We started Repurpose Pie in 2023 with the goal of making it easier for creators on X to grow on other platforms. After over 2 years of operating it, me and the other two founders of the company have decided to shut it down.
In this post I will explain to you (many of whom are Repurpose Pie customers) the reasons behind why we made the decision and provide clarity behind my thought process.
I simply don’t have the time to keep the app top notch.
Over the past year, I haven’t had the time to market Repurpose Pie well because I’ve been busy with my other more profitable ventures.
Repurpose Pie was intended to be a side project but since it’s B2C and not B2B like most of my other businesses, it was taking a disproportionate amount of time to manage in comparison to the revenue it was bringing in.
With the advancements in AI, if I want the app to stay competitive, it would take even more time and energy to continually build more features and keep it the best of the lot.
There has been increasing hostility to faceless AI generated videos in recent times which is likely to continue. The last thing I want is people getting their accounts suppressed or de-monetized anywhere as a result of using my product.
Now it is no longer enough to have a good video. The AI generated video has to look “original” and “authentic” and not mass-produced or repetitious… which is the opposite of what Repurpose Pie was originally about (taking your tweets and turning them into quick videos that were auto-posted on your YouTube/TikTok/Instagram).
In other words, if I want to keep the app relevant and deliver on the promises of automatically growing your accounts on YouTube/TikTok/Instagram, the scope of the project would have to increase dramatically.
For non-developers, it would be the equivalent of going from drawing a picture of a cat to making an anatomically correct 3D model of a cat.
Since I did not have the time to do this, my choices were to either 1) keep the product as is but not develop it further, 2) sell the company, or 3) shut it down.
Repurpose Pie will slowly turn into a subpar product if I just let it sit without developing it further. It would not only not deliver on its promises of growth, but it might actually hurt the user by getting his account flagged (this is not currently happening but can happen in the future as hostility towards AI content increases).
Personally I don’t feel comfortable selling a subpar product and I would not feel happy taking your money for something I cannot feel proud of selling.
All products I sell are top notch and I make sure they are the best money can buy (you can see the thousands of 5 star reviews on my products confirming this) and since Repurpose Pie was becoming something I no longer felt was top notch, I did not want to keep selling it anymore.
More work needed to be done to make it top notch again but the time to make it happen simply isn’t there.
Not to mention that I have a baby coming in a few months and this means I’m going to have even less time and need to cut down on work where I can so I have more time for my family.
Similar things are true of the other two founders. Sergio/YCT had his first child last year and is also short on time.
Of course our decision would have been different had the company been much more profitable than what it currently is. But from where it currently stands and given our increasingly demanding personal lives, it needs to be cut because the ROI isn’t there.
Why we decided not to sell the company
So this brings us to a question that I know you are going to ask me: Why don’t you sell the company instead of shutting it down?
We actually had two buyers who were interested in purchasing the business. They were willing to pay in BTC for the entire business (which is the only form of money I’d accept since I want to retain my anonymity and I value my privacy more than the $$$ the company would fetch).
However, when I looked at our customer list, I realized that about 60% of our customers were anonymous accounts. Some of them were bow tieds, some were political, and some were writers like me.
These guys became customers because they trusted me and know I wouldn’t dox them once I received their payment details.
To sell the company with the customer list and payment processing accounts would mean giving the buyer access to everyone’s payment information (which includes their names, physical address, IP address, and card information) which would be tantamount to doxxing all of them to the buyer.
It would be a betrayal of the trust of everyone who trusted me with their identities and I do not intend to betray them. Not for money nor for anything else.
I tried to find a buyer who would be interested in purchasing the technology without the customer list and payment accounts but the software market has changed significantly in the last 2 years and the code without the customer list is worthless.
Both buyers I mentioned earlier and some other ones I reached out to said that the company would be worthless to them without the customer list and business because they could just get the code from AI in less than a few days.
Since I am unwilling to give away the customer list and buyer information to anyone to protect their privacy and since no one wants to buy the company without the customer list, the next thing left is to shut down which is the path we’ve decided to take.
An Apology to Our Customers
So I suppose an apology is due to our customers who trusted us with their business and many who paid us annually expecting that the company will be a going concern.
I understand finding a new provider, setting everything up again, or just growing your accounts yourself instead of our automation is going to be a hassle and for that I apologize.
If you paid us annually and have time due I will personally be refunding you for your unused time. I know most companies take all the money and run when they shut down but I am not like most people and would not feel happy taking money for a product I did not provide.
So we will be contacting each and every one of you with annual subscriptions personally shortly and issuing you a refund. For the people with monthly subscriptions, the service will continue to operate till your period runs out or we will refund your last payment.
I also want to address our customers who would have preferred that we sold the company instead so that the software continued to exist but to be honest, I’m not sorry about that. The privacy of the people who paid to use my product is REALLY important to me and I wouldn’t violate that to make a quick buck or to keep the product around.
Giving the buyer access to the information of our hundreds of anon customers would be doxxing them and giving the buyer leverage over them which is not something they signed up for and is not something I would ever do. So I’m not sorry about that because it is the right thing to do.
I hope you understand the decision and the thought process behind the shutdown after reading this post and I would love to have you as a customer again on any future products I create.
Until then, keep winning!
– Harsh Strongman
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