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They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups
61–70 of 167 posts
Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups
#62Anybody else nodding along like... "mhm mhm Austin...makes sense..." "I wonder when the Florida scams are gonna start hitting?"
I’m curious to know what you mean by this. Does Austin have a reputation for this kind of thing?
Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups
#63The guy in charge of this sounds like a real piece of work.
Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
> just released a kind of crappy messaging app that flopped. I don't think releasing a messaging app that flops is bad? If getting a messaging app to succeed was easy then there would be more successes at it.
Hell, google has released about 30 and 33 have failed
I just re-read your post and caught it - thank you, made my evening!
Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups
#65> Newchip founder and CEO Andrew Ryan
Name checks out.
Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups
#66This article is absolute trash since it doesn't explain how the bankruptcy of the accelerator would change the amount of dilution the startups experience. Taking the information in the article at face value, the startups paid the accelerator (partially) with warrants. Those warrants have a fixed exercise price; the courts cannot change that. Whether those warrants are exercised by the accelerator or by the creditors,…
Why the diatribe? > Maybe there's some reason why warrant owner matters. It's a well understood fact by anyone in the startup world that it does matter, because future investors or acquirers care deeply about the structure of your cap table. Furthermore, the article gives an explicit example of this: > She had lined up a grant from a bank to help fund her offer, but it ultimately told her no because it was too risky…
So your point is that a good investor should agree to a buyout offer but the bad investor doesn't?
In other words, the original warrant holders (the accelerator) would have happily agreed to the founders buyout offer funded by the bank's grant? Why would they do that, if the whole point of an accelerator is to accumulate shares in the startups?
Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Years ago I took a dev role at a very well known UK organisation, a prestigious brand supposedly good for the career. Their systems turned out to be smoke and mirrors of the most braindead kind. One and a half days in I'd seen enough and I quit. If you know, you know.
This kind of hinting is worse than useless. "If you know, you know" is obnoxious. If you mean Autonomy you should say so, and if you don't then your post is just misleading and confusing.
I assumed they were suggesting that they knew that it would be best to leave the company and didn't hang around. e.g., "If you know [hanging around will be a waste of time], you know [enough that you should leave]."
Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Startups also granted Newchip the right to buy $250,000 worth of shares in the company at a later date, but at their current valuation"
So the company was essentially signed away even before the bankruptcy.
Yeah this is a pretty bad and far far far from founder friendly.
Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups
#69>"It was very sad to call it quits because getting the funding to make those units was the only hurdle before making serious progress,” Temple said. “If they connected me with investors like they said, I could have made my invention, gotten efficacy and would be shipping units right now. I really do believe that."
It's unfortunate to see a founder believe that one accelerator would make or break their company. Typically an accelerator amplifies your existing trajectory - if you're a fast-growing company, you'll get more term sheets from investors than you know what to do with. If you're flat, they won't be attracting investors in any way. It's a founder's job to navigate this instead of relying on the accelerator to find $500k.
Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups
#70Anybody else nodding along like... "mhm mhm Austin...makes sense..." "I wonder when the Florida scams are gonna start hitting?"
I’m curious to know what you mean by this. Does Austin have a reputation for this kind of thing?
Rich people start hyping these places
Eager eyed entrepreneurs follow
And the sharks are just waiting