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They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups

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Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups

#91
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They make an investment in your company on terms they can claw back the money at any time It is a loan then, not an investment.

Even worse - loans can't usually be clawed back at any time

Perhaps this is what you meant by usually, but otherwise I suggest reading the fine print on your home line of credit, if you have one.

Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups

#92

>"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. Typica…

Some accelerators are targeted towards people who do not yet have companies. I can't say anything for or against them but I briefly participated in (and chose to leave) Carbon13, which aims to match people with a cofounder.

Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups

#93

So the question to the experts here is, what should someone look out for as a potential founder or employee (early or late)? I've so far seen 0 upside from the three startups I have worked at and I am not likely to think of options as an incentive in the future. Is this the new norm? Are the days of equity as compensation dead (even for founders)?

It’s long been the advice (at least on HN) to assume the value of options are 0 if you are employee. You have no ability to control dilution as a mere employee, so in almost all cases they will be worth nothing.

As a founder, you’re in control. Your equity is worth as much as you make it! But the more funding you need to take on, the more diluted you’ll be. Bootstrappers grow slower but remain in complete control, and can’t be screwed by rare events like this one (or more common dilutive events, which VCs may force on you).

Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups

#94
> The court has since ordered the company to auction off the warrants it held in more than 1,000 of the startups that went through the accelerator program.

I probably don't understand something but how will this possibly benefit creditors? Who is going to pay anything for warrants in startups (most of which will fail, since that's what happens to most startups)?

Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups

#95
post #76
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once worked at a place where an employee started their first day at the start of the shift. They mumbled their way through it to lunch where they never returned. That's the shortest I've personally seen. Absolutely not a c-suite role or anything management related though.

I had somebody sit near to me who wanted to leave at lunchtime but was convinced to stay on and left after the second day. This was on the ads team. The job involved managing ads on our site (via google ads and some other providers). They had never done this sort of thing before[1] and were not up to being thrown in the deep end. [1] I think they had done other sorts of advertising, just not for websites

You say deep end, but any chance somebody had a crisis of consciousness with working with ad tech. Oh who am I kidding?

Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of note from the article: she complained and was refunded the money after being stood up for the meeting, but they never cancelled the contract she paid to sign that gave them the right to buy her out of her own company for pennies, so once it passed to bankruptcy the creditors still took her company.

Wouldn't a contract like this be considered unenforceable? There were no services rendered, no exchange of value

The contract SHOULD be unenforceable, however, not sure if bankruptcy court will actually resolve that matter. Maybe it would be a separate lawsuit?

Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups

#97
post #8

What a psychopath. To anyone who may be in this kind of situation, trust your instincts and leave . It will not get better. You will find other, better opportunities elsewhere. Best lesson I ever learned was from a high level exec that had just started at the company where I worked. He quit in 2 weeks. Impressively, he did it without drama or really even causing bad will - he just told the CEO it wasn't a match, and…

I once worked at a place where an employee started their first day at the start of the shift. They mumbled their way through it to lunch where they never returned. That's the shortest I've personally seen. Absolutely not a c-suite role or anything management related though.

I've had that as well. I've always wondered how someone felt so out of place they wouldn't stick it out until the end of the day, or give it a few days.

Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't a contract like this be considered unenforceable? There were no services rendered, no exchange of value

The contract SHOULD be unenforceable, however, not sure if bankruptcy court will actually resolve that matter. Maybe it would be a separate lawsuit?

IIUC, the problem is that the founders have no good way to force a resolution at all until whoever buys the warrants attempts to exercise them.

Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups

#99

> The court has since ordered the company to auction off the warrants it held in more than 1,000 of the startups that went through the accelerator program. I probably don't understand something but how will this possibly benefit creditors? Who is going to pay anything for warrants in startups (most of which will fail, since that's what happens to most startups)?

The article indicates that buyers of an initial tranche have included startups buying back their own warrants (as the headline one unsuccessfully attempted to find funds for) and VCs who make similar portfolio bets routinely.

Re: They thought they were joining an accelerator – instead they lost their startups

#100

> The court has since ordered the company to auction off the warrants it held in more than 1,000 of the startups that went through the accelerator program. I probably don't understand something but how will this possibly benefit creditors? Who is going to pay anything for warrants in startups (most of which will fail, since that's what happens to most startups)?

I had the same question myself. The article notes that most of the first tranche of warrants went unpurchased which makes sense. However, the article also says that some of the portfolio went on to have an exit or raise later funding or something (the article mentions some company in Australia that seems to be a going concern, but they're claiming that the warrants are invalid). My take is that whoever is overseeing the portfolio has determined that the likely aggregate value of all the warrants > 0 so they are trying to sell them to recover something. In practice most of the warrants are indeed are worth 0 so it's actually not as a big of an issue as this is made out to be.
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