Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming • Hacker News Board

Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming

#21

Post by iamleppert » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 5:36 PM UTC

I wouldn't discount the guy completely and frame him as the "bad guy" here. Most of the ad sales industry guys are very similar to this guy. They operate in a realm going from deal to deal, sometimes only a single deal separates them from extreme success and utter destruction. Sadly, this guy seems to have a grouping on the negative side of things and might have been just starting out in the ads business himself. I would have even given him another chance, after he's been humbled a bit. Just make sure you have cash up front when dealing with these kinds of people -- they shouldn't be discounted immediately, rather just treat them like an untrustworthy child.

Just goes to show you shouldn't bank on any one deal coming through. As the management of a company, its your job to have not only one deal in the works, but preferably multiple deals, so called "deal flow" or "sales/prospect pipeline". You should be in constant prospect mode, and never give any one prospect any significant portion of your time. It's not like it takes a lot of effort to just talk to people. I realize its time consuming, but what we're you guys doing in between talking to this guy? You should have been working on other deals. That way if one doesn't work out, you can rely on the others and leverage them until your own bullshit wears out.

This is the proverbial case of "all eggs in one basket".

Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming

#22

Post by mtrycz » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 5:37 PM UTC

"due diligence", "due diligence", "due diligence"

I mean, I know it's a term, but the literal meaning... If they had been diligent where/when diligence was due, all of this was evitable.

Also, they should really do some legal action on the guy. Not because of revenge, but to try to save others from future actions of the con man. Public shaming is just not so stylish.

Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming

#23

Post by pessimizer » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 5:39 PM UTC

nullcipher wrote: post #9

Why do companies wait till the dying moments before informing employees? I have seen many articles now which read like 'we went to back to the drawing board to realize that we have to close down in 2 days. Our bank was empty'. Is this just dramatization? I cannot believe people can run business without something so basic. Like paratroopers jumping out of an aeroplane and then saying 'we checked before hitting the gro…

Why would they tell employees? They're not going to be held personally responsible for not paying them; it's the fault of a mailbox in Delaware.

Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming

#24

Post by jaredhansen » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 5:43 PM UTC

nullcipher wrote: post #9

Why do companies wait till the dying moments before informing employees? I have seen many articles now which read like 'we went to back to the drawing board to realize that we have to close down in 2 days. Our bank was empty'. Is this just dramatization? I cannot believe people can run business without something so basic. Like paratroopers jumping out of an aeroplane and then saying 'we checked before hitting the gro…

>Why do companies wait till the dying moments before informing employees?

Because if you tell employees how close to the edge you are they often run out the door, moving your odds of failure from 50% or 70% or whatever up to ~99%.

Personally, I'm a stickler for integrity and scrupulous honesty so I have never hid facts from employees even when it was dark (and for a couple of years, it was often really, really dark). But I can see why people do it: when you're in the middle of trying to close a save-the-company funding round, with 2 minutes left on the clock, losing half your team doesn't exactly help. And that did in fact happen to us several years ago: I lost almost the entire engineering team early in our company's life because they freaked out and bailed when they realized how little cash was left -- and this, in turn, torpedoed a number of funding efforts that were underway, almost sinking the business.

Again: don't take this as an endorsement of hiding the truth. But many, many good companies have been days from bankruptcy multiple times, and if everyone had known it at the time, people would have bailed out and the company would have failed. So that's why management often wants to conceal bad news from the rank and file.

Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming

#25

Post by sedeki » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 5:45 PM UTC

wingerlang wrote: post #18

beachstartup wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's nothing to "understand". you assume there is a logic to their actions. there isn't. the guy was a scammy bullshit artist, a wannabe business man who talked his way into others' confidence, and probably has mental issues. these people are out there, and you need to watch out for them. on a side note, it takes guts to post a story like this. most people don't admit when they are taken like this. they're lucky h…

I think he is asking how that guy cashed in on this. And I believe the answer was that these guys basically displayed affiliate links that gave him cash when clicked.

No, I don't think "Simon" meant to cash in at all. As the parent post said: probably mental issues. These nutjobs aren't looking to get to rich, as much as pretending/be perceived to be rich.

Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming

#26

Post by robtaylor » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 5:45 PM UTC

simonswords82 wrote: post #11

binarymax wrote: post #6

Surprised HMRC hadn't caught up with them, preventing them from being directors or secretaries on any other companies.

I've seen so many so called Phoenix companies ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_company ) spun up out of the ashes of "insolvent" companies that leave behind unpaid employees, suppliers etc that it doesn't surprise me nobody has caught up with the ad sales guy. This guy is ridiculously easy to find on the Companies House website if anybody else wants to avoid doing business with him. All five of his registered…

"Country of residence Grate Britian"

errrr!

Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming

#27

Post by Disruptive_Dave » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 5:45 PM UTC

"Just because you can doesn't mean you should" is what comes to mind for me when reading this. It also reminds me of how often, in the past two years, I've had to push younger founders to adapt a more pessimistic (I call it realistic) view of the business world than they naturally have. A deal is on the table - start by asking how it could fall apart, where the holes are, what's wrong with it. If you're owning/operating a business, you should have a nice healthy dollop of distrust in almost all your doings. That could solve so many of these "problems" that are simply born of naivete.

Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming

#28

Post by robtaylor » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 5:49 PM UTC

simonswords82 wrote: post #7

themgt wrote: post #5

That week was fraught, as it was the week of a major conference that we were working with. It was the first time we were displaying adverts on someone else’s site through our system, but we couldn’t trust Simon — we had no guarantee that he wouldn’t try and display something malicious. We had to rebuild the ad system from scratch to ensure that no one could maliciously inject adverts onto our system. It was too much…

AND they forgot to discount his invoices until right at the last minute. I respect the author's transparency but there are a huge number of lessons to be learned here before jumping head first in to any other new business startup that relies on other people's money to launch.

On their about page

"In 2015, Reframed.TV exceeded investment expectations with no commercial revenue."

No details of the metrics but that itself would be an interesting post considering the staff numbers and investment.

Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming

#29

Post by johnwheeler » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 5:54 PM UTC

This article is damage control for the author's naiveté.

The problem: Reframed did the due diligence after talking to Simon and seeking additional investment.

It's also not clear if Reframed ever provided any real value, but it's clear they we're willing to take real money and assign themselves a $4M valuation. That might not be a sham straightaway, but it's probably one in the making--good intentions aside.

Your investors will rightfully blame you if you get them scammed. You're expected to be competent enough to protect them because that's part of your job as "The Management".

Thank goodness the deal stopped dead in its tracks before more people got hurt.

Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming

#30

Post by zellyn » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 5:55 PM UTC

iamleppert wrote: post #21

I wouldn't discount the guy completely and frame him as the "bad guy" here. Most of the ad sales industry guys are very similar to this guy. They operate in a realm going from deal to deal, sometimes only a single deal separates them from extreme success and utter destruction. Sadly, this guy seems to have a grouping on the negative side of things and might have been just starting out in the ads business himself. I w…

I think faking a phone call to your lawyer is pretty unforgivable…