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Failing the startup game at Unbabel

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Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#71

Post by novaleaf »

kenjackson wrote: post #55
jprince wrote: post #52

As terrible as this experience was, what's most alarming is that you're 37, have been working for nearly 20 years in this field, and don't have enough savings to tide you over even two months without work. You really need to learn to save your income and cut your lifestyle. I hope that if it turns out your story is true, that these guys are in some way brought to justice, karmic or otherwise. Best of luck.

You don't know what the OP has been through it done. I'd avoid giving financial advice without knowing more about their situation.

I think this critique is meant mostly for us, readers. Anyway the author decided this is related information so i don't see why it should not be discussed

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#72

Post by annnnd »

There is a slight point in founders' favor - sometimes when you need to get out and just get the stuff done, you don't write test for every non-essential piece of code. You also just copy/paste that controller, because you know you will probably throw most of the code away anyway. All you want is to know if the business model works. After all, you are not building core systems for a financial institution. And you know that if it takes off there will be more than enough time to fix stuff properly.

That said, I strongly disagree with not paying your employees fully. If you are a founder, you have an obligation to the people you hire. YOU SHOULD PAY THEM! If you think you should pay them only for a month and a half, fire them on time. In the end, bad match should always be founder's responsibility.

EDIT: HN could really use "Preview" button. :)

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#73

Post by jonifico »

malanj wrote: post #11

It seems that given Andreas' move to join the startup - if his explanation is accurate and complete - the level of responsibility of the founders does increase. I've been a founder asking people to move before and I've always felt that it adds a significant extra responsibility. You need to be quite a lot more certain it'll be a good fit before asking someone to move to join your company. In my mind "culture fit" is…

Exactly! It's just a bit of common sense mixed with having some managerial balls and take responsibility of when it was your mistake to hire someone or not. The worst part is the contract agreement, he should really follow through with the process and see what he can get, odds are in his favor, and at this point there doesn't seem to be much more he can lose. The whole 'we will end your career' part sounds like a baby mobster threat to me.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#74

Post by personZ »

raverbashing wrote: post #66

I see two sides to this: - Is Unbabel making money? If they haven't shipped yet, bad for them, but on the other side, the software may be doing its part (of generating revenue) - People sometimes come with an idealized view that in a perfect world all code is fully tested and follows all rules and conventions. Most often than not, it doesn't. There's a balance between improvement for the sake of code and adding new f…

This is why I never take these sorts of stories at face value. I'm not casting aspersions on the author, but at the same time I'm not willing to blindly accept the same against others. In these sorts of situation, invariable both sides feel they were wronged in some way.

I've hired, and directed, people who just didn't work out, and many of them could write something very similar to what the author submitted.

Because what I was hiring were people to help propel us forward in short-order, and did everything possible to filter and convey expectations of the same, but some hires needed so much direction, so much hand-holding, and so much oversight that they ended up literally being a net negative on velocity of the whole. So it just wasn't a fit and we had to split ways.

There are different companies, at different stages and sizes, where that sort of thing is perfectly okay. But at anything where the word "startup" might be applied, it just isn't the case.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#75

Post by JoeAltmaier »

debt wrote: post #65
qxmat wrote: post #39

I feel for you. I made a similar leap from an OK-paying regional job at an established niche cashcow to a London start-up. The perks: a coffee machine, senior pay cheque. The reality: a shit coffee machine, low moral, no realistic prospect of a profit and no willingness to pivot. 80% of costs have been sunk on a Facebook clone 'with a spin' while the owners try to sell snake oil to investors. We operate like the bad…

Facebook has a market cap of nearly 200 billion, some of the most talented engineers in the industry, a world-class AI lab , nearly unlimited perks and over a billion users. So unless this startup can start where FB is right now, no one will "clone" FB.

You'd be surprised. FB is large and that often means conservative and ossified. How long does it take for new ideas to end up on the web page? I don't see that happening much, certainly not daily. The back-end I can't see but I wonder if anybody cares; its not part of what makes FB attractive to users.

So replacing FB means recruiting some niche of customers, and providing something fresh and useful. That can be done without unlimited perks.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#76

Post by bstamour »

raverbashing wrote: post #70
qxmat wrote: post #39

I feel for you. I made a similar leap from an OK-paying regional job at an established niche cashcow to a London start-up. The perks: a coffee machine, senior pay cheque. The reality: a shit coffee machine, low moral, no realistic prospect of a profit and no willingness to pivot. 80% of costs have been sunk on a Facebook clone 'with a spin' while the owners try to sell snake oil to investors. We operate like the bad…

Sorry, what's a PLC?

I'm not sure either. The first thing that came to mind was "programmable logic controller", but that makes no sense in the context :S

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#77

Post by untog »

raverbashing wrote: post #70
qxmat wrote: post #39

I feel for you. I made a similar leap from an OK-paying regional job at an established niche cashcow to a London start-up. The perks: a coffee machine, senior pay cheque. The reality: a shit coffee machine, low moral, no realistic prospect of a profit and no willingness to pivot. 80% of costs have been sunk on a Facebook clone 'with a spin' while the owners try to sell snake oil to investors. We operate like the bad…

Sorry, what's a PLC?

Public Limited Company:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_limited_company

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#78

Post by amouat »

raverbashing wrote: post #70
qxmat wrote: post #39

I feel for you. I made a similar leap from an OK-paying regional job at an established niche cashcow to a London start-up. The perks: a coffee machine, senior pay cheque. The reality: a shit coffee machine, low moral, no realistic prospect of a profit and no willingness to pivot. 80% of costs have been sunk on a Facebook clone 'with a spin' while the owners try to sell snake oil to investors. We operate like the bad…

Sorry, what's a PLC?

Public Limited Company, UK equivalent of publicly traded companies in the US.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#79

Post by jprince »

jprince wrote: post #52

As terrible as this experience was, what's most alarming is that you're 37, have been working for nearly 20 years in this field, and don't have enough savings to tide you over even two months without work. You really need to learn to save your income and cut your lifestyle. I hope that if it turns out your story is true, that these guys are in some way brought to justice, karmic or otherwise. Best of luck.

This guy is a symptom of an alarming trend I've seen in the field. We're all riding high, spending every $ we make because we think the end will never come. I think it will, and a lot of us are going to be bankrupt.

I don't care what financial disasters may occur - I very much doubt they'd occur in such frequency that over 20 years of working in a high income job this guy wouldn't have 15,000$ handy for something like this. If he made 80k per year for 20 years, that's 1.6M dollars. Let's say 800k after taxes. You're telling me in 20 years, he couldn't save 15k out of 800k? Less than one half of one percent of all money made?

Also, I'd expect if he didn't have that much handy, he wouldn't have been naive enough to relocate without any kind of backup funds in case things went south with a startup, which often happens.

It all points to a certain ignorance when it comes to financial matters with this guy - the fact he relocated without enough funding to fall back on suggests not that he has weathered several storms over a 20 year period, one every year wiping out all his savings, but that he has a pattern of monetary mismanagement stretching back to the beginnings of his career.

EDIT: Accidentally replied to my own comment but meant it to be to the "you dont know me, you don't know my problems" naysayers below.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#80

Post by [deleted] »

raverbashing wrote: post #70
qxmat wrote: post #39

I feel for you. I made a similar leap from an OK-paying regional job at an established niche cashcow to a London start-up. The perks: a coffee machine, senior pay cheque. The reality: a shit coffee machine, low moral, no realistic prospect of a profit and no willingness to pivot. 80% of costs have been sunk on a Facebook clone 'with a spin' while the owners try to sell snake oil to investors. We operate like the bad…

Sorry, what's a PLC?

[deleted]
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