storytlr
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Storytlr was a lifestreaming web application built by Laurent Eschenauer and Alard Weisscher that aggregated a user's online activity - blog posts, photos, tweets, and other feeds - into a single chronological life stream. Launched around 2008, it was a side project rather than a venture-backed company. On October 10, 2009 the two builders announced they would stop operating Storytlr on December 31, 2009, offering users a data-export tool before wiping everything.
02 / storytlr FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Storytlr died because its creators walked away. In their farewell blog post, Laurent Eschenauer and Alard Weisscher were explicit: they had lost interest after deciding the project could not be turned into a full-fledged company, they had spent months looking for alternatives and potential partners without success, and above all they lacked time - 'our lives have moved on, kids were born, house were bought, new projects appeared and we don't have time anymore to operate this service properly.'
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Operations ended
Storytlr's founders announced that the lifestreaming service would stop operating on 31 December 2009.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
On October 10, 2009 the co-developers announced Storytlr would cease to exist on December 31, 2009; users were given about ten weeks to back up their data.
- 02
An export tool was provided so users could download their data, with a zip archive of binary files (images) promised.
- 03
The developers said they would try to open-source the code, but warned it needed significant refactoring and gave no ETA.
- 04
No bankruptcy, debts, or financial figures were involved - it was a side project, not a funded company.