Sprinklr Acquires GetSatisfaction, Founders Get Nothing
I have very limited knowledge of this situation, but, I'm gonna pile on anyway:<p>With that kind of money raised, the founders didn't get "nothing". They got a salary, probably a decent one, for however long they were running the thing. Which is more than many startup founders get out of businesses that fail. If they don't have personal debt, or didn't lose relationships or friendships, they came out ahead of many startup founders who started a business that failed.<p>They raised more money than the business was worth. I don't blame them for doing so; many people have done it, and no amount of seeing other people make that mistake will necessarily prepare a founder to turn down several million dollars of extra runway to try for the big exit. But, it sounds like there is simply less money on the table than there are people wanting that money (and that have contractual rights to it).<p>Given the interests of GetSatisfaction were always misaligned with the interests of their customers (i.e. the business model was effectively a shakedown, in the same vein as Yelp), it shouldn't be surprising that eventually their dreams didn't align with the reality of how many people wanted to pay for it. No matter how good the product is, if you have to extort people to buy it, you're not building a sustainable business.<p>I'm all for ranting about VCs being assholes, because sometimes they are. But, as far as I can tell, that's not the case here. Founders made some bad calls, probably some other people did, too. The business failed. It happens. If I were them, I'd take this as a valuable lesson...and probably wouldn't burn bridges with the people who invested in me in the past, because history indicates they'll be the same people to invest in me in the future (a failed business is not a death sentence in the valley, and many investors have invested in the same team for multiple businesses).