Could Everpix have been run by a very small team at the end, rather than shut down? It looks like it was near adding a net 1,000 subscribers per month.
Also, wouldn't it have been possible - with the understood pain points - to substantially reduce costs by moving off of AWS? Trading the ease of AWS for the critical cash for operations.
Yes they probably could have. I'm purely guessing here but I suspect the founders had a decision just like the VC's. Does anyone want to keep this alive and try and salvage it? It would be doable but a massive grind for 18 months and we're probably never going to build much more than a $5 to $10 million per year business even if we really do make it. Or do we just want to chalk this one up and walk away and use the experience to try and hit a home run next time?
Buried beneath a stack of preferences it makes little sense for founders to make any sacrifices to save the company (i.e. not take a salary for a while) since all money will go to investors first.
If you read through the VC correspondence the hang up was that the space simply isn't big enough (>$100M). According to the VCs the hockey stick would have hit a ceiling too low for them to invest.
Series A investors make very few investments that are time consuming and capital consuming. Often, a specific partner will make just 1 investment per year, and stick with that company for 7+ years. They'll also allocate ~$15m in capital to it (the $5m for the Everpix raise, plus another $10m for follow-on investments in future rounds). So they're not willing to take risks like this, it doesn't make sense with the model.
Also, wouldn't it have been possible - with the understood pain points - to substantially reduce costs by moving off of AWS? Trading the ease of AWS for the critical cash for operations.