This is ridiculous. How do Investors make money on the side? Name and shame pls. We all should learn. 
  
 Investors might be verbally pushing founders for growth. That's it. Founders always have a choice to push back and decide the path forward. 
  
 Cooking books is not justified. It increases the burden on 99% honest entrepreneurs. Such entrepreneurs should be fired from th company. 
  
  Siphoning of funds is the utmost case of ethics and breaking call. Such founders should be sent to jail.

Investor

Iss hamam mein sab nange si. Kuch founder paise ke laalchi aur kuch naamcheen laalchi. Lalach pro max with 99% kachra product service masquerading as startup.

Brand Marketing Manager

Investors behave like Milords, exploit founders, make money on the side, and when things go south throw them under the bus.

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Founders are scapgoat

Business Development Manager

Founders are scapgoat- Grapevine

Reason given by investors on Mojocare sounds very fishy. At one end they are blaming the founder for embezzlement while on other end they are blaming market conditions and unsustainable business model for the layoff of employees. Doglapan?

Project Manager

Founders usually know what they’re signing up for

Growth Manager

IIT grad here building a venture backed startup. I think 99% of folks here believe that venture backed founders are super entitled and in a much "cosier" position than employees

Just sharing a few facts about our journey so far if it helps anyone improve their perspectives-

1) Paying ourselves 33% of our campus salary & 60% of what we are paying to our employees (Talking about Pure Base Salary here, not including ESOPs)

2) Insane stress - You basically have to raise money to build (esp if its deeptech because of the high fixed costs) and there are predefined metrics you have to always chase, sometimes just beyond yourselves. 

Your product will be copied if it's good because well, they always have more money than you. You work 7 days a week for insane hours, chasing metrics required to be "afloat" 

3) 99% of venture backed startups result in 0 liquidity gain for founders. So basically in all likeliness, everything is for a net negative return compared to if we took the campus job

So, when you wholeheartedly bash founders as if they are sitting On a goldmine while you are toiling for THEIR gold Treasure, just understand that more likely than not, there is not really any gold but rather an irrational hope they are clinging to

Also, Yes-we pay above market to our employees (100% hike for the last one) but the truth is some startups just Can't afford it. And ironically, there is a much higher looking down on these startups with meagurely paid founders rather than giants like Tech Mahindra paying peanuts to their employees while having a 1000% salary hike for the executives. 

Yeah, most startups need to do better but please appreciate if someone is atleast trying to do better because trust me, it's INSANELY HARD.. 

The number of posts I see about Flipkart making hundreds millionaires is way too less than the ones I see about pinpointing at every single mistake early stage startups do & I just wanted to express my opinion on it

Peace!

People way overestimate the life of founders

Oh no poor founders, they have to pay fair salary to their employees.

Software Engineer

Founder

Most startup’s are not founded with great altruistic purpose to elevate human condition. Most startup’s are founded where founders know they can make money or earn status points through little schemes of leveraging their network of investors. 

Most of them know they can earn more income by just raising some money from friends or VCs. Build a small tech tool and burn through money trying to acquire and retain customers. All this while hiring 100s of employees selling false narratives. 

What bugs me the most isn’t the thousands of people getting laid off, salary corrections or bankruptcies, it is the mafiaesque organisation built to “create wealth for some by exploitation of countless others” 

Most startup founders use brute force of content and media coupled with ignorance of people to perpetuate this cycle. 

It’s the virtue signalling and holier than thou attitude of most founders and VCs justifying all their mindless brutality in the name of strategy and growth which destroys aspirations and outcomes for the many. It’s more relevant in India because of large scale ignorance about money and large scale trust on educated individuals with the right college tags! 

If you have seen sopranos, most founders are like Anthony soprano - summarily violent, manipulative and ruthless behaviour primarily driven by selfish greed but juxtaposed with moments of vulnerability and struggle justifying his action with a facade of providing for his family. 

*Replace Anthony soprano with your founder/ceo name* 


1. VSS was playing fast and lose with rbi regulations resulting in stock crash and layoffs 
2. Byju’s systematically destroyed his own company and wealth of his employees just to ensure he retains majority control 
3. Ashneer G and his wife manipulated company books
4. Zerodha founders cheated in chess match or lied about their system failures which lost a lot of capital

PS: I refer to most founders because there are few exceptions who don’t fit into this narrative.

Startup founders are mafia bosses!

Incredibly myopic and pessimistic view. I'd suggest trying to be a founder yourself once before judging them. 
  
 Not every startup needs to elevate human condition, plus you still need money to make that happen. 
  
 Most founders don't actually earn much compared to jobs they could've had in companies. All you see is the flashy idiots like Kunal Shah and Byju. Not the bootstrapper shutting down their 10th project for xyz reasons. Because no one likes talking about their failures, and no one listens to people who fail. Only those who succeed.  
  
 You have a problem with the human condition buddy, not founders. Humans can be real shitty given the right kind of conditions. Everyone's fallible, even you.  
  
 If you think you can be a better founder than some of the names you mentioned, then you're only indulging in holier than thou behaviour, which you allegedly hate about founders.  
  
 I do agree with some of the things you said, but much of it is way off.

Generalist

Consultant

I have evaluated a lot of startups as part of my work. My approach has changed from being optimistic to being suspicious of a lot of founders, even before the process starts. 

The sheer number of founders that I come across that try to game metrics/play around with data to make the startup look good. 

Most commonly:
1) Completely changing the definition of margins, repeat rates, etc. and never clarifying that they are using different definition. 
2) Often giving rebates/discounts to key stakeholders but finding ways to hide it from their P&L so that it’s not visible. THIS IS SO COMMON - lot’s of them start showing revenues, and then you will see another cost item rising at the same pace, and lot’s of times it will just be money moving around
3) Sometimes completely giving the wrong picture of how their product works on ground. You then speak with their customers, and they describe something completely else.

Things like these are eating up the ecosystem. These founders also end up fooling some VCs, and then capital get’s kept away from actually good founders who have good intentions.

There was a recent major investment in the commerce space, and that is another one such example of a startup doing this. Needs to stop.

RANT: Founders who fake metrics

Product Owner

A company called loop health started allowing remote work and hiring in early 2022 soon after receiving $25 million dollars investment. 
Founders are a great pair in the initial but as soon after investment of series A , difference broke out and one of the co-founders left the company in the name of sabbatical from backdoor out. He was visionary and had great product sense which the CEO got jealous of and stopped him at all the cost of investors recognising him. Anyway now the real unhealthy thing is not this story but due to this product the scope got messed up and customers started complaining and renewals badly hit to 60-80%. The competitor got them easily , one of the sales people said on call at a loop that loop company customers are easy to catch for competitors.
Now the real story is, the CEO wanted only the Pune office to survive and all remote employees to leave so he did a little magic ✨. Instead of laying off people, strategically not compensating anyone started layoff from the beginning of the 2023 this year by asking each outsider to resign and leave. The strategy was simple, 
Find weakness and make them accept simple mistakes as well and ask them to resign. At the same time, hire contractors at Pune to join and work. If any employee is strong or doesn't want to leave then make them contract employees and expect work in the same way.
This is not at all acceptable and the CEO is not alone on this. CEO, CTO , CPO involved plan. 
The problem with this approach is unfair practices, if someone makes a mistake they won't give any PIP plan. They just fire them in easy  ways to resign. CEO proudly says he wants great tennis 🎾 team but infact ceo is just a ball boy.

Loop is unhealthy!

Data engineer

I go through multiple posts every day. Every one is cursing their company. The bosses are bad. Managers suck. Company is fraud. Is it always the company, managers , bosses at fault. How can we create better work environment in Indian Startup’s.?

Cursing the Indian Startups

I recently worked at a startup and it was terrible. 

To be honest, I still worked at one of the better ones but it just sucked. 

Some of the clear downsides I see 

- Survival mode leads to chaos. You can be treated anyway and asked to leave whenever  even though you left big opportunities to be here 
- Brand loss to find next job (Big problem)
- Trying to make you feel unworthy(Doesn't bother me but I have seen people lose self confidence)
- Loss of opportunity to build real skills like building sustainable teams for the long run

I think over all working at a startup especially early teams is a losing proposition. Do it only if -
 - you know the founders/team well 
- you know the industry and market well and it is a bet you personally believe in
- you are secure enough in life that if you go back to your job, you will easily get employed 


For middle class kids, startups are the worst bets one can take.

Working at startups is terrible

Product Designer

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

Absolutely sad to see the state of the startups, most of them.
I am a founder myself, and this is a post with equal disappointment with myself as much as it is for anyone else who relates.
Look at all these companies that have raised shit tons of capital, and now make a fraction of money that has been invested in them.
The raised money is spent on outsized, non business sense making acquisition costs, only to keep repeating it till the tap runs dry.
Then when all stakeholders get bored, the service quality plummets, the employees are fired and whole sectors are admonished as being bad.

But, my question is, which sector where large sums of money was invested in early days have come out with flying colours. Fucking nothing !
Edtech, proptech, agritech, ecommerce etc. etc. etc. kuch bhi nahi. 

Is there any sector where a startup which has raised in the 100s of millions in the first 5 years have actually built a sustainable business at any scale ?
Then scaling down, isse acha, scale slowly.
The worst part of this whole drama, is pushing the innovation wheel backward and destroying customer sentiment.

Isse acha, raise less money inititally, build slowly, and only scale when the market is ready. Artifical growth makes no sense, unless you have a treasure chest that shall never run out.
Even in that case, spend the money on assets and not on random acquisition costs, direct or indirect.

As founders, let's do better, nahi ?

Rant or is it ?

Welcome to Product Managers's Private Community

I work as a Product manager at a series A well funded startup.
This company is run by a solo founder/CEO.

This is a wannabe tech and product startup that does not care about their product at all. The internal review meetings get 5 minutes on product and 55 minutes on business and operations on a good day!

All they care about is how to run operations and tech just works on automation instead of building the product for the end user. Every OKR cycle runs for two months where OKRs are set for product but we end up building internal tools because things get "re-prioritised" and operations "can not miss targets".

The worst part is that the strategy changes every 2 months and every week, the CEO keeps adding new "wants". Almost like a baby seeing shiny new toys.
At this stage, the product has become a mess with no identity at all!

This baby always says "But is that even do-able" acts critical and tries to seem smart in front of their employees while lying to the investors and board every other week that we are a tech and product company.

I don't know if this happens at other startups in India. 

Would love to hear what y'all have experienced.

Identifying a Baby founder

You sound like a tech bro, who thinks that only tech runs the world. Huge companies like Tata, reliance etc are built on solid operations and business insights.  
  
 Tech is enabler, if the founder is smart with business and operations, most likely he will make a good business, and unless you start valuing things beyond tech also, you will keep hopping jobs and cribbing why people don’t value you.

Senior Product Manager

Welcome to Confessions's Private Community

It's getting dirtier by the day and sure some orgs are still up to their dirty tricks.

The models:
- Appraise and then Lay Off: Why bother putting bandaid on a stab wound? Anyways the folks are going to fight how to answer the ..why were you laid off war, and now you are adding another twist.. why were you appraised and then laid off?
- Low appraisals to force quit: Undervalue them so they leave on their own. It’s a leeches way to cut costs. Kill morale 100%. Severance penny spent $0.
- Trap them in PIP: Dress it up however you want - very very few escape this death sentence.
- Silent treatment: No assignments, No meetings. Watch them spiral into anxiety and leave to save their sanity.
- Workload overload: Drown them in work until they break. No need for layoffs list until they make it to your collapse list first.
- Strategic reorg: Re-organize them out of existence. Offer a demotion or a proxy role in a random team that you know they dont want as an alternative. 
- Sudden policy changes: oh! I have seen so many I can't keep up with this one. 
New policies that make their life hell. People leave to escape your pettiness.
- Mandatory relocation: Demand they move to an undesirable location. Then you treat remote employees like outsiders. Exclude them from key projects, conversations until they feel like foster care kids, second-class citizens. You know the outcome from there on.
- Use the "Culture Fit" excuse: Call out how they’re not a culture fit. Vague, unchallengeable, and forces them out without severance.

And don't sell me "the org has got to do what it has got to do to survive" line. I don't buy that
If you have seen this being done, I understand your silence, but I don't value it.
If this has been done to you or someone close to you, I am sorry. Orgs and the people failed you. 
We could be 1000x better than what we are operating as.

dirty tricks played by orgs to Lay Off employees

Human Resource

https://entrackr.com/2023/09/rario-burns-through-120-mn-in-15-months-future-looks-uncertain/

Tell me no corruption was involved in this ;)

120 million USD gone in 15 months

Burnt through 60-70 crores per month (average) with 70 employees. Put the best combustion engines to shame.

Software Developer

Opening a VC fund has become kind of a cool side hustle

With all these influencers trying to dabble with Early Stage Venture Capital- there's Shikhar Dhawan with his own sports fund. Tanmay bhatt announced one on his linkedin a few months ago. Even Mini Linkedin Influencers are doing this. 

Then there's a ton of founders who in the name of "giving back to the community" have started opening a syndicate/or even a fund. Angel investing is different. Common you are an active CEO of a company. Go fnking build it. Grow you income not your savings. There's a long list. Dont want to pin point people. The whole Mojocare fiasco was Because the founder was using fake revenues/inventory to angel invest!

What are your thoughts? I dont think they will survive more than a cycle.

Influencer VCs

Venture Capital

I've been observing a concerning trend lately on this platform, and I believe it's high time we rethink the way we treat startup founders. Take a moment to consider the dedication and courage it takes to leave a secure job and venture into the world of entrepreneurship. 

I feel Companies like Dukaan, AppX etc were unnecessarily mocked here based on one side of opinion,
I've had the privilege of working closely with a startup's CTO for the past two years, and it's been an eye-opening experience. Startups are like fragile ecosystems where every member plays a crucial role. However, what I've noticed is that sometimes employees who find it challenging to keep up with the dynamic startup environment tend to cast blame on the founders and the company culture.

Let's remember, every startup is a journey of learning, growth, and innovation. Founders make mistakes, learn from them, and strive to create something meaningful. They invest their time, energy, and resources into building something from scratch. Instead of mocking them, we should applaud their courage and determination.
But, what's even more disheartening is the toxic behavior exhibited by some employees here on Grapevine. It's disheartening to see individuals intentionally targeting someone's reputation due to personal grudges. Instead of resorting to negativity, let's try to understand the challenges startup founders face. Put yourself in their shoes; empathize with the pressure, uncertainty, and sleepless nights they endure to bring their visions to life.

We should strive to be a community that supports and uplifts one another, especially those who are trying to make a difference in the business world. Let's promote constructive criticism and empathy, recognizing that we all have our unique journeys, struggles, and successes.

#SupportStartups #EmpathyMatters #GrapevineCommunity 🌟

Embracing Empathy and Entrepreneurship on Grapevine 🌱

Backend Engineer

𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗮 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽 𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗱𝘀, 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗲𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗱.

I'm seeing so many posts where startup employees are cribbing about things like layoffs, work culture etc etc. Doesn't seem like they have perspective on everything it takes to build a startup. I've built a failed startup myself and have immense respect for founders who are grinding it out there in such difficult recessionary circumstances. 

And then you have so many of the engineers and PMs cribbing about basics without talking about important things like learning growth, building for the future etc. Why such myopia? I work at a big tech and envy the speed at which startups move, the big responsibility everyone gets to handle, the fast career growth. All these things are being cribbed about. They crib about founders wanting more. Their job is to ensure success, not to give lifetime jobs to entitled people. They have more headaches you can imagine. In my small startup I had a million headaches. I can only imagine how hard it must be to run larger ships. Is everyone joining a startup these days looking for a get rich quick scheme?

Why are startup folks so entitled?

If you can’t run a business that lets people have a normal life then you’re the one who thinks they’re entitled to employees. 
 Businesses must take risk, employees don’t. Stop your whining that people won’t support shitty business plans

Former Mooofarm Employees allege that the company's founders ignored widespread sales misreporting and misled investors with projections

How Accel-Backed Mooofarm’s Dairy Tech Promise Soured

Another one bites the dust!

Naval be like 'गजब बेइज्जती है यार.jpeg'

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Founders are scapgoat

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