Friday, the startup building software for remote teams, shuts down

Friday, the Portland-based startup that was building software to help distributed teams improve communication, has announced that it is shutting down.

Founder and CEO Luke Thomas published a blog post on April 7 announcing the decision, which he then shared on LinkedIn. The app will be shut off on June 3, 2022, according to Thomas’ post. He told Maine Startups Insider the company currently employs eight, though the team is, not surprisingly, fully distributed.

Despite adding 100,000 users in the past 12 months, Thomas blamed the closure on a lack of clarity around the product and its target audience.

“Ultimately, I didn’t have enough clarity to continue pursuing additional investment and as a byproduct, growing the business,” Thomas wrote. “The pain-point we aimed to solve is still a very big issue, but I believe over time existing tools (docs, project management, HRIS) will work to solve the problems people face when working outside of the office.”

The news is a disappointing end for one of Maine’s most promising startups. Friday shuts down less than two year after raising $2.2 million from investors, including Bessemer Venture Partners, one of the oldest and most-well known venture capital funds in the country.

Thomas started the company, originally known as Friday Feedback, as a side project in 2016 (Editor’s note: Friday Feedback was the first company to run a sponsored ad in Maine Startups Insider’s newsletter). In October 2017, Thomas won the Startup South Portland pitch contest, pocketing $1,500. In the fall of 2019, it raised a pre-seed round of $450,000 and launched a beta product on the expectation that remote work would only grow in popularity. Then the pandemic reached U.S. shores, a sea change that has accelerated companies’ adoption of allowing their employees to work outside an office. A recent Gallup poll estimates that 45% of full-time employees are still working from home either always or part of the time.

It seemed like Friday was perfectly positioned to take advantage of this black swan event. In late 2020, after the country had already endured more than six months of the COVID pandemic, Friday was able to attract the attention of several out-of-state VC firms. Bessemer Venture Partners led a $2.2 million equity investment in the company that also included San Antonio-based Active Capital, Boston-based Underscore VC, Los Angeles-based El Cap Holdings, and New York Venture Partners.

Friday never released revenue numbers, but has previously claimed its customers included teams at companies like Twitter, Oracle, LinkedIn, Quizlet, Red Hat, EA, 10up, and others.

While Thomas personally had moved to Nashville during the pandemic, the company remained technically headquartered in Maine.

“I’d like to send a special shout-out to Maine Technology Institute, early beta customers, angel investors, and advisors who were based out of Maine,” Thomas wrote to Maine Startups Insider. “While I wished for a different outcome, I’m super thankful for the support I received from so many Mainers. It means a lot and I will never forget all the people who helped along the way.”