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How not to get acquired

blog.gittip.com

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Re: How not to get acquired

#81

Post by I_Smell_Lawyers »

whit537 wrote: post #32
startupstella wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alas, I cannot although I wish I could. I was not interested in working for a big company post-acquisition...hence the name "startup stella." I do hope the guys respond as we always respected the HN community and depended on it greatly. Whatever happened, hopefully the situation can be rectified.

Thanks for weighing in, Stella. I've just heard from Sheel via email with an apology, and now I've just gotten off the phone with Sean. He apologized for the support requests that have been dropped during the transition to GroupOn. At his request, I've removed the "Reflection" part of my piece, which admittedly engaged in unfounded speculation. I apologize. I'd also like to apologize to Sean and the team for not tryi…

Subtext:

"We've just been acquired and now have GroupOn's lawyers on retainer. Our fish is bigger than your fish".

I love the fact that this minor tea-cup vignette reeks of being less than professional, and GroupOn is involved. "Food stamps for the middle classes", run by con-men. And you don't expect shit to stick together? Such naivety.

For the record, 3 weeks no contact from a business that's handling the cash flow for this poor guy (whose sales are admittedly... tiny, but hey, he appears to be trying in good faith), and you've the balls to phone hustle away the bad PR you caused yourself? Luckily, small startup doesn't know what "breach of contract" is, and you've GroupOn's lawyers now...

Alt text: "In the race to the bottom, we'll take the low hanging fruit".

[edit for clarity] Obviously, @Sean, not the author of the post I replied to.

Re: How not to get acquired

#82

Post by I_Smell_Lawyers »

programnature wrote: post #40
jusben1369 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worry that this sentence: "I freely admit that I've tried to "make lemonade" from what otherwise was a bad situation for Gittip, by publishing this piece and submitting it to Hacker News." is perhaps the most important here. It wouldn't be such a big deal if this was a rant against an established brand like a large technology company. But to target individuals and name names - only to then do essentially a complete…

And he removed the big name-calling rant section after the phone call... the one set off by a loss of 51 dollars. Looks more like a publicity stunt rather than righteous outrage.

$51 or $51,000,000 a client is a client, and you have a contract (or you fucking should do) to provide a service.

3 weeks is breach, esp. without informing your clients so that they can at least investigate other avenues / allow them to mitigate your issues as a business.

This isn't high school ~ running around saying "But he's only posting to get attention, waaa waaa" is pathetic, and not how businesses (should be) run.

~ General levels of business acumen here are severely lacking.

Re: How not to get acquired

#83

Post by tocomment »

whit537 wrote: post #37
tocomment wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So problem solved? (BTW I liked your lightening talk at Pycon)

We'll find out tomorrow. :-) https://www.gittip.com/about/stats.html And thanks!

By the way, I just thought of a killer feature for your site. How about if users can link the amount/frequeny tipped to the developer's activity on a github project?

Maybe the user could set metrics to link the tips to like tests added, LOC removed (refactoring), issues resolved.

Well just a thought.

Re: How not to get acquired

#84

Post by whit537 »

tocomment wrote: post #83
whit537 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll find out tomorrow. :-) https://www.gittip.com/about/stats.html And thanks!

By the way, I just thought of a killer feature for your site. How about if users can link the amount/frequeny tipped to the developer's activity on a github project? Maybe the user could set metrics to link the tips to like tests added, LOC removed (refactoring), issues resolved. Well just a thought.

https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/70

Re: How not to get acquired

#85

Post by tocomment »

whit537 wrote: post #84
tocomment wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the way, I just thought of a killer feature for your site. How about if users can link the amount/frequeny tipped to the developer's activity on a github project? Maybe the user could set metrics to link the tips to like tests added, LOC removed (refactoring), issues resolved. Well just a thought.

https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/70

Awesome, I'm famous :-)
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