Pick your cliche (try “on shaky ground” or “back to the drawing board”) and apply it to INDenverTimes, the hopeful website that aimed to employ 30 journalists who lost their jobs when the Rocky Mountain News went belly up in February. In a statement , the founders of the site announced that they did not meet their initial goal of wrangling up 50,000 paid subscribers by a self-imposed deadline yesterday–a day that marked what would have been the 150th anniversary of the Rocky.

Now INDenverTimes seems in doubt, too: “A decision about the future of the INDT website will be forthcoming,” the statement says. Westword media critic Michael Roberts, who has been closely following the developments and interviewing the players, writes that the site attracted just 3,000 subscribers. According to another report from Westword, David Milstead, the former Rocky writer leading the INDenverTimes charge, is joining former Rocky managing editor Steve Foster and “a handful” others in a news website with a different business plan and name. Milstead says some staffers believe in the site’s original concept and will now seek new backers. Initially there were three. Milstead says the project needs at least 10 people, perhaps 20, for a site that resembles the old, beloved Rocky.