1Password partners with Venture Capital Firm Accel to take a $200M Series A
Not sure what to think about this (first impression: disappointment):
- https://blog.1password.com/accel-partnership/
- https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/14/fourteen-years-after-launching-1password-takes-first-funding-a-200m-series-a/
- https://randombutmemorable.simplecast.com/episodes/bonus-thai-food-announcement
What do other 1Password customers think about this?
1Password Version: Not Provided
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Comments
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Idea, private company, public corporation, institution. Way of the world.
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I'm very worried this is gonna go the way things tend to go with VC's (see: Evernote). VC's are concerned about one thing, to the detriment of anything and everything else: return on investment. Otherwise, they couldn't exist.
I have zero faith that this doesn't go badly for us users. Prices will go up, maybe suddenly our info is a commodity to be sold, etc etc etc. The 1P team is great, but Accel is the entity in control now. I'd love to be wrong though, but when someone's got you on the hook for the $200MM they just gave you... well, their grip is pretty strong at that point.
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I hope this goes well for AgileBits and wish them well. I can't think of any positives for the customer stakeholders.
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Priority will now be even more profit and "growing aggressively" and giving the investors a return over everything else. The individual customers that put AgileBits where they are now will be even further down the priority list than they are now - way behind Accel and their enterprise customers. Sad day.
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After having only read the headlines I was thinking that the people asking for phone support would finally get what they want, as AgileBits can now no longer claim that they are small company without the funds to do that.
However, after having listened to the podcast I'm (also) afraid that all focus will go to enterprise customers.
Hope I'm wrong though!
I love(d) 1Password and have enough (gift card) balance for more than 1 year of the Family subscription, so I can take some time to see how this develops.
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Hello everybody, 👋
Thank you for bringing this up and sharing your concerns. It means a lot to me knowing that you care enough about 1Password to worry about us. ❤️
If the concerns raised in this thread were true then I'd be worried, too! 🙂 Let me elaborate on why I'm not.
First and foremost, we remain in complete control of 1Password. We're complete control freaks and the thought of giving up control over our baby is completely antithetical to who we are. We refused anything otherwise.
We kept full control so we could uphold our values and ensure we'd never be forced to compromise on them. Our values are what made us successful over the last 14 years and we plan on building on them for the next 14 years and beyond. Our values really struck a chord in today's world and I'm tickled pink that they resonated with so many people. 🙌
I wrote about this at length in our announcement and our founding story posts that I published today.
Second, there is no way in hell that we're ever going to sell your information or show ads or track you or any of the other 100 shady things other companies do to turn you into the product. We have a straight-laced business model: we sell 1Password. 1Password is the product. You are not. Anything else is just plain wrong, and quite frankly, bad business. We earn more trust and revenue with an above board business model so it just don't make sense to do anything else.
Third, the "growing aggressively" comment in the Tech Crunch article can indeed sound alarming. I can see that and honestly we could have said it better. If a company grows too fast it can outgrow its culture and it's certainly something that we're well aware of and spend a great deal of time thinking about. It's certainly possible to grow too aggressively.
But at the same time, we already are growing very fast. For the last 14 years we've gone from 2 to 174 people, so we've already been doubling every other year. For most businesses this is already "growing aggressively" but we've done this for 14 years already and it's worked quite well. The thing is, even though we're already growing fast, we need to accelerate the pace just to catch up to today's tasks, let alone the multitude of other things that we'd like to add to our plate.
The last point I'd like to make is "enterprise" isn't as scary as it sounds. It's not a businesses vs. individuals zero sum game. Our relentless focus on the user experience in 1Password is one of the main reasons we have been so successful with 1Password Business.
One of the things that gets me most excited is 99% of the time employees at businesses are using the exact same features in 1Password that everyone else is using. The difference in the enterprise is all the tooling that goes around these core features to provide businesses the tools they need. As we improve the user experience for individuals we automatically improve our business offering. It means that we get to continue focusing on what's made us successful since the beginning. We can have our (gluten-free) cake and eat it, too. 🧁
I understand that the proof will be what we do over the next 14 years, but based on the trust we've built over the last 14 years I hope you'll give us the benefit of the doubt and take a wait and see attitude.
I've said it a thousand times and I'll say it a thousand times more: we wouldn't be here without awesome users like you and we're never going to lose sight of that. 🤗
++dave;
1Password Founder (and still a control freak 😘)0 -
Thanks folks. ❤️ We'll be working hard to continue to be deserving of your trust.
Ben
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Thank you! ❤️ Your trust means the world to me. 🤗
++dave;
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As a customer for 12.7 years, I hope this works out well for me. Very selfish, I know.
But, then I have Dropbox, Smartsheet, Box as examples of failure.0 -
In my case, I have decided that my passwords are too important to risk it so I ended up cancelling my subscription :frown:. Nonetheless, my experience on your platform was superb and I have recommended it to many of my friends. I hope this works out for you and if it does, I might come back.
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Did you move to a more compelling competitive product or are you handling things on your own? I was pretty careful in vetting 1P against the industry and my failure at pulling off the latter option is the reason I'm here.
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I'm sorry to hear that, @terrajobst. I hope our actions going forward will win you back. 🙏
++dave;
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Second, there is no way in hell that we're ever going to sell your information or show ads or track you or any of the other 100 shady things other companies do to turn you into the product. We have a straight-laced business model: we sell 1Password. 1Password is the product. You are not. Anything else is just plain wrong, and quite frankly, bad business. We earn more trust and revenue with an above board business model so it just don't make sense to do anything else.
I hope this stays true, and I am not planning on leaving anytime time soon. To jump ship now without knowing is overkill (hhmmm... Overkill...the name of one of my favorite bands :lol: ). I hope this only improves things foe you guys.
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Thank you, @prime. I appreciate it. 🤗
By the way, I extended my response above into a full blog post over on Medium after being moved by a Tweet from DHH. I think you and others might enjoy it. 🙂
Take care,
++dave;
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I'm also excited to see the fruits of this partnership going forward. As Dave said in his blog post,
The other part of the story is we have so many opportunities and features to explore that it’s quite frankly frustrating that we have zero free time to spend on them (I’d argue we have negative free-time, but that’s a separate story). All great businesses and products have to say “no” frequently so they can stay focused on their core business, but we’re currently saying “no” to things that are part of our core business.
It will be cool to be able to say "yes" more to stuff that's a good fit for 1Password which we didn't have the bandwidth for previously. Happy holidays! :chuffed:
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Please keep saying 1000 No's for every Yes :wink:
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You’re 100% right, @XIII, we should be saying ‘no’ to many things. And we do. The last sentence fragment from what Brenty quoted from my blog post highlights the issue we face: there’s things we need to be saying ‘yes’ for our core business but are currently unable to.
We’ll get there. And I’m sure we’ll still need to say ‘no’ a lot. 🙂
++dave;
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