Trailguide AS is bankrupt
Bjørn Jarle Kvande, 7. November 2024Sad news to all users of Trailguide
And so, we find ourselves at the end of this incredible journey. The past 11 years have been a rollercoaster of emotions — filled with joy, creativity, and the thrill of building something meaningful. Without access to the necessary funding, we were unable to fullfill our financial obligations, and the company behind the app, Trailguide AS, had to declare bankruptcy.
It’s heartbreaking to let go of something we’ve poured so much of ourselves into, not because of the loss of potential future earnings, but because of the love and dedication that went into every line of code, every feature, and every idea.
Trailguide was more than just a project—it was a dream, a passion, and a part of our lives.
Below is a comment I found in the source code I've been working on the last 11 years, and now lost all the rights to. It is not very well written, but it is honest:
Greetings reader 🙂 It is sunday 29th of January 2023, 10 minutes after midnight while writing this.
My name is Bjørn Jarle Kvande, I am the main programmer of Trailguide. If you are not me, and you are reading this - welcome to one of the oldest files of the codebase, some of the code might go all the back to the fall of 2013. That means I have now spent almost 10 years creating the Trailguide platform - and it is as of the time of this writing, not yet financially a success.
I do believe the software that has been created is of great value to the tourism industry, and the guests and visitors, helping everybody have a better experience and enjoying a healthy outdoor lifestyle. My feeling is that the only thing standing in the way of a great international financial technology-success based out of Hallingdal in Norway is access to people who is a lot better than myself at sales, marketing, communication, and business development. To get access to those resources, we only need capital.
If you are not me, and are reading this many years later, congratulations. I hope I was able to get hold of the money so that Trailguide could get out into the world where it belongs, giving people great outdoor experiences, and people working in the tourism industry a tool and a platform to make their day at work easier, more fun, and more rewarding, serving their guests and visitors.
If I am not able to get hold of the cash or Trailguide is otherwise ripped out of my hands against my will without me getting anything back for it - then I will say that the period has been the most interesting and rewarding in my life so far, and I will try not to be bitter. But, I will have no idea what to do with my life in that case, and will be totally lost. It would really be devastating.
This is my baby, child, teenager, and now young adult. I have treated it the absolute best I can, raised it with good automated tests, nurtured it with refactorings along the way if I found a better way of doing things or had to clean up something before implementing a new feature. I did everything I could to keep it healthy, nice, flexible, understandable and extensible. I always tried to learn from my mistakes and become a better parent/programmer for the codebase.
If the software is still alive, and you are not me, I really hope you have respect for all the work mostly put in by one man, out of love of wanting to create something that would be of great use to maybe millions of people. This file, and the map/leaflet folder it lives in, being so old has been in dire need of refactoring to find a simpler and cleaner solution for a long time. Respect the code and always try to make it better. Never just shove something in to get something working quickly. Clean up if needed. Write a test for the feature you are adding while writing the code (it is a step-wise iterative process). Then refactor the code to clean up. Always be able to deploy a new version late on a friday afternoon.
Bjørn