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Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

bloomberg.com

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Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#121

Post by WisNorCan »

benced wrote: post #72
vogt wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>CEO said there'll be no severance or healthcare. Classy. Learning a lot about how certain people treat their employees during these last couple of admittedly insane years. Good for future reference, I guess - though not much solace now. I feel for the employees. Edit: Wow, more responses than I thought! I admit that the tone of my comment was too reactionary, but my opinion stands. I won't modify the original commen…

Ex-Convoy employee here: if a company is shutting down, it obviously can't provide severance. It's not a matter of class or not.

It is interesting to see that employees of Convoy aren't saying bad things about the CEO. But people on the outside who don't know the CEO are saying bad things.

Usually it is the reverse.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#122

Post by hipadev23 »

wooly_bully wrote: post #11

(Ex-)Convoy engineer here. No mystery as to why this happened, sudden tight market and low available capital demolished us. External reasons given in the article were the same we knew and couldn't do anything about considering that none of the M&A options materialized. Detailed the shutdown on a call at 8:30am Pacific this morning. CEO said there'll be no severance or healthcare. Lot of talented folks in Seattle and…

[flagged]

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#123

Post by [deleted] »

sputknick wrote: post #6

start-up idea if anyone is bored: disrupt car shipping. When I moved from Seattle to Raleigh shipping my car was BY FAR the biggest headache. It's a 20th century business where you have to call people, who will bid for you, and you have no idea if your bid is accepted. Agents will promise a low price to get your business, then tell you a week later that bid was too low, you need to double it. I eventually just gave u…

[deleted]

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#124

Post by krashidov »

vogt wrote: post #55
wooly_bully wrote: post #11

(Ex-)Convoy engineer here. No mystery as to why this happened, sudden tight market and low available capital demolished us. External reasons given in the article were the same we knew and couldn't do anything about considering that none of the M&A options materialized. Detailed the shutdown on a call at 8:30am Pacific this morning. CEO said there'll be no severance or healthcare. Lot of talented folks in Seattle and…

>CEO said there'll be no severance or healthcare. Classy. Learning a lot about how certain people treat their employees during these last couple of admittedly insane years. Good for future reference, I guess - though not much solace now. I feel for the employees. Edit: Wow, more responses than I thought! I admit that the tone of my comment was too reactionary, but my opinion stands. I won't modify the original commen…

[flagged]

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#125

Post by moneywoes »

fairity wrote: post #23

And so it begins. A large wave of unprofitable startups that raised in 2021/2022 are going to fail at becoming profitable and be forced into fire sales or bankruptcy over the next 12 months. The capital constriction really started in Q3 2022. Here's a graph: https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Screenshot... If I had to guess, bankruptcies like this peak sometime next year since many of these companies w…

What's the opportunity here, bigger companies consolidate markets?

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#126

Post by moneywoes »

moralestapia wrote: post #56
paxys wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses like these are hard to "disrupt" because despite all the fancy websites and apps, pricing algorithms, scheduling, reminders, live video feeds and whatever else you can build, underneath it all the success or failure still depends on some guy showing up at your house, picking up your car and trucking it across the country. Unless you can automate that part nothing will fundamentally change.

Exhibit A: TFA

TFA?

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#127

Post by bart_spoon »

adastra22 wrote: post #99
bart_spoon wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If things are dire enough to close up shop now, they probably were dire enough to close up shop 2 months ago, and you can use the cash to give your employees some runway for finding new employment.

A startup will never survive long enough to close the next round with that logic.

Of course they will. What is the magic that separates success from failure that apparently only magically appears within the last 4 weeks with operating capital in the bank? Move your time tables up by 4-8 weeks, including funding raises and closing operations, and none of this is an issue.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#128

Post by josh_carterPDX »

hipadev23 wrote: post #122
wooly_bully wrote: post #11

(Ex-)Convoy engineer here. No mystery as to why this happened, sudden tight market and low available capital demolished us. External reasons given in the article were the same we knew and couldn't do anything about considering that none of the M&A options materialized. Detailed the shutdown on a call at 8:30am Pacific this morning. CEO said there'll be no severance or healthcare. Lot of talented folks in Seattle and…

[flagged]

Your argument would be wrong. Just because a company fails doesn't mean it was a team devoid of talent.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#129

Post by monero-xmr »

thegginthesky wrote: post #74

I work for one of their competitors and I can empathize with them. My thoughts goes to all the employees and their families. The Freight business is collapsing after an unrealistic high during the pandemic. Since April 2022, revenue per load has decreased to about 70%, this means less ways to generate a profit under the same headcount. We also saw a decrease in volume as companies overstocked and consumer spending ha…

I think Flock Freight will be the next shutdown. Rough industry.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#130

Post by ska »

fourseventy wrote: post #45
faefox wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As I just shared on our call, I think the world of you." Just not enough to offer any severance or healthcare. #TruckYeah!

The company is shutting down because they ran out of money... where do you think this magical severance pay is going to come from?

Except in very rare circumstances, management team knows this is going to happen well before passing the threshold where this isn't possible.

So it's a (common) choice. They are balancing the +/- against other uses of the last bits of cash. To some degree they do it because the employee pool accepts and expects it, no better reason. If the representational damage was more acute, they might choose someone else to disappoint.

The more common problem is a "hail mary" play, where the management team is perhaps fooling themselves about the probability of success.

I think the ethical thing to do there is discuss it with employees, but that's just me.

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