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Expensify S-1

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Re: Expensify S-1

#11

Post by dpeck »

bgorman wrote: post #6

Expensify’s CEO sent a letter to every single person Expensify had an email for, even simple ground floor employees who just use the software to submit expenses an email prior to the 2020 presidential election. The CEO sent a long diatribe about how the election of Donald Trump would be the end of democracy as we know it, and it is imperative that Joe Biden is elected. I will never give this company a single cent aft…

On the contrary this is exactly what I want to see from executives regardless of their political leanings. If they believe that something is a clear and direct threat to the business that they’re charged with running, they should have a fiduciary duty to speak up on it in whatever means they have available.

Following that those receiving the message can decide to continue to support the business or not. But I’d rather have that than the weasel word non answers approach that many execs take.

Re: Expensify S-1

#12

Post by zht »

I still remember when "reimburse me in bitcoin" was an option in the early days.

Quite the interesting company

Re: Expensify S-1

#13

Post by skeeter2020 »

Spartan-S63 wrote: post #4
htrp wrote: post #2

> Prior to the completion of this offering, all of our outstanding shares of LT10 and LT50 common stock, representing approximately % of the combined voting power and % of the economic interest in us immediately following the completion of this offering, will be contributed by the beneficial holders of such shares (the “Trust Beneficiaries”) to a new voting trust (the "Voting Trust”) formed pursuant to a voting trust…

Seems like par for the course nowadays for companies to issue two classes of stock with the second class having little to no voting power.

I hate this, but us purchasers have no one but ourselves to blame.

Re: Expensify S-1

#14

Post by skeeter2020 »

bgorman wrote: post #6

Expensify’s CEO sent a letter to every single person Expensify had an email for, even simple ground floor employees who just use the software to submit expenses an email prior to the 2020 presidential election. The CEO sent a long diatribe about how the election of Donald Trump would be the end of democracy as we know it, and it is imperative that Joe Biden is elected. I will never give this company a single cent aft…

What default-opt-it dark pattern did they employ to get people to agree to that sort of contact?

Re: Expensify S-1

#15

Post by namdnay »

ttymck wrote: post #5

$50M in revenue on 130 employees seems quite remarkable, no? Not to mention they grew to $88M with the same headcount. Are they uniquely able to outsource a large number of functions? I've worked for firms with far less revenue and far greater headcount, and the road to IPO seemed inextricably dependent on orders of magnitude more headcount.

That doesn’t seem huge? 50M for 130 is a bit less than 400k revenue per employee. Of that revenue you’re already spending at least 100-200k on the employee themselves

Re: Expensify S-1

#16

Post by bmiller2 »

When my startup was acquired, we had to migrate from using Expensify to some god-awful corporate nonsense (SAP Concur).

Lord, how I miss Expensify. It was the epitome of intuitive.

It makes me sad that Expensify was not a first-mover in this space. Once SAP or whatever garbage-ware gets baked into corporate enterprise architecture, it takes an act of God (or equivalently the CTO's dedicated focus) to replace it.

Re: Expensify S-1

#17

Post by pbreit »

ttymck wrote: post #5

$50M in revenue on 130 employees seems quite remarkable, no? Not to mention they grew to $88M with the same headcount. Are they uniquely able to outsource a large number of functions? I've worked for firms with far less revenue and far greater headcount, and the road to IPO seemed inextricably dependent on orders of magnitude more headcount.

Slow growth over 13 years in an easy-to-monetize category can get you there.

Re: Expensify S-1

#18

Post by Spivak »

bgorman wrote: post #6

Expensify’s CEO sent a letter to every single person Expensify had an email for, even simple ground floor employees who just use the software to submit expenses an email prior to the 2020 presidential election. The CEO sent a long diatribe about how the election of Donald Trump would be the end of democracy as we know it, and it is imperative that Joe Biden is elected. I will never give this company a single cent aft…

Penzeys Spices is also really well-known political activism and it seems to be working for them -- it's just part of their brand now to get emails from an impassioned CEO who really really hated Trump and willing to put his money where his mouth is to the tune of almost a million dollars last election.

So many people vowed to boycott them but it never really came to anything and they made a nice profit off of trolling Trump supporters.

Re: Expensify S-1

#19

Post by pbreit »

bgorman wrote: post #6

Expensify’s CEO sent a letter to every single person Expensify had an email for, even simple ground floor employees who just use the software to submit expenses an email prior to the 2020 presidential election. The CEO sent a long diatribe about how the election of Donald Trump would be the end of democracy as we know it, and it is imperative that Joe Biden is elected. I will never give this company a single cent aft…

Non-traditional for sure. And I think most PR heads would highly discourage. Seems to work for this company OK. Thinking different can be an advantage.

Re: Expensify S-1

#20

Post by NikolaNovak »

bgorman wrote: post #6

Expensify’s CEO sent a letter to every single person Expensify had an email for, even simple ground floor employees who just use the software to submit expenses an email prior to the 2020 presidential election. The CEO sent a long diatribe about how the election of Donald Trump would be the end of democracy as we know it, and it is imperative that Joe Biden is elected. I will never give this company a single cent aft…

I feel that means the email did exactly what it was supposed to:

- Encourage those that agree with it - Inform those who disagree or are uncertain/unfamiliar - Provide honest, clear message on what they stand for and priorities

Assuming they aren't surprised / are willing to bear consequences for their actions (both positive and negative), that's great. That's small-business mentality - openness with clients, making a stance, standing for more than just profit. Compare that with typical corporate communication which has such low informational density content it's worse than useless, and I miss it. And again, I say that on any given side of an issue (whether I disagree or disagree; and hopefully there's more than such a limited binary choice). If you CARE about it, don't hide it and pretend otherwise - Just makes discussions and decisions and life more onerous/hypocritical/annoying.

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