I wonder what this means for Amazon.
About as much as a fly on a windshield.
LivingSocial: Employees' and Founders' Common Stock Now Worthless
101–110 of 238 posts
Re: LivingSocial: Employees' and Founders' Common Stock Now Worthless
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
You sound like the worst employee ever.
I think that's pretty unfair. The guys who get screwed the hardest and have the fewest places to land are, quite often, the guys on the bottom. What of his post is poor advice for those guys? (Yes, founders take more risk--though "fuck, out of a job" is not a risk to be minimized. Founders do also get much more exposure and have a better chance of finding somewhere to land immediately if things go south, as well as f…
What risk?
Did they forget to incorporate and will be personally liable for the debts?
They took the risk of renting out a couple $5 a month servers, and buying a domain?
The last startup I was at I had 33 times the equity a guy hired a month later did. I didn't take anymore risk, I just negotiated better and first.
Re: LivingSocial: Employees' and Founders' Common Stock Now Worthless
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are flawed unless you can do something about retention. Has anyone tried the concept where the "deal" is that you go, name the site, and get a coupon giving you a deep discount the SECOND time you go back to that store? That would seem to make more sense. Because everyone that the store gives the deal to, has actually paid full price once. And wanted to go back. And if you've been twice, you're more likely to go…
CVS, El Pollo Loco to name 2 that I've interacted with lately. When you buy something there, they give you coupons at the register for next time that are pretty deep. I'm guessing this is a proven effective marketing technique judging by the big companies using it.
Most of the supermarkets round here do it, whether in tokens (40% off your next milk purchase!) or points-based loyalty cards which can be exchanged for gifts when you've collected enough.
Re: LivingSocial: Employees' and Founders' Common Stock Now Worthless
#104Here are a few tips for others startup employees: 1. Take the least amount of stock possible - your startup is statistically unlikely to succeed. It'd be better to bump your salary up $10-20K than to get the stock. 2. Unless it's liquid - it's worthless. 3. Valuations pre-cashflow - are useless. Anybody can value anything at insane levels using just one dollar. I value HN at $1 billion by offering to buy only 1 share…
You sound like the worst employee ever.
Being cynical and realistic doesn't mean you don't work hard and produce great work product. It just means that you demand to be compensated appropriately for the work you do, without being fooled by gimmicks. See, e.g., anyone who works on Wall Street. These folks live and breathe their work, yet are smart and realize that the only real way a company values your contribution is in the size of your bonus checks. That doesn't mean that culture, collegiality, perks, etc, are unimportant. It means that they aren't a replacement for compensation and/or time off.
Re: LivingSocial: Employees' and Founders' Common Stock Now Worthless
#105The fact that investors are putting up the money means there is some hope to the business. Not every startup gets that ...
People seem to really focus on the negative. Startups are known to be bimodal outcomes. Either you retire from them or your income is down a few years. If you don't believe in a specific startup, don't work for them. If you don't believe in any startup, go work somewhere else.
Re: LivingSocial: Employees' and Founders' Common Stock Now Worthless
#106I know some of Living Social's original investors, and I approached them for an investment in my startup about 8 months ago. Part of our pitch was that daily deals solve and amazingly valuable problem in an inherently not-valuable way, and although our system would take less of a straight line, it would and already WAS solving the problem for a small subset of businesses in a more valuable and vastly more sustainable…
Whether or not they privately thought you were right, openly betting against one's own companies is rarely a prudent move for any investor.
I could invest $100 in two competitors, assuming that one will fail, but the other will be worth $1000. Risky - of course. A third company might come along and I end up with nothing. But still a reasonable strategy.
Re: LivingSocial: Employees' and Founders' Common Stock Now Worthless
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that's pretty unfair. The guys who get screwed the hardest and have the fewest places to land are, quite often, the guys on the bottom. What of his post is poor advice for those guys? (Yes, founders take more risk--though "fuck, out of a job" is not a risk to be minimized. Founders do also get much more exposure and have a better chance of finding somewhere to land immediately if things go south, as well as f…
What risk? Did they forget to incorporate and will be personally liable for the debts? They took the risk of renting out a couple $5 a month servers, and buying a domain? The last startup I was at I had 33 times the equity a guy hired a month later did. I didn't take anymore risk, I just negotiated better and first.
Were your founders taking a salary from the jump? I suspect not; maybe your situation was out of the ordinary, but most founder types I know work pretty long hours well before seeing a dollar out of it.
Opportunity costs are a form of risk; being paid a salary reduces (or eliminates) those opportunity costs and thus reduces risk.
Re: LivingSocial: Employees' and Founders' Common Stock Now Worthless
#108Here are a few tips for others startup employees: 1. Take the least amount of stock possible - your startup is statistically unlikely to succeed. It'd be better to bump your salary up $10-20K than to get the stock. 2. Unless it's liquid - it's worthless. 3. Valuations pre-cashflow - are useless. Anybody can value anything at insane levels using just one dollar. I value HN at $1 billion by offering to buy only 1 share…
You sound like the worst employee ever.
I have not loled to a comment like this in years. Thank you.
Re: LivingSocial: Employees' and Founders' Common Stock Now Worthless
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are flawed unless you can do something about retention. Has anyone tried the concept where the "deal" is that you go, name the site, and get a coupon giving you a deep discount the SECOND time you go back to that store? That would seem to make more sense. Because everyone that the store gives the deal to, has actually paid full price once. And wanted to go back. And if you've been twice, you're more likely to go…
This is not (initially) a retention issue. This is a pricing, inventory and product issue. The retention issue can be solved (I'll explain) Daily deal sites that offer a discount coupon at a price to the consumer which they have already negotiated a steeper discount for themselves, while cheaper for the discount site, is too cheap for comfort for the vendor. This is a negative incentive for the vendor to keep going w…
And we've just re-invented loyalty schemes.
(I know at the budget conscious end of the cafe/coffee business, the "buy $n, get the $n+1th coffee free" cards do pretty well around here. Not so much in specialty coffee places though, most of them do a good job of giving free coffee to their regulars pretty often. I rarely pay for espresso shots at any of my regular cafés if I buy them at the same time as a latté/piccolo/cappuccino…)
Re: LivingSocial: Employees' and Founders' Common Stock Now Worthless
#110As an independent restaurant owner, I can't say I didn't expect to see this one day. The model simply doesn't work, at least in our industry. The restaurant loses money on every single "daily deal" that is redeemed. With LivingSocial or (insert any other daily deal site here) taking half of the deal, the restaurant is simply left with 25% of the revenue generated. This does not even cover our food costs, let alone la…
What marketing venue currently works for you and your competitors as far as new customer acquisition?