261–270 of 399 posts
Im based here in the US, and unfortunately i signed up yesterday after learning about the bookkeeping special...for a small business $1005 is alot...Square (my bank) basically said they cant do anything about it since i autho the payment...Any suggestions?
And keep situations like this in mind every time you hear some libertarian idiot railing against regulations.
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Ian Crosby here. If you don't believe me, believe the CEO of Shopify who was an investor and partner: https://x.com/tobi/status/1872753436116332994
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If the new captain is good. But a bad captian can sink any ship, unless the crew is willing and able to mutinee to prevent it.
Founder/Former CEO Ian Crosby's post about the Bench closure: https://x.com/ianwcrosby/status/1872724231999381790
Is there a version readable for people without twitter accounts?
https://nitter.poast.org/ianwcrosby/status/18727242319993817...
More about nitter: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter
Shocking, but not terribly surprising from a business perspective... From everyone I know who's worked there, the operation was just a thinly veiled wrapper around human accountants. The plan for profitability was that they'd eventually automate the human part away, but eventually never came. My condolences to the employees who now have a stressful new year.
> The plan for profitability was that they'd eventually automate the human part away, but eventually never came. Every. Damn. Time. I've fought and lost this battle at so many companies with directors and executives who were genuinely completely delusional about how much of a human process could be automated. It's always the tasks that are easy and don't take up much time. If you end up solving one of the genuinely h…
Many of the most reliable systems you can think of work this way, from the mail, to taxes, to factories, to autopilot systems. The key to building them is to be intentional about what you're doing and especially avoid blaming the humans for the system's failures.
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And yet, it's as simple as money ran out. They never turned a profit, investors ran out, the last round of funding was a loan with strings attached that led to a bunch of cost cutting and other poor decisions that explain the poor service quality. A few staff guessed it might close 3 weeks ago at best though everything was very uncertain, but most of the accountants probably didn't see this coming either. source: I k…
>but most of the accountants probably didn't see this coming either. I would expect this was the kind of thing an accountant should see coming though.
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Bad investors and a dysfunctional board can destroy a company. When late-stage investors push to fire the CEO, they often do so to install a puppet CEO who will give them greater control over the board. This allows them to prioritize financial decisions that serve their own interests, often at the expense of other shareholders, such as early employees, whom they disregard.
> I wanted to continue with what was working and with what our partners had signed on to distribute.
How does he know it was working? He says it so matter of factly.
And that’s what this big-mad comes down to.
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I advise caution in believing his statements to be true, particularly about Bench’s board and investors. The truth will live in their financial statements, which no doubt will be revealed in bankruptcy proceedings in the coming months.
Ian Crosby here. If you don't believe me, believe the CEO of Shopify who was an investor and partner: https://x.com/tobi/status/1872753436116332994
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bad investors and a dysfunctional board can destroy a company. When late-stage investors push to fire the CEO, they often do so to install a puppet CEO who will give them greater control over the board. This allows them to prioritize financial decisions that serve their own interests, often at the expense of other shareholders, such as early employees, whom they disregard.
This in the response made me cringe a little: > I wanted to continue with what was working and with what our partners had signed on to distribute. How does he know it was working? He says it so matter of factly. And that’s what this big-mad comes down to.
I havent been at Bench for over 6 years but it’s always been a business on the verge of failure. The main issue was just the schizophrenic strategy that was being employed. On one hand you have a software company with useful tools and services to automate bookeeping. On the other you had a division of bookeepers that would do a lot of the manual / refinement work. These tasks are at odds with one another. If you auto…
Q - is it that the strategy was at odds? Or was it that the software wasn’t good enough yet, so expensive bookkeepers were required to supplement?