Seattle startup Tribute shuts down as founder reflects on her entrepreneurial journey
Tribute, a Seattle startup fostering workplace connections, weathered the pandemic, won the top prize at the 2020 Seattle Angel Conference, navigated funding difficulties, and generated promising interest from enterprise corporations.
But eight years after launching as a mentor-matching app that evolved into an online tool for strengthening workplace relationships and knowledge sharing, Tribute’s founders are shutting down the business.
The closure comes even as the startup had existing customers and was in long-term talks with eager executives at big-name corporations.
“I had a lot of enterprise buyers saying this was exactly what they needed,” said Tribute CEO and founder Sarah Haggard. They enthused that the platform would transform workplace culture and ease return-to-office difficulties.
“They were saying all the right things,” she said. “We believed it.”
But signed deals didn’t materialize. The startup was running out of money.
“False-positive signals can keep a company going longer than it should,” Haggard said. “I wish enterprises were more mindful of that when working with startups.”
Before launching Tribute, Haggard was at Microsoft for a decade, leaving the role of senior product marketing manager. While at the tech giant, she faced her own hurdles in finding a mentor and decided to build a solution.
The startup notched the Angel Conference win and signed up Microsoft, Sonos, Zillow, Remitly, Reckitt and the University of Washington as customers.
Haggard raised the first tranche of a $1.5 million round during the early days of COVID, sharing that she was pregnant at the time and benefited from doing the raise remotely.
Tribute investors included Portland Seed Fund, Tapas Capital, DNX Ventures, Avalanche VC, Mastersfund and ScoutFund. The investments allowed Haggard to expand and hire former Amazon AWS architect Ian Ma as chief technologist. Sarah Moore was Tribute’s co-founder and vice president of product and design.
But another funding round in 2022 fell apart, leading to smaller cash infusion. Tribute also lost Ma and its head of customer success.
The startup pivoted its focus into a knowledge-sharing resource that integrated with popular platforms including Slack and Microsoft Teams. It provided support for finding colleagues who could offer career advice, insights into company culture, subject matter expertise, skill development and other assistance. It used artificial intelligence to gather data and optimize institutional information sharing.
As part of the shutdown, Tribute has offboarded its customers, providing them their data and insights. Haggard said the field still lacks a holistic solution for these internal communications, and wonders if someone else will solve the challenge.
Throughout the journey, Haggard has been unusually publicly candid in disclosing her entrepreneurial successes and setbacks, noting the hurdles that are unique for women and calling out the grit that’s required. She’s frustrated by founders who sugarcoat or omit their trials.
“There is a lot of power in sharing the full story,” Haggard said.
Haggard hasn’t settled on a next step after shuttering Tribute, but wants to stay in the knowledge management space. She is eager to apply her expanded skill set and insights, and sees great potential in the field with new AI capabilities. Overall, she feels good about building something from scratch.
“I’m proud that I’m that person that can take those calculated risks,” Haggard said, “to bring a product to market to help other people.”
Related coverage:
- Seattle startup founder on the discrimination-busting advantages of VC fundraising during COVID
- Funding news roundup: Pandion’s parcel network, Copper’s banking app for teens, mentoring app Tribute, life navigator OwnTrail, and more deals
- How this Seattle startup founder bounced back when her investors bailed out