I received an email that Springpad is shutting down. But unlike many “shutdown” emails, I was surprised how much trouble the guys at Springpad put in to migrate your data to a comparable service – primarily their chief competitor – Evernote.
This is in stark contrast to the majority of the acqui-hire outcomes where the founders wax lyrical about how grateful they are for the journey and the invaluable support of their users and then goes on to kick their loyal users to the curb by shutting down the service with only a useless data dump as an option.
Maybe its because Springpad was an East Coast company, but the YCombinator, Tech Stars, AngelPad startups can certainly use a lesson in accountable governance when their startups fail or they get “acquired” by Yahoo!, Google or Facebook.