They raised at least 2.2M in funding. Then they got acquired. Now it's over. I do think it's time we stop pretending that you can build a fully-fledged company on top of a developer tool or plugin.
Lots of companies like this are going to be struggling in the next 2 years.
At $2.2M in funding, they are (likely) on a SAFE. There's no board, meaning no real VC pressure. They used that money to build... it's not like they were a beloved, widely used developer tool ruined by VC money.
It sucks, but to build certain things, you sometimes need money. $2.2M isn't a ton – they raised in 2020, so that's roughly only (market) salaries for 3 people for those 3 years.
Not everything will work out. But good on Fig for trying, and good on Fig for finding a solution that (hopefully?) did right by themselves and their team, and good on them for leaving Fig open-sourced.
Yeah you're probably right about there not being any pressure. the 2.2M was a seed round. 2.2M is a lot for 3 people salaries for 3 years in my opinion
With taxes, office space, laptops, offsites, insurance, etc a rough rule of thumb is $250k for an engineer. $250k * 3 = $750k, and over 3 years that's $2.25M (doesn't include software, hosting, lawyers, contractors, marketing, etc).
Yeah, they probably spent less than that (esp the founders salaries), but my point is that $2.2M isn't as much money as it seems.
Lots of companies like this are going to be struggling in the next 2 years.