Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How not to get acquired

blog.gittip.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 86 posts

Re: How not to get acquired

#51

Post by mike-cardwell »

snorkel wrote: post #47
tzs wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is there XML in Authorize.Net's API? Here's how you charge a card using the AIM (Advanced Integration Method) interface (Perl sample code): my $post_values = { "x_login" => "API_LOGIN_ID", "x_tran_key" => "TRANSACTION_KEY", "x_version" => "3.1", "x_delim_data" => "TRUE", "x_delim_char" => "|", "x_relay_response" => "FALSE", "x_type" => "AUTH_CAPTURE", "x_method" => "CC", "x_card_num" => "4111111111111111", "x_e…

I think the perl lib formats and sends this as XML, and perhaps dropping down to XML is required if the language lib isn't up to date.

No it doesn't

Re: How not to get acquired

#52

Post by whit537 »

programnature wrote: post #40
jusben1369 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worry that this sentence: "I freely admit that I've tried to "make lemonade" from what otherwise was a bad situation for Gittip, by publishing this piece and submitting it to Hacker News." is perhaps the most important here. It wouldn't be such a big deal if this was a rant against an established brand like a large technology company. But to target individuals and name names - only to then do essentially a complete…

And he removed the big name-calling rant section after the phone call... the one set off by a loss of 51 dollars. Looks more like a publicity stunt rather than righteous outrage.

Publicity stunt or righteous outrage? I'll have the salmon.

Re: How not to get acquired

#53

Post by jauer »

tzs wrote: post #35
polyfractal wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Braintree is pretty great, I like working with their API and customer service (always ready and willing to talk on the phone, which is great). Avoid Authorize.Net like the plague. Horrifically bad XML API that will make you want to claw your eyes out.

Where is there XML in Authorize.Net's API? Here's how you charge a card using the AIM (Advanced Integration Method) interface (Perl sample code): my $post_values = { "x_login" => "API_LOGIN_ID", "x_tran_key" => "TRANSACTION_KEY", "x_version" => "3.1", "x_delim_data" => "TRUE", "x_delim_char" => "|", "x_relay_response" => "FALSE", "x_type" => "AUTH_CAPTURE", "x_method" => "CC", "x_card_num" => "4111111111111111", "x_e…

Business::OnlinePayment is one of those standup CPAN libraries that may not be well known but solves real(world) problems. I'm using it in a line of business app at work and when we ditched authorize.net I migrated to ippay by changing a couple lines of code.

Re: How not to get acquired

#54

Post by chrisgo888 »

whit537 wrote: post #32
startupstella wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alas, I cannot although I wish I could. I was not interested in working for a big company post-acquisition...hence the name "startup stella." I do hope the guys respond as we always respected the HN community and depended on it greatly. Whatever happened, hopefully the situation can be rectified.

Thanks for weighing in, Stella. I've just heard from Sheel via email with an apology, and now I've just gotten off the phone with Sean. He apologized for the support requests that have been dropped during the transition to GroupOn. At his request, I've removed the "Reflection" part of my piece, which admittedly engaged in unfounded speculation. I apologize. I'd also like to apologize to Sean and the team for not tryi…

Same with me, I just completed my merchant account with Feefighters to be able to use Samurai. I've tried all the support emails, including calling the phone # and leaving a voicemail. My original contact was Sheel and Sean but they are not even replying to their personal emails @feefighters.com. It's good that I haven't switched to their service yet but I am assuming they are NOT continuing this service anymore?

Re: How not to get acquired

#55

Post by whit537 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #39
whit537 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for weighing in, Stella. I've just heard from Sheel via email with an apology, and now I've just gotten off the phone with Sean. He apologized for the support requests that have been dropped during the transition to GroupOn. At his request, I've removed the "Reflection" part of my piece, which admittedly engaged in unfounded speculation. I apologize. I'd also like to apologize to Sean and the team for not tryi…

> I'd also like to apologize to Sean and the team for not trying harder to contact them personally. That sounds like an odd thing to apologize for. You should not have to dig up personal contact information to get minimal customer service.

And I should be held accountable to dig up personal contact information before publishing zingy blog posts.

Re: How not to get acquired

#56

Post by whit537 »

dangrossman wrote: post #50
whit537 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a great experience with Sean and FeeFighters before they were acquired. I can understand being in a crowded market and eyeing the exit. It could certainly be handled more gracefully. GroupOn should either support the product, or at the very least support people trying to migrate their data away. That's the really frustrating part of this. I lucked out to have this come to a head early on, with only 25 cards vau…

> I lucked out to have this come to a head early on, with only 25 cards vaulted. If you have 250 or 2,500 ... :-( I'm stuck with a merchant account provider I detest, that's raised my rates just about every month for 3 years, because there's no way to get my customers' info back out of the payment gateway. It's either keep wasting money on rates nowhere near what I initially agreed to, with lousy support, or lose eve…

:-(

Since users have to update their info when their cards expire, can you start vaulting cards in two places, and slowly migrate away?

Re: How not to get acquired

#57

Post by [deleted] »

dangrossman wrote: post #50
whit537 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a great experience with Sean and FeeFighters before they were acquired. I can understand being in a crowded market and eyeing the exit. It could certainly be handled more gracefully. GroupOn should either support the product, or at the very least support people trying to migrate their data away. That's the really frustrating part of this. I lucked out to have this come to a head early on, with only 25 cards vau…

> I lucked out to have this come to a head early on, with only 25 cards vaulted. If you have 250 or 2,500 ... :-( I'm stuck with a merchant account provider I detest, that's raised my rates just about every month for 3 years, because there's no way to get my customers' info back out of the payment gateway. It's either keep wasting money on rates nowhere near what I initially agreed to, with lousy support, or lose eve…

[deleted]

Re: How not to get acquired

#58

Post by chrisgo888 »

seanharper wrote: post #44

Hello everyone -- this has been an interesting and painful conversation to watch. I am Sean, co-founder of FeeFighters. Integrating the acquisition of a small company into a large company is hard. I suspect there are very few acquisitions where customers do not experience at least some pain. I am deeply sorry for customers who have had support tickets get dropped or experienced slow responses during this period of in…

I have tried contacting you guys at least 10 times (emails to help, support, sean, sheel and left VM at the 855 #) during hte last 2 months after completing my merchant account process for Samurai. I have NEVER received an email back, even a courtesy note saying "due to the Groupon acquisition, we are not processing new accounts" or "we have received your email, can we reply back on ".

I guess the bottomline is when are you guys going to be back to normal?

1) Cleaned up support options on the website - remove the old emails and phone #s if they don't work or nobody is manning them

2) Reply to support within a reasonable amount of time like 24-48 hours

I just need a date so I can stop bothering you until then.

Chris

Re: How not to get acquired

#59

Post by georgemcbay »

whit537 wrote: post #14
1123581321 wrote: post #13

I heard a FeeFighters employee speak last year and she recommended objectivism (Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged) as a good philosophy for entrepreneurs, saying it worked for FeeFighters. When I heard they sold, I assumed that the deal was bad for FeeFighters customers because FeeFighters staff were so compassionless due to their philosophy. Unfortunately, it seems that I was right.

:-( "I had a hard time with Ayn Rand because I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at 'therefore, be a huge asshole to everyone.'" http://xkcd.com/1049/

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

- Kung Fu Monkey

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/03/ephemera-2009-7.html

Post reply on HN