The app faced problems that were predictable for any forum offering users anonymity and a means of chatting with one another. It was plagued by cyberbullies of every kind and even banned by some schools. But all the capital and advice in the world couldn’t help it maintain its buzz.

In 2015, Yik Yak had to admit to users that they were only masked from each other, not police officers or other authorities with a warrant. And then in 2016, security researchers with NYU, led by computer scientist and professor Keith Ross, found other ways to hack users’ personally identifiable information out of Yik Yak. Around the same time, their CTO bailed.