![]() ![]() Then, i n 2015, it was acquired by Microsoft for a rumoured $100 million to $200 million. The decision wasn’t made in vain, as Wunderlist went on to enjoy many accolades including App of the Year in 2013 for their Mac app and Google Play’s Best Apps of 2014. In the end, the decision was pretty obvious, but it was still hard to make.” – Christian Reber Either we focus on Wunderkit or Wunderlist - both would be too much of a challenge. That was when we understood we had to make a decision, it’s either the one or the other. Unfortunately, we were never fully satisfied with the result. “We were lost in perpetual discussions about how features should work and what they should look like. Later that year, Reber made the difficult decision to cease the development of Wunderkit so they could focus solely on Wunderlist. Once Wunderkit was released in 2012, the young startup found it difficult to balance the two products. ![]() It is essentially a to-do list app that allows you to keep a record of your tasks, but its cross-platform and sharing features make it an excellent tool for collaboration. The success can be attributed to the app’s simplicity and cloud-based flexibility. It took the app only nine months and two days to reach one million users! (For comparison, that’s a faster initial growth rate than huge companies like Twitter and Foursquare.) Wunderlist turned into an overnight success. So, in the meantime, they released Wunderlist, the to-do list part of the all-in-one app, to keep customers interested.Īnd interested they were. That app was Wunderkit.ĭuring Wunderkit’s development, Reber realized that it was going to be a while until a fully-fledged app would be available. What they wanted to develop was an all-in-one productivity app which merged workplaces, notes, profiles, and other collaborative tools to help with efficient teamwork. You see, Wunderlist wasn’t what the six “wonder kids” (rough translation of the company name) first sought to create. The idea for the task management app came from the desire to “ reinvent project management ”. ![]() Wunderlist was created in 2011 by Berlin-based startup 6Wunderkinder, fronted by founder and CEO, Christian Reber. “We grew faster than we ever dreamed of and from then on, it became a serious product.” (source: ) “We launched it and literally had overnight success with it,” said 6Wunderkinder CEO Christian Reber on Wunderlist’s initial release. So, t o honour one of the most successful apps to come out of Germany, let’s take a look at how it all began and how it came to be. While the acquisition was a happy day for the Wunderlist team, it was a sad day for many to-do list enthusiasts, as those who were familiar with Microsoft’s habit of buying small successful products and then discontinuing them feared that Wunderlist would suffer the same fate. After all, for some, the point of creating a startup is to eventually have the product or service sold for squillions, is it not? And if I were a startup who created a product so successful that someone was willing to give me literal millions for it, I’d also have done what the Wunderlist founders did. I get it, if I were a tech heavyweight with lots of cash and wanted to eliminate the competition, I’d have done just the same. The popular list and task management app was acquired by Microsoft in 2015 and while many were hoping that the tech giant would somehow incorporate Wunderlist into their Office repertoire, it seems that after years of a “will they? Won’t they” scenario, they’ve decided to shut it down. It had 13 million users and more than 1 billion to-dos at the time of the acquisition. What’s significant about this shutdown-compared to other app shutdowns-is that Wunderlist’s discontinuation isn’t because of a decline in sales or poor user count. As you may have already heard, Wunderlist is due to shut down on the 6th of May, 2020. ![]()
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