FindIt’s Universal Search App Closes Down

Tough times for cross-platform personal search tools, maybe? Techstars Chicago grad FindIt, a mobile application offering universal search across your emails and files stored in the cloud, is shutting down, the company announced in an email sent out to the service’s early adopters.

The app, which allowed you to quickly connect your Gmail, Dropbox and Google Drive accounts, then search by keyword, person, time or file type, competed to some extent with other services like Younity or CloudMagic, both of which are also now exploring new areas of focus.

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Younity, for example, this week delved into photo management with added support for remote photo importing, editing and posting. Meanwhile, CloudMagic also shuttered its earlier cross-platform, cross-cloud file service in favor of a search-focused mobile email client for iOS.

According to FindIt, the company is now dedicating itself to something entirely new as well, while closing down its mobile search app for good.

Asked what the team is working on next, co-founder Levi Belnap tells us it’s an advertising technology product – a “simple solution for business owners to advertise on Facebook. We create, serve, optimize, and report back key insights on Facebook ad campaigns,” he says.

In the process of building FindIt, he says they learned how to locate users very well, using advertising. “We realized everyone wanted to advertise on Facebook but nobody knew how to start or how to do it effectively,” Belnap adds.

Full shutdown letter is below:

Dear FindIt user,

As of today, we are shutting down the FindIt application and focusing our team and resources on an entirely new product. This will not impact your files or emails in any way. Our servers will be shut down, and the FindIt application will no longer be functional.

This is a bittersweet moment for our team. Starting a company and trying to change the world is no easy task. We had a vision to empower people with simple and intuitive search on their phone. Many of our users told us incredible stories about FindIt helping them in moments of need, but in the process we learned that the majority of our users did not need FindIt often enough to justify our continued time and effort on this problem. Thank you for continuing to inspire and motivate us.

While building FindIt we faced the challenge every business faces, how to find new customers. We discovered the power of Facebook advertising in finding new users, and we developed expertise in creating, managing, and optimizing Facebook ads. As we spoke with other entrepreneurs and business owners we learned that most do not understand the potential Facebook advertising has to help grow their businesses and they have no idea how to get started. We knew we could help.

In early 2014 we began building a solution to this problem, and we already have paying customers who love our approach. If you own a business or work in a business that needs help with Facebook advertising, check out what we are working on now at adup.co

We are truly fortunate to have the support of amazing investors and a fantastic team. We continue to be driven by our passion for simplifying technology to empower people and make their lives better. We are excited to redirect this passion to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses.

All the best from the FindIt team, and may you always find what you are looking for in life

Levi, Alex, Ben, & Brandon