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Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming

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

#61

Post by gwbas1c »

johnwheeler wrote: post #48
WhitneyLand wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally disagree that this is "damage control". It had all the signs of a good faith postmortem that others can learn from.

I do think the author told himself he was writing it in good faith, but it was hard for me to see where he took direct responsibility for the outcome. I read it as more blame-shifting to Simon, and since this Simon character doesn't have a voice in this, we can't see the whole picture.

Honestly, the story doesn't add up. Unless I misinterpreted the article, the Simon Incident happened so fast that there's no way that the company had more than a few weeks of operational budget in the bank when it started working with Simon.

What I learned when I tried to run a startup is that some people just live in their imaginations when they try to run a business. It's easy in software, because, in a way, software is living in one's imagination.

I think the company was more desperate than the article lets on.

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

#62

Post by gwbas1c »

simonswords82 wrote: post #16
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…

When a founder doesn't know that they don't have money to pay their employees it's unforgivable. When a founder concludes they might have to fight to save their company and might not be able to pay employees in X months time that's an entirely different proposition. You can be upfront with your employees and hope that they stick around. Or you can keep quiet and do everything necessary to save the company and hope th…

It's not just to keep the employees. Telling an investor "I only have 1 week's worth of paychecks" is a recipe to loose control of a startup.

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

#63

Post by PhantomGremlin »

ebarock wrote: post #41

For me it sounds so strange a company that does not does a basic "due diligence". Even with people that I've just met I will do my personal due diligence. We live in days that "trust" is something that you acquire after a time, not something that you suppose that others may have.

it sounds so strange a company that does not does a basic "due diligence"

This applies to government relations as well. Ronald Reagan made a big deal about this in his dealings with Gorby.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust,_but_verify

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

#64

Post by beachstartup »

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.

yeah, hence

> lucky he didn't try to steal money from them directly

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

#65

Post by kev-reframed »

johnwheeler wrote: post #48
WhitneyLand wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally disagree that this is "damage control". It had all the signs of a good faith postmortem that others can learn from.

I do think the author told himself he was writing it in good faith, but it was hard for me to see where he took direct responsibility for the outcome. I read it as more blame-shifting to Simon, and since this Simon character doesn't have a voice in this, we can't see the whole picture.

Hi, We have taken responsibility for what went on. Simon was not the cause of the downfall of the business. The fact that we could not monetise and didn't have a commercial business was not his fault. We have said that to each of our investors in person. We have still maintained a good relationship with all of them and they were involved in our board meetings around this (as they have all of our board meetings) right the way through the business.

The reason I wrote the article is not to say I didn't do anything wrong - obviously we were terribly naive in many aspects of the business and far too trusting. I didn't expect this many people to read it, I thought my friends would read it locally and be forewarned about getting involved (I only posted it on facebook to my friends). Turns out it got more attention

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

#66

Post by kev-reframed »

robtaylor wrote: post #28
simonswords82 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We raised on engagement rate and having SEIS protection made it a lot easier as it is less of a risk for the investors. (As we found on the next round we needed commercial traction for EIS raise) Our valuation was £1.1M post and we had people viewing videos for on average 20minutes, in many cases (such as Prime ministers question time videos) people watched and engaged for twice the length of a video.

It was a neat 'feature' rather than a business we found and created far too many passive users rather than active users

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

#67

Post by kev-reframed »

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.

absolutely - we have taken a huge hit. We made a lot of mistakes. Our next project we are building MVP but not looking for investment to launch it

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

#68

Post by kev-reframed »

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…

Our employees were always informed how much runway there was left, which is how they found jobs so quickly afterwards. They had correctly been looking after their own interests and sounding people out for jobs, just in case. Our developers got new jobs immediately, one within an hour the other within a day.

The most difficult part of this process was the two weekends in which I couldn't share the information with them. Both times occurred on a friday afternoon after they had gone home for the weekend so I had to keep it with me until monday then immediately tell them monday morning.

The staff were always well informed, that doesn't necessarily come across in the article

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

#69

Post by kev-reframed »

brianwawok wrote: post #2

I literally do not understand. What is the other side of the story? Why would someone go through all this trouble of a fake investment? Clearing buying 10% of a company for 200k with no check is a game that only lasts for a few weeks???

I have been wondering this for a long time. Looking at the way he positioned himself it is almost as if he just wanted to feel important. He came into our building and told them he would become a sponsor. So right away we were seeing his company name next to the door and events he was organising - putting him above everyone else in here.

Then we later find that he has been organising events within the building and setting himself up as an investor. So he is getting people to speak up to him and pitch to him and make him feel important.

Perhaps because my business partner and I treat people equally the money he was offering had to keep going up until he felt we viewed him in an way that was important or necessary.

perhaps he was waiting for us to be unreasonable so he could have a fight and pull out dramatically and no one would have to know he didnt have the cash, but we weren't unreasonable. I hear he was already faking evidence that he had paid his other invoices he owed.

I don't really understand what his game is and he wasn't charismatic at all, like I picture a con man to be. I'll let someone else work it out and focus on building

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

#70

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