3 Business Lessons From Vine Shutting Down

In case you’ve been sitting under a rock for the past 24-hours then you haven’t heard about Vine shutting down it’s proverbial doors down in the next coming months. Not everyone knows about Vine so here’s a brief history and description: In June 2012 Vine launched as the video version of Twitter–you only had 6 seconds to make an impact with you actions. Twitter then bought the service in October 2012 and things really took off. This isn’t a small social network either–Vine has over 200 million subscribers worldwide.

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But on October 27, 2016, they made the announcement that their stint in the beautiful world wide web was coming to a close. Ok, so not really the world wide web but they are putting the kabosh on the app. It’s important to note that Vine users will still have access to their previously recorded Vine’s and they will be downloadable. But this is really doing a doozey on the subscribers that still love and use Vine. Many of them have questions but most are just upset and sharing their favorite Vine’s on Twitter.

3 Business Lessons To Learn From Vine Shutting Down

Here’s the thing: businesses come and they go. Startups are created and either kept or their sold. In a world where there are more entrepreneurs now than ever, we have to get business lessons from all of these instances. Here are the 3 most important lessons to get from the demise of Vine:

1. Selling Your Startup Isn’t Always A Great Idea. 

You have this great concept, you work to develop it, some bigger company sees it’s worth and makes an offer. You see money, big money and next thing you know, you’re signing your life’s dream away. Sometimes it’s worth it and sometimes it isn’t. The original founders of Vine are citing that it was their mistake in selling Vine to Twitter. If you don’t know how to properly develop, market, launch or continue building upon your stellar idea, get help. There are many successful business coaches out there making people money. Explore all your options before just signing your business away.

2. Your Business Must Be Adaptable. 

When Vine was the only social media outlet doing these 6 second videos, it was booming. But then along comes Instagram launching their videos and this seriously hurt Vine. Here’s the thing–most ideas are NOT original ideas but the way that manifest them is yours alone and this is what sets you aside. So when Instagram launched their video option, it may have seemed like they were copying Vine, but this may or may not have already been part of their business model. They just launched it differently.

We’re seeing this again with Snapchat Stories, Instagram Stories and now Facebook’s Messenger Day. The thing about these 3 is that they all started out with one specific niche and then continued to develop and adapt to the times. There is always going to be something better, more cutting edge, and it’s up the business to either develop and adapt to the times or not.

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3. You Have To Fail Faster And Better Than Others.

This is actually something that my brother told me in April of 2016. I left my corporate gig in May of 2015 committed to change the world one blog post, piece of clothing and jar of shea butter 1 person at a time. While I haven’t failed, I did hit a rough patch and was really down which is when he shared this bit of information with me. The thing about failing is that it’s only failing if you didn’t learn from it.

When you’re an entrepreneur, startup, or do anything that has to do with the every evolving nature of social media, you HAVE to try new ideas out often. Sometimes they work and you roll with it and sometimes they don’t. When they don’t is when you have the greatest opportunity to learn: see what didn’t work, make note of what did, piece this together quickly and keep moving. Vine failed to do this when other social media outlets started offering similar services as them. Don’t let this be you. Remember that the more you “fail”, the more you learn thus becoming better.

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While it’s always sad to see a business fall, the fall always offers great lessons that can help the people willing to learn.

Were you affected by Vine closing it’s doors? What do you think they could have done differently?