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Why am I no longer qualified to be a Brex customer?

brex.com

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Re: Why am I no longer qualified to be a Brex customer?

#301

Post by ouid »

Invictus0 wrote: post #296
blagie wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brex non-customer here. 1) If I were doing due diligence on a vendor, and ran across something like this, I wouldn't buy from them. It's unlikely to come up (I've never done due diligence on a CEO), but if I learned a CEO had pulled a stunt like this, I wouldn't buy from a new company. 2) Actions like this bias my judgements to the entire buy vs. build decision, and the SaaS space. My experience is that each time a s…

I can't stand comments like this, pointlessly berating the CEO when you're not even a client. This is a forum for startups: startups frequently pivot in their search for product market fit. What do you expect him to do, have the company go under to maintain an unprofitable business segment? Have a layoff to cut costs? Who would that benefit? Guess what: if every time a CEO writes a comment on this forum, angry-for-no…

>hurl vitriol.

This is criticism and advice. It is not this forum's job to tell people that their ideas are good and their business models are sound when they arent. It seems like the claim is that it is a worse idea than you think to fire your customers.

Re: Why am I no longer qualified to be a Brex customer?

#302

Post by jascii »

Invictus0 wrote: post #296
blagie wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brex non-customer here. 1) If I were doing due diligence on a vendor, and ran across something like this, I wouldn't buy from them. It's unlikely to come up (I've never done due diligence on a CEO), but if I learned a CEO had pulled a stunt like this, I wouldn't buy from a new company. 2) Actions like this bias my judgements to the entire buy vs. build decision, and the SaaS space. My experience is that each time a s…

I can't stand comments like this, pointlessly berating the CEO when you're not even a client. This is a forum for startups: startups frequently pivot in their search for product market fit. What do you expect him to do, have the company go under to maintain an unprofitable business segment? Have a layoff to cut costs? Who would that benefit? Guess what: if every time a CEO writes a comment on this forum, angry-for-no…

I find it very useful to hear why people choose not to use my products, I find there is some selection bias in the opinions of people who are already customers.

Re: Why am I no longer qualified to be a Brex customer?

#303

Post by exotree »

Invictus0 wrote: post #296
blagie wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brex non-customer here. 1) If I were doing due diligence on a vendor, and ran across something like this, I wouldn't buy from them. It's unlikely to come up (I've never done due diligence on a CEO), but if I learned a CEO had pulled a stunt like this, I wouldn't buy from a new company. 2) Actions like this bias my judgements to the entire buy vs. build decision, and the SaaS space. My experience is that each time a s…

I can't stand comments like this, pointlessly berating the CEO when you're not even a client. This is a forum for startups: startups frequently pivot in their search for product market fit. What do you expect him to do, have the company go under to maintain an unprofitable business segment? Have a layoff to cut costs? Who would that benefit? Guess what: if every time a CEO writes a comment on this forum, angry-for-no…

There was valid points made that were forward but certainly didn’t strike me as angry. And I agree with the sentiment. I am weary of more and more startups and companies like Google these days. I can’t rely on a lot of them.

Re: Why am I no longer qualified to be a Brex customer?

#307

Post by blagie »

ouid wrote: post #301
Invictus0 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't stand comments like this, pointlessly berating the CEO when you're not even a client. This is a forum for startups: startups frequently pivot in their search for product market fit. What do you expect him to do, have the company go under to maintain an unprofitable business segment? Have a layoff to cut costs? Who would that benefit? Guess what: if every time a CEO writes a comment on this forum, angry-for-no…

>hurl vitriol. This is criticism and advice. It is not this forum's job to tell people that their ideas are good and their business models are sound when they arent. It seems like the claim is that it is a worse idea than you think to fire your customers.

That's the exact claim. It's not a pure calculation on individual customer ROI. In most cases, grandfathering in existing customers (keeping in mind I'm not one of them for Brex, so have no axe to grind) is simply good business. The reputational benefit far outweighs the cost.

The flip side is that if you are evaluating vendors, this kind of stability is worth looking at:

- Do they have a track record of customer-disruptive pivots?

- Are they structured (e.g. have revenues or funding) to be around for the long-term? Or might they disappear overnight, taking your business down with them?

- Are you being subsidized for growth? Do you expect for this to flip to being a cash cow at some point?

The wisdom when I was younger was "No one got fired for buying IBM." It annoyed me at the time, but having done a few ventures, I understand that wisdom now. It takes 10-20 years for a unicorn to exit. If you have a dozen vendors who are positioned such that a pivot on their side can cripple your business, and those vendors have a mean time between such pivots of 5 years, you won't last long.

With both employees and vendors, a good thing to look at is history of value-creation. If an employee created value everywhere they've worked, they're probably a good hire. If they've burned value at each place they've been, they're probably a bad hire.

Re: Why am I no longer qualified to be a Brex customer?

#308

Post by beancounter124 »

parkaboy wrote: post #167
cvccvroomvroom wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yuck. Brex comes across as risky, mercurial, and snobby rather than useful, professional, and reliable. Does anyone else know about or use Silicon Valley Bank? How do they compare to Mercury?

We used SVB at my previous startup. Somewhat ironically, their UX is SUPER dated and a bit kludgy (been a year since I've checked, though) and their fees are high, BUT they're high touch and good to be in with strategically (especially when it comes to debt financing). I don't know if I'd suggest them early on when bootstrapped, but definitely worth a gander once larger or VC-backed. Mercury's UX is sexy AF and enjoy…

I use SVB and agree- the UX is clunky. We added Teampay into the mix as the UX that our employees use. They love it and I love it too as the admin.

Re: Why am I no longer qualified to be a Brex customer?

#309

Post by jkeuhlen »

tnjm wrote: post #287
parkaboy wrote: post #147

Not surprised by any of this. Feels like it comes from the top, culturally. I had a terrible experience "onboarding" with Brex last year. They actually "approved" my bootstrapped startup and sent me a physical card only to rescind it a shortly thereafter, because--even though we met the funding minimum--it wasn't "professionally invested" on further review. Bootstrapping apparently required a $1MM minimum. Here's wha…

Indeed, Mercury has been phenomenal for us too. It's painful to use other banks now. How they've executed so quickly and competently in a tricky space is quite something to watch. But the thought of them pulling a Brex-like move might now keep me awake at night... hopefully they would just add a monthly fee on before reaching that point.

Our unit economics are strong for all businesses, so we don't anticipate ever having to do something like this.

Banking is our primary focus, not an add-on feature, and we invest significantly on the product teams that enable strong unit economics in banking for the long run, like partner integrations, support experience, and onboarding/risk.

Re: Why am I no longer qualified to be a Brex customer?

#310

Post by jkeuhlen »

parkaboy wrote: post #167
cvccvroomvroom wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yuck. Brex comes across as risky, mercurial, and snobby rather than useful, professional, and reliable. Does anyone else know about or use Silicon Valley Bank? How do they compare to Mercury?

We used SVB at my previous startup. Somewhat ironically, their UX is SUPER dated and a bit kludgy (been a year since I've checked, though) and their fees are high, BUT they're high touch and good to be in with strategically (especially when it comes to debt financing). I don't know if I'd suggest them early on when bootstrapped, but definitely worth a gander once larger or VC-backed. Mercury's UX is sexy AF and enjoy…

If you haven't seen it, we (Mercury) are also offering debt financing these days, starting with VC-backed companies: https://mercury.com/venture-debt
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