They could, but then they would not be able to grab early adopters investment to fund their new company AUDIOLAND, so they can repeat all over again.

All the same 3 "people of interest" of Speechki are in there:

> Founder Dmitrii Abramov
> Cofounder Sergei Baranov
> Partner Mitchell Kim.

It's just a new world where stealing others showing our face and moving on is becoming the new normal.

From my dialogue with Dima_Speechki Founder team @ Dec. 30, 2023, 12:44 | Deals Bought: 232 | Member Since: 12/04/12

- So it turned out that my - initial hunch - was right. They are scammers - why they were “unclear in their communication” :

"My post was simply to put a light on problematic issues for other SumoLings, as other in this community also do (you can get an indicator of us, by looking at the number of deals we have bought, just besides our User name, so kind of a verifier.. 
- So the no answers & many "loose not clear answers" was the base for my post...

...I kind of see that the "loose not clear answers" properly is culture or "ease tone of voice" - so not deviant or trying to mislead - but, you guys trying to be nice and tell as much as you can whiteout directly showing the road-map and plans due to hefty competition in this field...

...So the problem is that 9/10 other dev.'s her on the site - when they answers in same style, it has been to disguise what ppl get in a deal, making it sounds like more, or something else, trying to get as much sales as possible, and then afterwards leaving SumoLings behind with a asset that is now obsolete due to better quality & functionalities fro other companies...

...I don't think you are in that group, anymore...
"
(boy should I have kept with my first impression, then I would not have been ripped for a tier 3)
- Hope the AppSumo team can get this corrected.

This is fraud. I voiced my opinion on Appsumo that they appeared to be a shaky outfit, and I bought the full-tier later as I thought I was wrong about them with so many people purchasing them. Appsumo must do something about them, especially if they have started another app elsewhere. Appsumo must stop some of their vendors fraudulent practices, which have become all too frequent lately!!! Otherwise, I am done with this platform!!!!

This app is too good to just shut down. My bet, they got an offer to sell all or part of the technology. I think Appsumo's latest agreements force vendors to make sumolings whole if this happens within a short amount of time, by either returning money or forcing the new buyer of the technology or company to honor the LTDs. I think Appsumo made this change after the owner of PeerBoard, a great community app, sold the company and many sumolings, with a lot of time in money into building their communities, were given a couple months to get off PeerBoard and find a new solution. In this rare case the owner of PeerBoard worked with Appsumo to reimburse sumolings. He had a great product and apparently made a lot of money on the sale. Affected sumolings had to scramble to find another solution. The PeerBoard owner actually worked with sumolings to find other community solutions, and even created download formats in short order to enable the transfer of massive amounts of data into the new solution(s). I had purchased PeerBoard's top tier, but did not yet have my community up and running, so I didn't suffer as other sumolings that were truly scrambling. I got 100% of my money back. Peerboard's owner was truly a class act. After that situation, I seem to remember Appsumo changing their contracts with vendors to require them to reimburse upon selling of the app/company or require the LTDs to be honored in the sale.

It would not surprise me a bit if Speechki had an offer to sell the company or technology. Or maybe they just wanted to get out of the LTDs and move the technology to another of their entities. Not wanting to give back all the money to sumolings, they could be shuting down the company claiming finacial reasons, so they can just get out of the obligations in the Appsumo contract. More than likely going out of business is not treated the same as selling the app or business in the Appsumo contract. This could be a way to sell or transfer the technology to another of their own companies as well, namely AudioLand.io. Simply put, they close down Speechki due to "financial reasons" and quietly move the technology (IP) to another entity owned by them (AudioLand.io). AudioLand.io was in place, and received outside funding in August 2023. This is a month before they launched on Appsumo. Just maybe they want to take their app, and what they learned from all the feedback from sumolings, and now start fresh without the obligations of the LTDs sold on Appsumo. Shuting down Speechki and then quietly moving everything to another entity just might accomplish their goal. If they were really cunning they could have had the IP already owned by AudioLand.io, and just licensed to Speechki. Then there is no need to move or sell the IP to AudioLand.io, as it already owned it. They shutdown Speechki one day and there is nothing more to do. Most likely the small team all work remotely. If they have or had a Speechki office space, it is almost certainly is also where AudioLand.io resides, since the same co-founders are involved in both entities.

Or, maybe they truly had good intentions of deliverying on all the promises and LTDs, but their finances, or lack of, took them down.

One thing is for sure, the Speechki app is too good to just throw in the trash. It no doubt is being sold or reused for another product, by another name, with another UI.

I hope Appsumo looks closely as this situation and plugs any holes in their contracts with vendors, if they exist, so this type of situation does not happen repeatedly. I buy a lot of deals and some disappear, but this one stings as it smells like dishonesty on another level.