I think Justin / Putt got played. I think the "angel" took all the equity in return for taking on the liabilities and then promised Justin a profit share if it ever turned a profit. In effect he already sold it, and for essentially nothing as well.
Yeah from what I understand, in Voat's infancy, Putt used the source code as collateral to an investor, or something along those lines.
At the time it must have been a pretty good get, especially because Putt didn't think Voat would get as big as it did. (I was a beta user back in the early days when it was just supposed to be a free-er reddit)
It's a real shame, and just another reason to never sell out and always maintain ownership of your intellectual property. It's like people don't know what Licensing is anymore.
Many mistakes were made. I'm sure Justin would counter that by the time the site needed a capital injection it's name and reputation were already such that he had no other real choices. I think the plan was to ride the original software license to the end and then sell out to a competitor or upstart. Of course the userbase proved so toxic that the site was never really worth anything in monetary terms.
In retrospect it wasn't much of a business plan really was it? "I'll try and get all the users who've been thrown off Reddit and monetize them." At least our present surroundings has a donation and funding structure for the userbase to contribute. I'm quite sure the reason Justin/Putt has rejected all offers of donations and financial help is those funds would actually belong to the angel investor and not the site or Justin personally.
(post is archived)