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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

#151

Post by LocalH »

Terr_ wrote: post #29
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #24

Rule #14: "Never outsource economic control structures, or one may end up indentured" Sometimes one needs to admit they were conned, and start over... When people start out, no one tells them there is an ecosystem of legal-cons that target vulnerable small firms. Even this forum has users the constantly spam people with various funding scams. My condolences, some lessons can take a year or two to recover... =3

That reminds me of a book quote, about a semaphore transmission-line company as a kind of fantasy-version analogy for modern telecoms. > "[My father] was chairman of the original Grand Trunk Company. The clacks was his vision. Hell, he designed half of the mechanisms in the towers. And he got together with a group of other engineers, all serious men with slide rules, and they borrowed money and mortgaged their houses…

Modern capitalism in a nutshell.

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

#152

Post by lupire »

deaddodo wrote: post #143
darkerside wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's not about the former point, in contract law, but the latter. They could have rendered services, but if they're far out scaled to what the other party offered they would be considered inequitable and breachable. This is the primary basis that California used to disqualify non-executive non-competes (before they were outright legislated out).

California's basis was "reatraint of trade". Equitability was not a factor, regardless of how much was paid for the noncompete.

The legal basis for voiding contracts is "unconscionability".

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

#153

Post by nl »

drewcoo wrote: post #101
nl wrote: post #55

Earlier 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.

> I don't think releasing a messaging app that flops is bad? For an exec, it's a "learning experience." Most startups fail. Take the VC cash, fail, and "learn" on their dime. For any employee, it's s short stint to list on a resume that will make them less attractive to recruiters for the rest of their careers. "Why were you only at FooBarCorp for Baz months?" (Oh, wonderful - how do I explain without throwing anyone…

> For any employee, it's s short stint to list on a resume that will make them less attractive to recruiters for the rest of their careers.

If you can't make the story about working on Navel's messaging app a win for your career then your resume is probably going to have other problems.

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

#154

Post by RobRivera »

withinboredom wrote: post #119
IncreasePosts wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Nearly all loans I have seen have a provision in the contract that the entire loan can be called at any time.

>at any time

>under certain conditions

Pick a lane, marty

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

#155

Post by electroly »

vidarh wrote: post #97
dylan604 wrote: 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'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.

In college, a friend and I got jobs at the university's call center making cold calls to alumni for donations. Awful job. He quit on his first day on the floor before finishing the shift. I stuck it out long enough to be fired for poor performance. I'm still not sure which of us did it right.

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

#156

Post by fakedang »

stuffinmyhand wrote: post #116
dtnewman wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one gives away 20% of a company for advice. He gives them capital. Hopefully connections. And founders can take or leave the advice. Anyway, he is a successful entrepreneur having built AngelList. Sure, maybe he isn’t Midas, but a single failure in a startup doesn’t make someone an idiot. But assuming you are referring to AirChat, it seems too early to call it a failure anyway.

> Airchat is an app that lets you chat with anyone, anytime, anywhere. You can share photos, videos, and personal info with other users, but data is not encrypted and may be shared with third parties. If this isn't gonna fail dramatically, I'm eating my hat

Isn't that just WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger or Telegram or Snapchat or Discord but worse?

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

#157

Post by dylan604 »

loa_in_ wrote: post #129
dylan604 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Crisis of conscience, I imagine

amazing how modern spell check can let you down so badly.

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

#158

Post by moomoo11 »

morgante wrote: post #120
moomoo11 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why? Are you suggesting he used the money on marketing instead of product? I don’t know too many bootstrapped companies that are billion dollar plus but most well run bootstrapped companies can end up becoming successful small and mid level companies that make a decent money. At least from a revenue:num_employees, can’t be capital intensive so they have to be profitable from early on. Pls explain I’m…

> Are you suggesting he used the money on marketing instead of product? No, a lot of the marketing/hype just came from Naval and other influencers on Twitter. > most well run bootstrapped companies can end up becoming successful small and mid level companies that make a decent money "well run" is doing a lot of work here, but: - Most bootstrapped companies fail, period. - Most of them fail without anyone ever noticin…

I see. Thanks!

And how does VC help? Is it just the capital infusion or something else

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

#159

Post by [deleted] »

sangnoir wrote: post #79
replwoacause wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious to know what you mean by this. Does Austin have a reputation for this kind of thing?

Austin and Miami were supposed to be the new tech start-up hotspots after the great COVID WFH migration. The zeitgeist was the SF Bay area was played out for a multitude of reasons the departees were only too happy to blog about. Austin and Miami also have a bunch of investors without a background in tech - in all, lot's of new players in a high-growth area make it a target-rich environment for those lacking scruples…

[deleted]

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

#160

Post by mullingitover »

> Ryan had asked the leaders of each department to read a book on how to help college volunteers be more passionate about volunteering, recalled one person who attended the meeting. Ryan asked two of the company’s leaders to lead the group in a discussion of the book. But many were confused by it and didn’t see how it applied to Newchip’s business.

> “They were struggling with it. Andrew kept jumping in and interrupting them, and directly challenging them.” And finally, recalled the source, Ryan said, “This was a test for individuals that I’ve asked to do this today. I was going to fire one of you, based on whoever did the worst job.”

> He then singled out one person, told the room the person was fired, and, this person recalled, Ryan then said, “I do stuff sometimes to see who’s loyal and to see who is going to do what I tell them to do. This was a test and you failed. You’re out.’”

> After seeing Ryan fire this guy in front of the whole room, “I literally watched all of his direct reports sitting there saying to themselves, ‘I will never trust this man again,’” the source said.

The industry really needs to do a better job of rooting these personality types out and ensuring they don't ever end up in positions of trust or authority. Weird how the people who are the most obsessed with loyalty and respect from their staff are universally the least deserving of it.

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