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Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

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Re: Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

#121

Post by guynamedloren »

hogFeast wrote: post #39
jpollock wrote: post #19

If you're Saudi Arabia with a silly amount of money in cash, are you looking for 10-100x return out of this, or are you simply looking for a place to park liquid funds that won't lose as much as leaving it in German government bonds.

No. Without overcomplicating things, Saudi are the dumbest money out there. They have no idea at all. Even the ones that have worked at IBanks, have no real understanding of basic finance (and likely only got the job so the bank could try to bribe members of their family). To get an investment, you just need to bribe the right people...that is how they invest (I used to know two very junior royal family members, they…

This is fascinating. As somebody who knows nothing at all about this.. are there any detailed books on the subject?

Re: Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

#122

Post by codesushi42 »

perl4ever wrote: post #110
codesushi42 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the point. Do you know anything about this industry? Biotech is not anything like your "traditional" tech companies, they operate in a completely different dynamic. It is not risky in the same way. It can take many years to realize that your proof of concept is a failure, and there's no "pivoting" like in the tech bro world. Are you prepared to realize that after 10 years and many millions of dollars…

"This is why phony genomics software platforms are all the rage today." Examples?

Plenty of sequencing software start ups, platforms, etc that are doomed to fail in this over saturated space.

Re: Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

#123

Post by aledalgrande »

The lesson I think is to be learned here, is that without passion, even money cannot help.

If CEO and top executives really cared about a startup for dogs, they would have come up with solutions for the most recurring problems (e.g. dogs getting lost, or mistreated). How hard is to make a leash with GPS in it and track it in an app? Or to give mandatory basic training to any new contractor?

Also the way they treated the customer service employees is disgusting.

Re: Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

#124

Post by rdiddly »

Messy is right. It's as if competently running a business people want to continue patronizing keeps slipping everybody's minds. No bootstrapped business thinks they can get away with this many gaffes in a row. Because on the very first screw-up, you lose some amount of money, and it's your own money, and it hurts, and you learn. In a startup funded like this, money is just the stuff you throw at stuff, and there's always more where that came from. Obviously the whole VC-funded hyper-growth thing doesn't guarantee success, has a low success rate in fact, but I'm starting to wonder whether those investments actively prevent success in some cases.

Re: Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

#125

Post by vageli »

rdiddly wrote: post #124

Messy is right. It's as if competently running a business people want to continue patronizing keeps slipping everybody's minds. No bootstrapped business thinks they can get away with this many gaffes in a row. Because on the very first screw-up, you lose some amount of money, and it's your own money, and it hurts, and you learn. In a startup funded like this, money is just the stuff you throw at stuff, and there's al…

> Messy is right. It's as if competently running a business people want to continue patronizing keeps slipping everybody's minds. No bootstrapped business thinks they can get away with this many gaffes in a row. Because on the very first screw-up, you lose some amount of money, and it's your own money, and it hurts, and you learn. In a startup funded like this, money is just the stuff you throw at stuff, and there's always more where that came from. Obviously the whole VC-funded hyper-growth thing doesn't guarantee success, has a low success rate in fact, but I'm starting to wonder whether those investments actively prevent success in some cases.

Is this how it is, boots on the ground wise though? I've worked for VC funded startups and we never treated budgets as something to be scoffed at and were very cost conscious.

Re: Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

#127

Post by slovette »

dang wrote: post #46
zaroth wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we make a small exception for when the comment perfectly elucidates what everyone is actually thinking while reading the article? I’m sorry, all due respect, but.... a dog walking company .

Well, let's apply the HN guidelines [1] and, more importantly their spirit, to this case. That spirit is to be reflective rather than reflexive [2], which means to interrupt the rapid reflex that springs up immediately ("what everyone is actually thinking"), inhibit the temptation to react, and give the slower, reflective part of the brain time to catch up. When I do that, the first thing that comes to me is that the…

Do you have any reading (books, blogs, etc) on this concept of reactive vs reflective thinking? I don't think I've ever seen it described this way and it nails a verbal description to something I've desperately tried to describe to myself and teach other people for years...

Re: Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

#128

Post by im_down_w_otp »

rdiddly wrote: post #124

Messy is right. It's as if competently running a business people want to continue patronizing keeps slipping everybody's minds. No bootstrapped business thinks they can get away with this many gaffes in a row. Because on the very first screw-up, you lose some amount of money, and it's your own money, and it hurts, and you learn. In a startup funded like this, money is just the stuff you throw at stuff, and there's al…

It actively impedes success in every environment that I've seen it in, and the only difference is that some companies have such a compelling product that they're able to be successful in spite of the problems brought about by "hyper-growth".

Somewhere core to the problem is that providing good direction is hard. Hiring good people is hard. Making sure good people are working together in the right direction is hard. "Hyper-growth" basically trivializes all those things so that you're hiring as fast as you can, which keeps you from meaningfully on-boarding people, and leaves a bunch of people without good direction.

The knock-on effects of that dynamic can be disastrous. Low morale due to shapes of listlessness. Late stage integration issues due to folks working for long periods in sporadic threads that need to be woven together. Political infighting as too many people with not really enough meaningful work to do start getting creative for their own ends at the expense of others or the organization.

I have been around and in a lot of "hyper-growth" startups, and not one of them that I interacted with operated remotely close to a well-oiled functioning organization.

Re: Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

#129

Post by listenallyall »

loganfrederick wrote: post #16

What I don't get about the Vision Fund is how so many of its investments lack (pun intended) vision. Other than the ARM, Nvidia, and a few billion in biotech (about $3 billion[1]) investments, so much of the fund has gone into pretty "obvious" traditional startups. If I had a $100 billion fund, I wouldn't be swinging for these singles and doubles (which Uber and WeWork were by the time Softbank got involved, although…

...another guy telling people how they OUGHT to spend their money. "I would have..."

::eyeroll::

It's an investment. Their top priority likely isn't eliminating diseases. Nor do most investors think it's wise to compete against Google.

Re: Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

#130

Post by cma »

xnyan wrote: post #117
wolco wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A php stack is the right stack for 2017 or 2019 for a company like Wag. What would a javascript framework offer them? Their core product is connecting people and dogs. A php stack with laravel means they have a working website with authentication on day 1. What would a javascript framework offer them? Emailing tests or documents is very common during the interview process if the company is a startup. Offer them a git…

Maybe I'm dumb - Can anyone tell me why PHP vs JS for a "generic" web application? \In 2019 there are far far far more developers with real experience developing in Javascript vs PHP. There are obviously a lot of other factors in considering the base dev language, but unless you can make a strong case for PHP vs JS, I'm picking JS every time because in the generic case they both meet my needs but a lot more devs work…

A PHP stack can maybe help you get acquired by Facebook, like a COBOL stack could ease an acquisition by an old insurance company.
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