31–40 of 55 posts
Great article, shame it happened. I'm really curious as to how this idea didn't really succeed - seemed like a slam dunk service. Anyone know more?
If anything these X box a month services pop up so frequently I'm surprised there is not a startup to help people make their own x box a month companies.
Interesting. Is there a market for shut-down services? Clearly they had "something" if people are still signing up. Might not be a $100mm exit but I'm sure someone would enjoy running this for a few million in cash each year?
I literally just tried to sign up for this as a gift for someone this past weekend. I tried to buy a year gift subscription and got an error message. It showed me a silly error message which included Ryan Gosling promising a foot massage for me to keep my calm. I mistakingly tried 2 more times and now see 3 charges on my credit card. For what it’s worth, they use Stripe. I saw the $1 pending transaction they tried. H…
Startups fail. Fact of life. We talk about "burn rate" and "runway" because it is easier to say than "The number of days you have to find a working business model or secure additional investment, after which you have to fire all of your employees because you cannot make payroll."
When startups know they're going to fail to make payroll, they fire all employees. Fact of life. Fired employees are the worst affected people when a startup collapses, by a factor of lots. They don't get to call up their credit card company and chargeback forgone wages for the last three years.
When you're the non-technical CEO of a subscription commerce company, and you find yourself in an empty office without employees, if you're hypothetically aware that subscriptions are still active -- which you very well might not be aware of -- you have very limited options for actually fixing it. You might as well ask my dad to do an orderly shutdown of Appointment Reminder given I get hit with a bus tomorrow.
Could this have been handled better? Yeah. There's a reason that when startups ask for advice on what to do in their remaining hours of life we always say the words "Prepare and execute on a plan to effect an orderly wind-down of the business." It's not exactly something people are born knowing and might not be at top-of-mind while they're going through an enormously stressful event.
Interesting. Is there a market for shut-down services? Clearly they had "something" if people are still signing up. Might not be a $100mm exit but I'm sure someone would enjoy running this for a few million in cash each year?
I'm not sure "someone would enjoy running this" makes much of a difference if it can't pay the bills.
Saying things like "Now Techstars has lost complete credibility in my mind" is taking things too far and just being petty. Techstars doesn't market itself as some bastion of credibility to consumers. Yes, this a great example of what not to do when you know your company is doomed, and the founders are killing their long-term prospects of future ventures with all this bad karma, but there's no need to drag Techstars i…
>> "there's no need to drag Techstars into it" Techstars and/or its affiliates would have taken equity in exchange for their services. They're part owners of the company as as such bear some measure of responsibility for its actions. >> "Techstars doesn't market itself as some bastion of credibility to consumers." Yes it does. It's consumers are small startups in need of seed money and strategic advice. Brand name is…
It isn't necessary to dream up scenarios of unethical action on the part of anyone for this to happen. Startups fail. Fact of life. We talk about "burn rate" and "runway" because it is easier to say than "The number of days you have to find a working business model or secure additional investment, after which you have to fire all of your employees because you cannot make payroll." When startups know they're going to…
Being too lazy to shut off the site is not an excuse.
I literally just tried to sign up for this as a gift for someone this past weekend. I tried to buy a year gift subscription and got an error message. It showed me a silly error message which included Ryan Gosling promising a foot massage for me to keep my calm. I mistakingly tried 2 more times and now see 3 charges on my credit card. For what it’s worth, they use Stripe. I saw the $1 pending transaction they tried. H…
Did you file chargebacks?
It isn't necessary to dream up scenarios of unethical action on the part of anyone for this to happen. Startups fail. Fact of life. We talk about "burn rate" and "runway" because it is easier to say than "The number of days you have to find a working business model or secure additional investment, after which you have to fire all of your employees because you cannot make payroll." When startups know they're going to…
Taking money with no intention of delivering a product is unethical. I think I was born knowing that. Or, at least, I learned it pretty early on. Being too lazy to shut off the site is not an excuse.
It isn't necessary to dream up scenarios of unethical action on the part of anyone for this to happen. Startups fail. Fact of life. We talk about "burn rate" and "runway" because it is easier to say than "The number of days you have to find a working business model or secure additional investment, after which you have to fire all of your employees because you cannot make payroll." When startups know they're going to…
Taking money with no intention of delivering a product is unethical. I think I was born knowing that. Or, at least, I learned it pretty early on. Being too lazy to shut off the site is not an excuse.