What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast
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What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast
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Re: What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast
#2"Inside Fast’s Rapid Collapse"
Can't believe they missed the chance to headline a pun with the company's name
"That was one Fast collapse"
Re: What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast
#3Can someone explain what Fast's USP was?
Every ecommerce platform I've used has a PayPal / Google Pay / Klarna button.
I click it and my payment & shipping details are there. Seamless.
So what problem was Fast trying to solve?
Re: What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast
#4Can someone explain what Fast's USP was? Every ecommerce platform I've used has a PayPal / Google Pay / Klarna button. I click it and my payment & shipping details are there. Seamless. So what problem was Fast trying to solve?
I first heard of it today.
Re: What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast
#5Can someone explain what Fast's USP was? Every ecommerce platform I've used has a PayPal / Google Pay / Klarna button. I click it and my payment & shipping details are there. Seamless. So what problem was Fast trying to solve?
It's in the same category as whatever Bolt is doing.
Re: What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast
#6> Tiny daily sales numbers which all employees received was the first such warning sign. Internally, Fast was transparent on sales. Every day, every employee would receive a sales summary email that listed the number of sales completed with Fast checkout, and the total sales amount.
> Fast did less than $300K worth of sales and below $6K in revenue on most days from January 2022 to April 2022. There were days with around $2,000 in revenue for Fast.
I'm actually surprised that everyone was receiving daily updates of company revenue.
If you're surrounded by 100s of people at a company known to give high base pay but you're seeing daily revenue numbers in the range of $1K to $6K (they had $600K total revenue in 2021, supposedly) then you have to know that your time is very limited.
I assume they were led to believe that more investment money was just around the corner to keep the business going? With a $10 million monthly burn rate they would have needed a staggering amount of capital to just continue to exist, let alone execute any plans to turn the ship around.
Re: What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast
#7That Startups are fundamentally risky and despite all the talk on HN you are highly likely to spend years working in a high pace high stress environment for equity that will ultimately be worthless or at best match comp at FAANGs all while having questionable WLB.
Re: What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast
#8> Tiny daily sales numbers which all employees received was the first such warning sign. Internally, Fast was transparent on sales. Every day, every employee would receive a sales summary email that listed the number of sales completed with Fast checkout, and the total sales amount. > Fast did less than $300K worth of sales and below $6K in revenue on most days from January 2022 to April 2022. There were days with ar…
The entire culture of b2b startups IME is "yes we're burning money now, but just you wait till Moby Dick comes along... just implement XYZ features marketing/sales says are important and we'll have him in no time!"
Of course, this is somewhat tautological: if they weren't burning money, they'd just be a company. Startup phase complete.
Re: What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast
#9Can someone explain what Fast's USP was? Every ecommerce platform I've used has a PayPal / Google Pay / Klarna button. I click it and my payment & shipping details are there. Seamless. So what problem was Fast trying to solve?
New klarna virtual cards for not needing ecommerce implementing financing directly is genius. I guess with nowadays infra as code for financing that makes sense in 2022
Re: What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast
#10Can someone explain what Fast's USP was? Every ecommerce platform I've used has a PayPal / Google Pay / Klarna button. I click it and my payment & shipping details are there. Seamless. So what problem was Fast trying to solve?
USP?
Edit: found it, unique selling proposition.
And totally agreed, how do you compete with google pay, Apple Pay, Instagram, etc. it’s a losing game when you don’t have network effect.