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Ask HN: Snap is killing Zenly, firing team, why cant team just make it again?

10 points by bruceb ↗ HN
This might be a dumb question but I am going to ask it anyway. SNAP is killing Zenly and apparently firing the whole team in Paris(1). SNAP acquired Zenly for $250-350m in 2017(2). Zenly seems to be doing pretty well in different markets including Japan. It has 35m active users(3).

Why can't the team just remake it with a new name?

I realize they would have to be self supporting for a little while, but I assume most/all the employees have severance. Would a VC fund this?

For the engineers, if it doesn't work out, they will most likely not have a problem getting a job.

What are the downsides/obstacles to doing this?

Sources:

(1) https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1564986820999405568

(2) https://venturebeat.com/business/inside-frances-zenly-the-social-mapping-app-that-was-just-bought-by-snap/

(3) https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/18/social-maps-app-zenly-rolls-out-its-own-maps/

13 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 38.3 ms ] thread
twunde
Legally the biggest issues are non-competes and IP/trade secret laws. These vary jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but at least within the US are usually part of any severance agreements. Pretty much every member of the team who tried to rebuild it would have some risk of being sued and the company could be sued as well.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
bipbip4242
Whole team is in France. Non compete are hard to enforce there. They are time and geo bound. You must keep paying majority of the compensation as long as non-compete is in place.

Can check details here (in french ) https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1910#:....

twunde
Thanks for adding that detail. I wasn't sure how much France and the US varied.

On a sidenote, I'm constantly amazed by how well my C+ high school french has held up. I can read and understand 90% of this.

ffhhj
They should have sold it to Facebook, looks like their kind of thing.
kurupt213
The equity holders don’t care, they got their $$
b20000
the real value of these companies is 0$. they have nothing of value besides a userbase which is probably 80% dormant anyway.
kareemsabri
IANAL

The main issue would be that Snap bought the IP, and the founders signed the irrevocable, interminable, exclusive rights to that IP in any universes known or unknown over to Snap. To replicate the application under a new name would be using IP now owned by Snap.

t_mann
Who's saying they (some of them) won't? At least build something similar? There are legal, financial and operational hurdles, but ultimately, there's little fundamentally keeping people from coding up a new mobile app.
ncmncm
It is sucky that Snap didn't offer to hand it back to the original authors, or open-source it. If nothing else it shows contempt for the users.

Of course Google remains king in the contempt-for-users puddle.

bipbip4242
Got told snap had offers to buy Zenly out. They refused because they think it's not in their best interest to let a competitive social network live on.
sam11576
They won't unless they want to keep doing the same thing and expecting different results.

It's hard to see how to build the product into a profitable business... They never made revenue and it was never clear how they could.

And even if they ever did then Apple and Google jealously guard the maps sector, they would swoop in and build something better direct into their products.

bipbip4242
They just shipped impressive new 3Dmap tech, independant of Google & apple tech. Too bad they didn't try to sell that.