My problem with their whole funding model was that rich people with lots of money would get to be on an advisory role. Fuck that shit. You're already doing it wrong.

The whole project just seems kinda pointless to me as a fedizen. Canadian fediverse instances already exceed the vision of gander. The only principle differentiating this thing from the rest of corporate social media is the maple-flavoured nationalism.

I suppose it's good that they dodged a couple of VC bullets, but, like, why do they need that much funding to spin up a fork of bluesky, y'know?

https://archive.is/2026.01.31-002226/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-arlene-dickinson-amber-mac-cut-ties-canadian-startup-gander-social/

The valuation from the public raise seemed wildly high imo for something pre-revenue, pre-product, pre-user, and without any unique IP. Seems like basically they got caught in being overvalued at their crowd funding seed stage and put themselves in a jam where they either had the equivalent of a down round to bring in the advisors they wanted or to part ways with them in what was ultimately going to be a public situation because they're overvalued for the stage they're at and got ahead of themselves with communicating about the advisory relationship.

I don't see much that's really damning though. It's maybe just getting out too far over your skis from lack of experience. Some of the comments are a bit rough in the article, but I wouldn't write them off from that.

Aha, so that’s who was being referenced in their last email. For those interested that aren’t part of the newsletter group:

Hi friend,

We wanted to send a brief update directly to our early supporters.

Over the last few days, there have been some changes to Gander’s group of Strategic Advisors, and we took some time to reflect and gather our thoughts before sharing them with you.

As part of our initial fundraising from May to September of last year, two prospective investors did not complete their advisor agreements or investments by the original deadline, or within an extended timeframe.

Our equity crowdfunding campaign went live in October, and we recently offered them the same terms that every other investor had received through the campaign. When an agreement couldn’t be reached, we parted ways.

We’re grateful for all the advice and support that every single one of our advisors, past and present, has provided to us along this journey. Our focus today is exactly where it’s always been: building Gander with, and for, the Canadians who have shown up, believed in it, and helped make it real.

Today, we have Gander in the hands of hundreds of people who are posting, connecting, and testing the app. That number will continue to increase every week until everyone reading this email has been invited.

As always, thank you for being part of this with us. We’ll keep showing up, building with community, and getting Gander into the hands of more Canadians.

With gratitude,

Ben & The Gander Team

Ms. MacArthur added: “Over the past few weeks it’s been pretty clear I wasn’t necessarily advising on anything because there was no product to look at. From my perspective, they have not been actively in touch with advisers along the way. That begs the question why you need advisers if you’re not getting them to advise.”

Without seeing the product, “it’s really hard to tell people they should continue to support and invest in this,” Ms. MacArthur said.

Why in the hell would you think you had a right to see anything when you had failed to provide even 1 cent of funding????

Jfc. Rich people truly believe they should get everything for nothing.