// startup autopsy
Lanyrd
The Twitter-powered conference guide that got lost after acquisition
platform dependencyAcqui-hire
Fatal mistake: Lanyrd's core discovery mechanic was entirely dependent on Twitter's social graph, making the product vulnerable to platform policy changes and limiting its standalone defensibility.
Key Events Timeline
FOUNDING
Lanyrd founded in London by Natalie Downe and Simon Willison, building a Twitter-powered social conference directory.
FUNDING
Lanyrd raised $1.4M in seed funding from investors including Index Ventures, validating the conference discovery concept.
PRODUCT LAUNCH
Lanyrd launched speaker and attendee tracking features, growing a loyal following among the global tech conference community.
ACQUISITION ATTEMPT
Eventbrite initiated acquisition talks with Lanyrd, seeing the conference directory as complementary to its ticketing platform.
SHUTDOWN
Eventbrite completed the acquisition of Lanyrd; the product continued briefly before being wound down in 2016 as Eventbrite deprioritized it.