Argyle Social emailed its customers this week announcing that it is shutting down at the end of May. You can read about it here, here, and probably many, many other places.
I've gotten a lot of calls, emails, and texts from friends, family, and customers over the past couple days, so I figured I may as well share some quick thoughts. There are certainly many perspectives on what went wrong at Argyle. I'll share some of mine once the dust settles and my kids start sleeping through the night.
For now, I'll say that I'm incredibly proud of what we built and proud that our product helped our customers solve meaningful problems. And I'm humbled that so many people loved the product, the company, and the brand. I'm sincerely grateful for all of the people that believed in us along the way -- investors, customers, employees, friends, etc. And I'm thankful that Adam continued to fight the fight for as long as he did -- I know it wasn't an easy decision for him to pull the plug, but I support him 100%.
I'm obviously disappointed that things couldn't come to a better resolution. Building companies is a tough, tough business and markets are completely unforgiving -- but its just business and markets. After taking many violent blows to the head/ego as the CEO at Argyle, I've learned over time that my work doesn't define who I am. Work is my sport -- I love to do it, I take it very seriously, and I'm pretty damn good at it. But it is only one aspect of my identity and it is not even close to being the most important. So it sucks that Argyle is shutting down, but life goes on.
In fact, the death of Argyle actually feels like old news to me -- especially considering that I'm well into my next thing at RevBoss. I've had practically zero involvement in Argyle since I left the company about 18 months ago, but it is a weird feeling to know that something that you started, built, and loved is going to completely disappear. I wouldn't say that I'm sad -- I processed all of my Argyle emotions and moved on long ago, probably more quickly and easily than you might expect. But I definitely feel nostalgic.
After helping build Bronto and starting Argyle, I plan/hope to spend the rest of my career building companies. Even with all of the inevitable heartache and sleepless nights, I can't imagine anything more personally and professionally rewarding than developing the vision for a new product/service, breathing life into a new company, and then building the team to take it to market. So I'll keep building, learning, failing, and working my guts out. And I'll keep making friends, helping people, and loving my work along the way.
I remember pitching an investor during the early days at Argyle. He asked me about what we plan to do with the company -- flip it immediately, raise a ton of capital, run it forever, etc. I remember answering very honestly that I would like to let Argyle run its course and then start another company. And then another. And then another.
So for those of you keeping score at home:
1.) Argyle -- not that great financial return, 10X everything else return -- experience, friendships, wisdom, battle scars, hilarious stories, Argyle pants, etc.
2.) RevBoss -- TBD