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Exploding Offers Suck

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#51

Post by balls187 »

bduerst wrote: post #38
balls187 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there case law that shows verbal acceptance of contracts are legally binding?

Email and Oral acceptance of terms can be legally binding in contractual agreements. You don't need to dig up a civil court case to know that verbally accepting a contract without intending to fulfill it is naive and potentially dangerous.

> Email and Oral acceptance of terms can be legally binding in contractual agreements.

It looks like (from basic research) that verbal acceptance IS legally binding (in the US anyway).

The trouble with verbal agreements is they can be problematic to enforce.

Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#52

Post by kordless »

I accepted an exploding offer. It was a harbinger to a larger detonation.

There's a simple way of looking at this type of behavior: If someone is willing to go negative on you at the beginning (evidenced by 'denying' you an investment because you didn't take it when they wanted you to take it) then you should assume they will be willing to go negative on something else of a similar or greater magnitude at a later date.

Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#53

Post by seats »

I'm an MD for Techstars and I completely agree. This is the approach we've always taken for the programs that I've run, (Techstars Cloud and the Austin TS program).

In several cases, just as a consequence of the calendar, the timing of when we've given offers out can create tension for a company, particularly if it lands in between the YC interview notification and the actual YC interview. When it's come up in the past I've aways encouraged founders to notify YC and see if they can either take the interview early or if our timeline permits, to let them take their YC interview knowing that they have a standing offer from me regardless.

I've had some people mention to me that this is merely bolstering these companies' applications to YC, but I don't view it that way and regardless of which program they end up in, it's the right thing to do imo. It's actually worked out quite well and I'm happy with the companies that chose Techstars in those scenarios over YC, and also completely happy for the companies that chose YC.

Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#54

Post by tptacek »

larrys wrote: post #48
malgorithms wrote: post #9

A dear friend and excellent negotiator told me that when he gets any kind of short-term exploding offer, the first thing he does is verbally reject the deadline. And the second thing he does is ignore the deadline and offer feedback only after it has passed. I've seen him employ this many times in practice and it has always worked out. I don't want to be responsible for anyone losing a deal, but remember: when someon…

"A dear friend and excellent negotiator told me that when he gets any kind of short-term exploding offer, the first thing he does" As someone who considers himself an excellent negotiator (and gets paid to do negotiating) [1] I'd really caution someone from employing a technique that someone else uses that you don't have experience with. Negotiating is all nuance it's not engineering or an exact science. Go try and r…

Deliberately waiting until the offer ostensibly expires seems like an advanced technique, but simply disregarding the time frame seems pretty safe. Exploding offers are incredibly weak; they're a way of slapping your negotiating floor on the table before your counterparty says a word.

There's something to be said for the idea that losing a seed funding deal to term explosion is a dodged bullet, too.

Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#55

Post by kazinator »

> It may be the best thing for accelerators to use time pressure to get founders to accept their offer, but it’s definitely not the best thing for founders.

Why should accelerators should do what is best for someone else, not themselves?

The world is full of expiring offers of all kinds; they are everywhere. Rarely does any kind of offer stand for as long as we would like. Expiry of offers is the norm.

Also, Golden Rule: he who has the gold, sets the rules.

Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#56

Post by rickdale »

This is a tactic I see used on the micro level on Shark Tank where usually Mark Cuban will be like "25 second shot clock, you gotta decide right now." Being a Shark Tank and Dragons Den addict (both Canada and UK versions) I can say the greatest difference between the US version and the others is this tactic. I have never seen any of the Canadian or UK investors do anything remotely similar. Usually they are more impressed by companies that take the time to think about the offers. Just an observation.

Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#57

Post by mrfusion »

fecak wrote: post #45
dmourati wrote: post #39

I got an exploding offer for employment and came to the same conclusion. The company is called Loyal3: https://www.loyal3.com/ Steer clear of them. "Senator? You can have my answer now, if you like."

Employment offers tend to be exploding because a company has a single need and doesn't want to lose every candidate because they are waiting for their top choice. Almost every offer of every kind 'explodes' at some point. It's the duration until the explosion that varies. I'm sure YC will make you reapply for future consideration, just as companies can not be expected to honor your employment offer if you defer for a…

What's a normal period for exploding employment offers? Is 2 days a lot or a little?

Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#58

Post by rdl »

I'd feel a bit more ok with exploding offers for organizations where there are a finite number of slots -- e.g. if an accelerator is very small and capital or other resource constrained, or has a hardware lab and limit space, or something like that. None of that applies to YC, of course.

Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#59

Post by dangerlibrary »

brm wrote: post #15
TheMakeA wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see YC innovate in this area rather than shame other incubators into better behavior. Accepting applications on a rolling basis instead of once every 3 months with a 2 month wait, for example. I'm not sure how well that idea would work, but I'm sure there's something that could be done.

What about the equivalent of an 'early decision' application like in US colleges?

Early decision only exists to pad college's acceptance and yield statistics.

There's no obvious benefit of ED to an incubator interested only in financial returns.

Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#60

Post by govindkabra31 »

A good alternative for YC to consider is to change to a 'continuous' mode.. where you incubate companies on 1st Tue of every month. The companies in a batch are already in variety of stages, some just starting with an idea, some with some market validation done, some may even have raised $500K round before.

This is very much unlike a college or a vocational class, where all participants are in more or less same stage.

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