Why WeTransfer Co-Founder Is Creating Another File Transfer Service

Naldenwho co-founded the file transfer service WeTransfer in 2009 with Rinke Visser and Bas Beerens, is unhappy with the direction the company took after the creation of the service. acquired by Bending Spoon last year – and he doesn’t mince his words about it.

“Bending Spoons doesn’t really care about people, and while I understand this is their private equity strategy, I notice that since I left [WeTransfer] in 2019, a lot of updates killed the product, in my opinion,” he told TechCrunch.

After the acquisition, WeTransfer made a confusing decision regarding transfer link experiences and laid off 75% of its staff. This year, the company was caught up in controversy around using its users’ content to train AI models and had to review changes made to its conditions.

Around that time, Nalden asked creatives to share their frustration with WeTransfer. He realized he wanted to build an alternative to WeTransfer with the service’s original philosophy around simplicity. The service is called Boomerang and you can use it to transfer files without logging in.

“Why do tech companies always make things so complicated? I’ve always struggled with that, and I just wanted to come up with another tool that’s just, it’s all about the user experience, it’s the ease of use, it’s the simplicity of sharing something quickly, and it just saves time. You don’t have to sign up, you don’t have to check by email,” Nalden told TechCrunch of the service’s philosophy.

For casual users, the offline experience would be sufficient, but it has its limitations. You can have 1 GB of total space and upload files up to 1 GB in size with an expiration of seven days. If you want a little more, you can choose to create a free account. This will give you 3 GB of total space with a file upload limit of 3 GB per file. You will also have access to your download history, the ability to add and remove files at any time, and the ability to customize emojis on the page when sending the file.

If you want even more, there is a paid tier of €6.99 per month, which will give you 200 GB per space (folders) and 500 GB of total storage with a file upload limit of 5 GB per file. Plus, you’ll get custom covers for Spaces, password protection for files, up to 90 days of expiration, and the ability to invite unlimited users to access a Space’s files.

Nalden is clear that with this new service he does not want to offer advertising to users and keep a simple payment structure. He believes that the advertising industry is very complex, and with Boomerang he wants to get as little data from users as possible.

“I just want to offer a tool that works for users. It’s like buying a hammer. You may not want to buy a fancy hammer, but a hammer that works,” he emphasized.

Boomerang’s site and interface are simple, and that’s by design. Nalden noted that much of the design is intended to appeal to investors, and he believes that simplifying the experience is a refreshing change. As companies look to add more and more AI features, Nalden said he uses AI extensively to build the product, but doesn’t want to use it around user-facing features.

Boomerang is available on the web, but the company said it plans to release a dedicated Mac app soon.