Sunset
After taking some time and exploring all options, we have decided to shut down Relevant.
This was an extremely hard decision to make but given the circumstances, I am convinced it is for the best.
We started Relevant (previously Dashbook) a couple of years back. It’s been quite a journey with a lot of ups and downs. I’m very proud of the team for building a truly great product that was praised and used by tens of thousands of people from all around the world.
With Relevant we built a card based interface layer that brought all your favorite apps and websites into one place. An intelligent screen that allowed users to interact with the underlying services without needing to download/install any new app.
It’s just unfortunate that we weren’t able to grow big enough, fast enough. It’s an understatement to say how financially demanding it is to get distribution on the App Store, especially in the recent months.
We did consider a pivot given the promising core technology we built, REL — a programming language for API aggregation and Data Manipulation on the fly. Yet due to financial reasons we decided not to pursue.
I truly believe in the next 2–3 years, we will see a solution very similar if not the exact same as Relevant to arise and concur the market. The card based interfaces can solve the app fatigue for users and allow different services to get distribution based on relevancy, not the marketing money. This is something both Apple (iOS10 Notification center) and Google (Google Now Cards) have been investing heavily in.
In the last couple of months, we did explore the M&A route. While we had great interests and got close to making a deal, we didn’t agree on the terms.
It’s tough but it is what it is.
Last but not least, I want to personally thank our investors and advisors for being there for us and providing the support when we needed it the most. Special thanks to our users who have been extremely supportive of us with their kind words and uplifting feedback. It’s been a roller coaster ride. We have learned a ton. We will take every piece of this learning and implement it in our next venture. That I promise.
P.S. If you are looking for great product people hit me up and I will be happy to connect you.
