Mistakes You Should Never Make • Hacker News Board

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#101

Post by Dylan16807 » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 6:15 PM UTC

otterley wrote: post #84

jacquesm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would result in mass unemployment in some sectors of industry. The problem is that as long as your competitor says 'yes' and you say 'no' the competitor will get the customer. Customers should be firing companies that provide false information during the lead-up to a sale. Then the sales people can stay employed and everybody comes out ahead.

> That would result in mass unemployment in some sectors of industry. Are you making an implicit suggestion that we should tolerate fraud because it employs people?

It shows that it's not easy, no matter what 'should' may be.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#102

Post by tarr11 » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 6:15 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #33

Of all the financial mistakes you can possibly make running a company, withholding payroll taxes and then failing to remit them is probably the worst. Be thankful you caught this before the liability exceeded your available funds, because company operators are apparently routinely held personally liable when there's a shortfall, and I'm not sure that debt is even dischargeable in bankruptcy. What's worse, minor versi…

Ok I'm using the bank of America payroll feature and now I'm scared. :)

However, are you sure that this doesn't work? The B of A system I am using (in California) calculates payroll taxes, and then even lets you submit them electronically. It also nags me constantly for forms I am supposed to submit to both CA and the US IRS.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#103

Post by zorpner » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 6:16 PM UTC

otterley wrote: post #37

MadManE wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This cannot be overstated. If you give the sales team any room or freedom, they will make your life hell trying to keep up with "features" that outdo everyone else just so they can get their commission check. They don't have to deal with anything beyond signing of the purchase, so they don't care that it sinks everyone else to get that purchase.

Salespeople who sell products by providing false information are committing fraud on behalf of the company and should be fired.

Companies who did this would be systemically outcompeted by companies who choose to look the other way when their salespeople overpromise. And you will find that in general, they are not saying "we have feature X as an available feature as of today" -- they say things like "feature X is under development" and work to upsell it/et cetera. It can be an extremely effective tactic for a lean company to explore the market without overinvesting in development, and it can be destructive behavior by salespeople to advance themselves at the cost of the company.

Like so many things, it's a balance, not an opposition.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#104

Post by jrs235 » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 6:17 PM UTC

x0x0 wrote: post #31

greenyoda wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also puts employees under constant pressure, since every feature is already "late" as soon as implementation begins, and extraordinary effort is required on an ongoing basis just to keep the company from embarrassing itself. At the company I work for, executives and sales people frequently make "commitments" to our customers for features that don't yet exist. People who make commitments on my behalf without even m…

I worked for a founder who did this all the time and it's incredibly stressful as an employee. It would be fine in the limited case where the features are fast and easy to implement: say two days' work at most. I enjoy my paychecks clearing every other week, and losing a sale over small amounts of effort is dumb, particularly since sales where relatively large (low hundreds of thousands of dollars). But this founder…

I worked for a guy that did this too. Instead of me losing sleep over it, I put my job on the line (because if this was standard operating procedure then I would rather be unemployed...) and told him he needed to come clean with who he sold admitting he was at fault and not the developers/etc. If a sales person has to eat crow they quickly learn to avoid future crow eating. Things were much better after that.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#105

Post by krebby » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 6:18 PM UTC

I interviewed at Amicus last year and they were clearly some of the nicest guys in tech. It's always hard to read stories like this but it's especially tough to see a good idea go under. Best of luck to everyone involved.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#106

Post by yxhuvud » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 6:18 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #22

methodover wrote: post #9

> In the early days I would often let potential customers think we already had a feature they wanted What. How is this even remotely acceptable? If discovered it destroys your credibility. Among your employees it destroys your credibility. If I was an employee and found out that this was happening, I'd be extremely upset. I wouldn't trust a thing you say. If you'll lie to customers, you'll lie to me.

Two things: 1. In my limited experience with pitching/salesing when you say "Yeah I think we can probably build that" the customer/client will take it as "We already have this". There is no amount of rational talking and explaining you can put in place to prevent this. If they ask for something, and your answer is anything but an unequivocal "No." they will think you already have it. 2. Isn't the whole concept of MVP…

1: "Yeah, we can build that. It will cost $TIME and will add an extra $$$ MEGABUCKS to the total cost".

One basic technique is to keep track of the life time cost of sales, development, delivery and support/maintenance for all projects, and then measure the performance of salespeople based on both income and cost (as opposed to just income) makes them a lot more motivated to sell good solutions.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#107

Post by curiousDog » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 6:22 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #88

That had to be a tough article to write, thanks Seth. The thing that really stuck with me is the 'technically true' aspects. Growing up in various places around the world I encountered a number of people for whom their motto was 'its only illegal if you get caught!' The advantages of this motto were very apparent as a teen, you could run a stop light at 11:30pm, there was hardly anyone around, and you could be home b…

Great story. Reminds me of this scene from the wire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyoqNyH7HZA

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#108

Post by matwood » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 6:22 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #88

That had to be a tough article to write, thanks Seth. The thing that really stuck with me is the 'technically true' aspects. Growing up in various places around the world I encountered a number of people for whom their motto was 'its only illegal if you get caught!' The advantages of this motto were very apparent as a teen, you could run a stop light at 11:30pm, there was hardly anyone around, and you could be home b…

Interesting about your grandfather. Mine taught me a similar integrity lesson when I was a kid. Back when there were payphones I would always check them for spare quarters. One time when I was with my grandfather I checked a phone that has broken and dumped ~ $6 in change out. I pulled all the money out super excited about my find. He explained it wasn't mine and when we got home he mailed the local phone a check for the exact amount.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#109

Post by danielbraun » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 6:22 PM UTC

That's a lot of meta-work talk. What about the product itself? It's hardly even mentioned in your remarkably honest post. What was your job as a CEO? What did you bring to the table?

Is it possible you have failed because your product wasn't good enough? Is it possible you focus too much on being a CEO rather than take care of your customers and employees?

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#110

Post by pavlov » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 6:24 PM UTC

x0x0 wrote: post #89

tptacek wrote: post #33

Of all the financial mistakes you can possibly make running a company, withholding payroll taxes and then failing to remit them is probably the worst. Be thankful you caught this before the liability exceeded your available funds, because company operators are apparently routinely held personally liable when there's a shortfall, and I'm not sure that debt is even dischargeable in bankruptcy. What's worse, minor versi…

The logic here appears to be that since the employee is deemed to have paid the government on the day that an employee receives his or her paycheck, the employer is holding those funds in a trust for the government, to be remitted quarterly. The government appears to believe in Monteiro's strategy: "Fuck you, pay me." So you -- as an officer, an employee who pays bills, possibly a board member, or possibly other rela…

In Finland the tax office creates a "tax account" for each company. You can transfer money into the account for withheld payroll taxes, social security payments, value-added tax, etc.

It works just like a bank account (except you can't withdraw money from it). They have an online service where you can check the tax account's status and activity, so it's easy to keep it in balance.

This eliminates the need to retain any money that is actually owed to the government. When you pay an employee, you can pay the withheld tax and social security fees at the same time into the tax account.