Getting bought out, IPO and now there is one more exit strategy for startups: quit. give up. shut everything down. But do it very publicly.
Startups running low on funds, not getting through to the investors’ mindset, lingering on and on without traction or any real prospects can attract lots of attention from the media by quitting very publicly.
Take, for example, Mowser. Russell Beattie’s comments on his blog drew so much attention from the media and public that he says he got multiple offers to acquire his assets the same day. So Mowser was sold to another company pretty quickly. I don’t see how this could have happened if Russell Beattie had kept on going, thinking he is surviving The Dip and just forging ahead. Of course Seth Godin suggests also considering quitting as another smart option but he should have added “if you decide to quit, quit very publicly”.
Another example is Eran Hammer-Lahav who I know and admire personally. He quit working on his startup recently and due to his involvement with open standards such as OAuth and his visibility, he joined Yahoo as an open source evangelist. But again, Eran was smart enough to do his quitting very publicly and sharing his experiences very openly with the New York startup community, he was all over the media, which might have helped his prospects for his new highly-visible position.
So, all startups out there, not surviving The Dip, quit today but with fireworks.