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“Startup Robs Every Customer They Have for Thousands of Dollars Overnight”

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Re: “Startup Robs Every Customer They Have for Thousands of Dollars Overnight”

#41

Post by netsharc »

Animats wrote: post #28
rurban wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have 3 investors in the first and only round: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/homeshare#section-in...

How did they manage to lose money in that business? They get paid up front, so they don't have a cash flow problem. They don't have much of an investment. There's plenty of demand. What went wrong?

It's a startup, so they probably have 20 developers and 5 business majors who are "C-levels", each getting 6 digit salaries...

As someone asked somewhere, "Why does Twitter need hundreds of developers? It's basically a CRUD interface."

Re: “Startup Robs Every Customer They Have for Thousands of Dollars Overnight”

#43

Post by icebraining »

CaliforniaKarl wrote: post #23

In general, I understand and support the idea that, should your startup not go well, you fail, wrap things up, and move on. It's too big of a risk to stake your entire life on one venture, and my understanding is that VC firms, angels, and the like all understand that this can happen when they invest in a startup. That risk is not something that is understood by most end users, where in this case "end users" includes…

> Make the tenants whole through at least April, if not April and May.

Are you saying that organizations that just happen to be in the same general business should be covering for the fraud of unrelated companies? Should Stanford be paying back the students of Belford University?

Re: “Startup Robs Every Customer They Have for Thousands of Dollars Overnight”

#44

Post by TheRealPomax »

spectramax wrote: post #2

What is “the startup” in this case? What is preventing from disclosing the name of the business?

Mostly "wanting to use the law". You can disclose that information if you want, but you really don't want to, because you give up any legal power you might have had if you do.

If you rile up a mob (and an internet mob certainly counts), even if you don't do so directly but let "the comment section figure it out", and then don't get that content moderated, you lose whatever legal standing you might have had if the courts need to become involved. Any lawsuit you file will get thrown out immediately.

Which is why on Reddit the mods will aggressively redact any attempt to identify legal parties. You might want to name and shame, but that is a destructive desire.

Re: “Startup Robs Every Customer They Have for Thousands of Dollars Overnight”

#45

Post by icebraining »

stuart78 wrote: post #37

I realize intimately how hard it is to get by in SF and other big cities, so I won’t criticize the renters here, but I have no such hesitation about criticizing the founding team and investors. Turning apartments into tenements could never have turned out well. How does this business scale outside of the core nimby tech cities? And even in those cities, the decentralization of the market is both good and hard to take…

House prices are getting pretty high on cities all over the world; there's plenty of market if they were willing to go global. The concept in itself doesn't seem to be obviously broken to me.

Re: “Startup Robs Every Customer They Have for Thousands of Dollars Overnight”

#47

Post by tedunangst »

Animats wrote: post #28
rurban wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have 3 investors in the first and only round: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/homeshare#section-in...

How did they manage to lose money in that business? They get paid up front, so they don't have a cash flow problem. They don't have much of an investment. There's plenty of demand. What went wrong?

Too large sales team? Or community outreach ambassadors or whatever we call them these days.

The business model as I understand it is they pay for any missing roommates rent until the spot is filled? Maybe they had a fragmentation problem? 30 people move into 10 rooms, 10 people move out, negative 30% income.

Re: “Startup Robs Every Customer They Have for Thousands of Dollars Overnight”

#48

Post by landryraccoon »

icebraining wrote: post #45
stuart78 wrote: post #37

I realize intimately how hard it is to get by in SF and other big cities, so I won’t criticize the renters here, but I have no such hesitation about criticizing the founding team and investors. Turning apartments into tenements could never have turned out well. How does this business scale outside of the core nimby tech cities? And even in those cities, the decentralization of the market is both good and hard to take…

House prices are getting pretty high on cities all over the world; there's plenty of market if they were willing to go global. The concept in itself doesn't seem to be obviously broken to me.

What’s broken is resorting to massive investment in hacky, brittle technological solutions to a policy problem that needs a political solution to address the root causes.

IMHO we live in an age where maybe some more smart people should be turning their minds towards affecting public policy.

Re: “Startup Robs Every Customer They Have for Thousands of Dollars Overnight”

#49

Post by egypturnash »

netsharc wrote: post #41
Animats wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did they manage to lose money in that business? They get paid up front, so they don't have a cash flow problem. They don't have much of an investment. There's plenty of demand. What went wrong?

It's a startup, so they probably have 20 developers and 5 business majors who are "C-levels", each getting 6 digit salaries... As someone asked somewhere, "Why does Twitter need hundreds of developers? It's basically a CRUD interface."

What Twitter - or any large social media site - needs is a large, well-paid abuse team. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people. That'd blow through a bunch of money.

Re: “Startup Robs Every Customer They Have for Thousands of Dollars Overnight”

#50

Post by tialaramex »

icebraining wrote: post #43
CaliforniaKarl wrote: post #23

In general, I understand and support the idea that, should your startup not go well, you fail, wrap things up, and move on. It's too big of a risk to stake your entire life on one venture, and my understanding is that VC firms, angels, and the like all understand that this can happen when they invest in a startup. That risk is not something that is understood by most end users, where in this case "end users" includes…

> Make the tenants whole through at least April, if not April and May. Are you saying that organizations that just happen to be in the same general business should be covering for the fraud of unrelated companies? Should Stanford be paying back the students of Belford University?

It depends whether your industry wants to have a good reputation or not. If you're OK with all being seen as scum who try to get whatever they can, I guess not.

Suppose an airline collapses, leaving passengers stranded. Better run airlines _could_ say "Sucks to be you, choose a better airline next time" and charge full fare to anybody stranded trying to get home. But actually they mostly don't do that, usually "rescue" fares will be offered at a steep discount to secure good will. A customer who has a now worthless $500 ticket often finds that a rival company will swap that plus $50 for a ticket home on their plane.

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