Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming
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Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming
#2I 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???
Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming
#3The revolving door of employees is a big red flag. If you cannot keep employees, you are either 1) an asshole or 2) doing something shady. Either way, they are not someone you want involved in your business.
Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming
#4I 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???
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 he didn't try to steal money from them directly.
Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming
#5That 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 of a risk to leave it in the control of Simon.
Once we got control over the ad system we realised that the adverts were affiliate links, i.e. not unique to us. The companies advertising had no idea they were advertising on our site. We had no relationship with them.
It slowly dawned on us that the financial forecasts we were basing the raise on were useless. It was based on information from Simon on adverts that were not real, and deals that did not exist. The financial model was broken.
I'm sorry but ... what? They ran a company for "a couple years" with at least a handful of staff, and let this one guy come in and overnight effectively take over an utterly critical part of the business even though "He hasn’t paid any of his invoices. We were expecting around £25k from him"
And then they depend on the same individual both to finance and to provide the financial forecasts justifying their must-have funding round, and after it blows up they say "we didn’t see it coming"
Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming
#6Surprised HMRC hadn't caught up with them, preventing them from being directors or secretaries on any other companies.
Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming
#7That 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.
Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming
#8Sorry to hear that man. At least you took it on the chin and dealt with it. Its all part of the learning experience. These kind of stories are unfortunately far too common but its like a rite of passage for each of us. I feel bad for your staff, but hopefully they'll find something soon.
Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming
#9Why 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 ground, only to realize we had no parachutes'.
Re: Losing our business – we didn’t see it coming
#10OK sorry if this sounds harsh but it seems if your whole revenue model is based on selling ads it would be a good idea to really understand the ad market.