51–60 of 74 posts
Damn straight I wouldn't. And I sure as hell wouldn't be giving you my credit card details to store on file. I don't care what your PCI compliant third party provider is like, if I give you my credit card details, unless its a refer payment, then you debit it and throw away the card details.
This is totally unethical business practice. It's a bait and switch as far as I'm concerned!
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You realize that the title is obviously exaggerated and that I didn't gain $4000 on day one. I did however gain the kind of validation that eventually allowed me to gain $4000 in cash when we launched a month later. For every person that has criticized this, I have had another one saying this is great. I also know for a fact that I'm not the first startup entrepreneur to do this. I have already apologized to each and…
This is deception which and walks a fine line between legit and fraud. It doesn't matter what you think about who should do this or not - someone will attempt to emulate it, and they will end up in prison for taking money and not producing anything. It degrades the reputation of entrepreneurs everywhere who are diligently trying to build their businesses the RIGHT way. The fact that you brag about it so boastfully is…
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While the author did not charge the credit cards, he did not communicate to his site visitors about the situation either. It was only after the fact once they essentially gave out their information did he reveal the truth. Sure, you can argue that he did not charge for those that wanted to opt out. But from the get go, his visitors were not provided with the correct information to make an informed decision.
Communicating about it would defeat the entire purpose of the idea. The way he did it allowed him to validate the idea in the exact same situation he would end up after building it, so it's a great way to take the (huge!) risk out of building a product. Personally I wouldn't mind as a customer as you did know all the facts before you were actually spending the money.
I sure as hell wouldn't want to be the unknowing recipient of his "experiment".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You realize that the title is obviously exaggerated and that I didn't gain $4000 on day one. I did however gain the kind of validation that eventually allowed me to gain $4000 in cash when we launched a month later. For every person that has criticized this, I have had another one saying this is great. I also know for a fact that I'm not the first startup entrepreneur to do this. I have already apologized to each and…
This is deception which and walks a fine line between legit and fraud. It doesn't matter what you think about who should do this or not - someone will attempt to emulate it, and they will end up in prison for taking money and not producing anything. It degrades the reputation of entrepreneurs everywhere who are diligently trying to build their businesses the RIGHT way. The fact that you brag about it so boastfully is…
I didn't find his post to be bragging 'boastfully' at all. It reads chiefly informative and at times positively surprised. He found a technique that seems to work pretty well and he informs us about it.
I think your opinion is too harsh. Imagine yourself to be the customer of this website. You come across something you like so much you're willing to pay for it and you make the commitment to actually do so. Sure the revelation that the product does not exist yet is disappointing, but he also didn't take your money yet, and his website already convinced you that the product is going to be what you're looking for.
"Obviously being open and sincere about all the facts after the deception helps, but it also contradicts the very fact that you were deceitful." I don't understand how this is going to help anybody's cause.
Well, that's like reactive transparency. For some people this means that I / we have broken their trust and any future relationship is thus dependent on earning back that trust. Being open, honest and apologetic after that fact, helps with mending those relationships.
I'm not sure why you posted this. Are the pageviews from the controversy really enough to offset a long-term loss of reputation? Maybe you don't understand the line you crossed. You advertised video courses taught by talented entrepreneurs. Later, you launched what is effectively a forum. These two things are hardly similar, but you charged users for the latter when they signed up to pay for the former. Couch it in a…
As I understand it customers were informed about the change in plans before they had to hand over their money, so it's definitely not as bad as you put it. The roadmap was actually changed because of those customers, so presumably the end result should align better with what they really were looking for. I would've done an opt-in though.
Opt-in would have been the minimum to my taste. Here is how I lived the experiment from here:
- the billing info was captured by making me believe the content was completely available (it's actually still advertised here http://publicbeta.co/library/)
- I wrote to Adii who asked back for my trust etc, I said: ok let's wait until this guy is able to bootstrap his stuff, let's give him a chance
- later, I received a mail which I didn't fully read ("Announcing our new launch", I just assumed that everything was going on as planned - I didn't receive "We change everything, are you ok with that?" as the subject or similar)
- then I got charged for something different from what my billing info was captured for
EDIT: I then realized what was happening by actually attending the MicroConf Europe where Adii made a presentation.
- I tried to cancel but could not find a link to cancel from inside the app
- I asked for a refund + cancellation by email and got it
Note that I'm in no way angry (personally) against Adii!
I'm just analyzing this from a customer perspective.
The problem is that trust is basically broken at step one, and then later one can only wonder if the long email then the charge without clear notice then the lack of link to cancel etc aren't just other tactics to keep the game going on.
I wouldn't recommend using these techniques to friends!
I'm pretty sure this is illegal and risky to do (at least in some countries) and could actually break the TOS of Recurly or payment gateways.
Again, nothing personal, I'm just sharing my experience in case someone wants to mimic the technique here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Communicating about it would defeat the entire purpose of the idea. The way he did it allowed him to validate the idea in the exact same situation he would end up after building it, so it's a great way to take the (huge!) risk out of building a product. Personally I wouldn't mind as a customer as you did know all the facts before you were actually spending the money.
Ethically, you must be honest and upfront with your customers. If your experiment involves misleading the, in any way, then ditch the experiment. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be the unknowing recipient of his "experiment".
If you didn't like the experiment you had the possibility to opt-out and never become a customer of him again, without having to pay a single dime.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ethically, you must be honest and upfront with your customers. If your experiment involves misleading the, in any way, then ditch the experiment. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be the unknowing recipient of his "experiment".
It's hard to experiment if everyone knows what's going on. If you didn't like the experiment you had the possibility to opt-out and never become a customer of him again, without having to pay a single dime.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is deception which and walks a fine line between legit and fraud. It doesn't matter what you think about who should do this or not - someone will attempt to emulate it, and they will end up in prison for taking money and not producing anything. It degrades the reputation of entrepreneurs everywhere who are diligently trying to build their businesses the RIGHT way. The fact that you brag about it so boastfully is…
You did read that we never took anybody's money, right?
These are Hacker News commenters, prototypal white knights eager to show off their perfect moral compasses, disregarding any opportunity for reflection or relativism.
Launching early is certainly a good thing. Launching a product that is only a proof of concept so people can really see what you're trying to do is also a good idea. But taking people's money under the banner "WE'RE A COMMUNITY OF ENTREPRENEURS THAT HELP EACH OTHER." when no such community exists seems borderline dishonest. When 5.5% of your initial customers feel scammed and are are upset about being deceived it may…
"taking people's money under the banner ..." He didn't actually charge people before the product was finished and they were able to opt-out after they knew what happened. Would have been a whole different story if the cards had actually been charged.
He does note that he had to "authorize a $0 transaction" in order to store the details for each credit card.
But leaving that aside, not only was his conduct misleading, query whether legally enforceable contracts were entered into as soon as mutual promises were exchanged (promise to pay made by proffering means of payment in exchange for promise to deliver product).
If that is the proper analysis, a distinction based on whether the credit cards were ultimately charged does no more than draw the line between civil and criminal liability.
He should be glad that no one actually relied on what he said. Those who deal with him in the future might now do so with a degree of caution. He has probably copped enough flak in these comments to bring the message home to him - or at least I hope he has. I like the premise for PublicBeta, and it would be a shame if that service were tarred with the same brush.