Bending Spoons HQ.
WeTransfer: Acquired in July 2024, in September 2024 laid off 75% of all staff.
MeetUp: Acquired in January 2024, in February 2024 laid off a “significant” portion of the workforce
Brightcove: Acquired in November 2024, yesterday, March 19th, laid off 2/3rds of US employees
komoot knows what they're in for
I understand (even if I don’t like/agree) some downsizing, but firing everybody is a smooth brain move. Evernote was all the shit when I went to college in Europe, and MeetUp was also very popular, and now they are barely mentioned. Maybe these companies started declining before the a acquisition, okay, but then why buy them in the first place?
Time to shine a light on Joplin! It's FOSS, has great support for your own cloud, powerful plugins and is just an all around fine piece of note taking software
+1 for joplin. I recently switched over to it and I'm a big fan.
Oh fuck.
I never used Evernote, but I know of the layoffs. Is the product worse now than before the acquisition?
I was an early adopter and lover of Evernote. It was a simple proposition, syncing your notes across all devices, and relatively good management system. Used it for school notes, managing life, planning holidays, events etc.
Loved loved it.
Then came along Google keep which did everything, and had a simpler cleaner UI/UX. Made the switch and never looked back. Until now (de-googling)
I guess the trajectory is pretty much the same for all these other companies where they couldn't sustain the growth, and it reached a limit within their reach.
Besides business model decisions, perhaps it's also down to the appetite and ambition of the founder.