Parse sold to Facebook too early and would have survived independently
Ilya Sukhar · 20VC: Matrix's Ilya Sukhar on How The Seed Ecosystem Could Be Optimised, Why The Bar For The Break-Out Series A Has Risen & The Art of Effective Referencing · Sep 9, 2019 · at 28:35
Ilya Sukhar was the co-founder and CEO of Parse, a backend-as-a-service startup acquired by Facebook in 2013 and later shut down.
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“Yeah, we sold early. I think we had a lot of momentum, something great going. One thing I think people don't realize is the venture market actually really didn't appreciate the type of thing we were doing in the same way that it appreciates it now. You look at great companies like Netlify and others who have a lot of the same spirit we had and are doing great. The venture market was not there for us. So when we looked at what Facebook was selling us on the stream, which didn't come to fruition, but the dream was build Amazon Web Services, but the Facebook version of it under the Parse brand with the Parse ecosystem as the starting point. I was like, that's amazing. I would love to do that. It didn't happen. You know, things change, strategies change. It is what it is. But I do think we had Something special. And I think if we had kept going and stuck to it, we would have endured in some way and in an interesting way.”
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