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Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

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Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#61

Post by trcollinson »

h4nkoslo wrote: post #34

Has there ever been an instance of late payroll (as opposed to eg sales commission checks being calculated wrong) where the company actually pulled out of the nosedive? It seems like it's almost always the death knell.

Absolutely yes, though it depends on the transparency of the rest of the team really. I have been involved with three companies in my career which pulled out of this seeming nosedive. One of the companies was going through a really horrible time. They had just got done releasing software that was horribly behind schedule which relieved their customers, but it was still stressful. They were working on settling two law suits. And it was almost Christmas time (first pay check of December, I remember it well). The owner came in and said he couldn't make payroll and that he would be able to as soon as a few customers paid. Everyone was upset. Later that afternoon the CEO's daughter rolled up in a brand new Subaru which he had bought for her over the weekend. I was the head of development, my buddy was the head of operations. We walked the CEO outside and broke the news to his daughter and him that the car was going back. We took the cash and made payroll. We never allowed the CEO to make financial decisions again and about 10 months later closed the sale of the entire business for a windfall profit for him and us. Ultimately everyone got paid well and everything worked out.

The second place, the C level executives literally didn't know how to calculate runway and more or less ignored the bank accounts. Checks started to bounce from the bank accounts two days before the payroll was to be cashed. The executives freaked out and honestly felt horrible. Payroll bounced but we warned all of the employees. I was again development manager and the CEO asked me if I knew anyone who could help. We brought in a friend of mine who is a consulting turn around expert. We got one of the existing investors to make payroll, three days late, by signing a personal check. My friend, the turn around expert, wrangled the books (after not sleeping for numerous days to try to figure out the financial situation). We turned the company around, and in a few months had it to a level of profitability it had never seen before.

It is possible to turn things around. Really the biggest problems come when people aren't honest with themselves and their employees about the situation they are in. The first CEO in my example had to be honest with himself and realize he had to spend on his employees before he could spend on his family. When he relinquished control of the financial decisions and stuck to what he was good at, the company turned around quickly. The second executive team had to realize that they were young and inexperienced and needed help. When they did and asked for it, the company turned around quickly.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#62

Post by kabdib »

pyre wrote: post #54
programmer_guy wrote: post #41

Hey guys, just wanted to clear the air on some of the speculation: I'm actually with WrkRiot and can guarantee you we're not the company in question: I've got many weeks of paid on time pay stubs sitting right here. Plus we didn't have anyone matching any of the descriptions in this article. Interesting article though, it's really shitty some have bad experiences like this.

> Plus we didn't have anyone matching any of the descriptions in this article. So you don't have a CEO whose headshot in the Team page is a bulldog? Or a Facebook page full of SpongeBob memes for that matter?

Or that mentions JobSonic (at Ikea, buying office stuff)?

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#63

Post by seibelj »

programmer_guy wrote: post #41

Hey guys, just wanted to clear the air on some of the speculation: I'm actually with WrkRiot and can guarantee you we're not the company in question: I've got many weeks of paid on time pay stubs sitting right here. Plus we didn't have anyone matching any of the descriptions in this article. Interesting article though, it's really shitty some have bad experiences like this.

That is DEFINITELY the company

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#64

Post by pyre »

desdiv wrote: post #55

I've dealt with late payroll before and the fear, uncertainty, and stress really sucked. I was even considering offering the company a 50% haircut on the wages that I rightfully earned already just so the stress would go away. Is there any bank or payroll company that offers a wage escrow service? As in, the company pays X months of wages in advance into a per-employee escrow account that's FDIC insured, and the empl…

When Target declared bankruptcy and pulled out of Canada, they setup a trust (or something) to give all employees 4 months of wages. They all got 4 months of wages, but some stores closed sooner than others, so some people ended up working for 4 months while others ended up basically getting paid to do nothing. You might look into what Target used to set this up.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#65

Post by planteen »

liquidise wrote: post #50

I found the bit about the negotiated salary of particular note. I have never included severance in my negotiations, mostly because i have always left my jobs willingly. Is that something more common than i know of? What is a reasonable target to aim for?

I've never heard of it either other than for executives with golden parachutes

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#66

Post by timv »

liquidise wrote: post #50

I found the bit about the negotiated salary of particular note. I have never included severance in my negotiations, mostly because i have always left my jobs willingly. Is that something more common than i know of? What is a reasonable target to aim for?

> I have never included severance in my negotiations

It really depends on how much leverage you have, and what you're concerns you have with the company.

I knew someone who was hired to head up the regional operations for a business that was based overseas. He was worried that they weren't really committed to the local market, but they assured him that they were, and that this was a long-term position.

So, he negotiated that if they closed down his location in the first 12 months of his employment then he would get a very large severance package. Since they were absolutely committed to the market, they agreed.

Less than 2 months into the role he got to hold them to that severance deal.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#67

Post by MichaelBurge »

bArray wrote: post #40
lemonghost wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On crunchbase they are now wrkriot: http://www.wrkriot.com/team-1/

"Isaac Choi" - I'm starting to imagine the lie was that he had a Chinese company scrub his name and he's not called Isaac or Michael. Having other people pay the cheques saves giving his name away too.

His real name is probably "Yi Suk Choi".

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#68

Post by rantrix »

xiphias wrote: post #58
chejazi wrote: post #16

Crunchbase company profile, as determined from the comments on HN: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/1for-one

Investor $1M Isaac Choi Where's the 4M here that the OP was writing about? She could have checked crunchbase to see that the startup doesn't have money.

Anyone with an account on crunchbase can contribute any information about a company. The information is not official. It is crowd-sourced. Which means the info can be fake.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#69

Post by planteen »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #60
programmer_guy wrote: post #41

Hey guys, just wanted to clear the air on some of the speculation: I'm actually with WrkRiot and can guarantee you we're not the company in question: I've got many weeks of paid on time pay stubs sitting right here. Plus we didn't have anyone matching any of the descriptions in this article. Interesting article though, it's really shitty some have bad experiences like this.

You do have someone matching the description in the article. Here's a description from the article: "The last time I checked the team page on the site, Michael changed his profile picture to a bulldog." On your staff page, your CEO is using a picture of a bulldog: http://www.wrkriot.com/team-1/ In case they change it, it's also this image: https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/563942218440798208/hmNB... There also app…

I took a screenshot of the page for when (not if) it is changed

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#70

Post by st3v3r »

Why was the company not named? Everyone needs to be warned against working with these scumbags, both employees and clients.

I hope the state prosecutes the hell out of them, and the founders are left living under a bridge.

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