It looks like it might rain at any moment, you can almost see the droplets forming in front of your eyes. It's the kind of day where you crack open your eye at the sound of the alarm and turn right back over, burying your head beneath your blankets for another ten minutes. It's a sad kind of day.
Last night, Deepleap announced they were shutting down, and I feel like I've lost a member of the start-up family to which I belong. I'd always viewed Deepleap as the sister company of Pyra. It seemed like we were in it together, our two teams, doing something different. Doing something we loved, because we wanted to change things. It was Us against Them. (Them, the evil dot-coms, the ones who were taking over San Francisco, destroying the homes of elderly nuns to build their offices, driving through parks and wetlands in SUVs crushing wildlife, making millions on non-viable businesses.) The 'Leapers knew what it was like to lay it all on the line for a dream; to visualize something so clearly, you can almost touch it, taste it, breathe it; and struggle to make it palpable to others.
They were our doppelgängers, our Texas Twins, they were the only other people I knew that were Doing It. Starting Something. Sure I know lots of people doing web stuff, but they're not founding companies. Deepleap was like us, was like me. They saw something that could exist and the strove to make it happen. This failure shakes my foundation, upheaves my long-held belief that intelligent, hard-working people with good ideas will succeed. Perhaps that belief still holds true for me on an individual basis, but as a collective, it no longer does. It's not enough to gather a smart and diligent team, armed with a fascinating concept. Perhaps I was naïve, but I honestly thought that it was. Goodbye Deepleap.
It's a sad kind of day.