Ending Well
On ending products, companies, jobs, and things
Since closing Readmill a couple years back, I’ve developed a deep fascination with ending well.
When we realized our end was likely, we did a little research on the startup graveyard around us, in search of examples we wanted to emulate. Apart from Editorially, which ended when we were well into our project, we came up short. Ultimately, we created a running doc of examples of how we didn’t want to end. It looked a lot like this.
As with the features and launches that had come before, we set about designing an end that we hoped would be helpful for our readers. David put together a few principles to guide our work. They were something like this, if my memory serves me.
- Set a new standard for ending
- Return our readers’ data in the most useful formats possible
- Give our readers something of value, even as we end
Of course, there are things I might do better or differently, if we could go back and end again. But these principles guided us to an ending I’m very proud of. From the vantage point of then and now, I can say that our ending was successful, in terms of preserving our readers’ data, as well as their respect.
With our export tools, our goodbye page, and our reader stories, we focused on striking an appropriate, empathetic tone and being helpful. Even as we began our new jobs at Dropbox, we were still there on the other end, three months later, helping the last reader get her books and notes, so she could pick up where she left off somewhere else.
In writing our goodbye, we also tried to avoid making promises we couldn’t keep. It’s a common mistake, from amidst the whirlwind of acquisitions, to promise that nothing will change, or that you’ll be able to control the outcome, months or years down the line.
We did make one little promise, though—or perhaps more of a wish: that we looked forward to meeting again, in new ways, in the margins.
Last week at Dropbox, we launched a slew of productivity tools, which help people write and work and make together. Over these past two years, the Readmill team put down roots in different corners of the company. We’ve worked together, and apart, and together again. Directly and indirectly, we’ve helped make this thing real.
As it turns out, this launch includes a new comments feature that lets you make very precise notes. You can point at anything, in any file, and then have a conversation about it in the margins.
Wouldn’t you know it. We made good on our promise, thank goodness.
Of course, this launch is only a taste of what we’ve been up to at Dropbox. We’ve been building new teams and products. We’ve been designing new ways of working together, through the products we build and the way we work each day.
For my own part, I can say that I’ve learned in two years what I might have learned in a decade. I’m grateful for the kind, talented colleagues and the many resources I’ve found at Dropbox that have helped me grow.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had a new end of my own to shepherd. I’ve wound down my work at Dropbox, and I’ve kept David’s principles in mind. I wanted to set a high standard for ending well, to hand things off in the most useful formats, and to create some value and opportunity for others, even as I said goodbye. It’ll be some time before I and my colleagues can measure my success.
Of course, the nice thing about endings is that they make space for new beginnings. I’ve decided to follow my curiosity beyond text to the spoken word. Soon I’m headed to NextEV to design voice and content for an electric car.
I’m making a podcast too. After shaping the voices of products and companies for a while, I’m learning to be more comfortable with the sound of my own voice.
I’m writing this now to make sense of the connections between one end and another. And also in the hope of sparking more conversation about how we should end. If the cost of innovation is a lot of endings, each one is an opportunity to end well.
