EBITDA: negative

ADJUSTED EBITDA = MATH.ABS($EBITDA) 

Excel is amazing 🙃

Software Engineer

Growth And Strategy

Dirty secrets and shortcuts founders take to inflate valuations and keeping things afloat when drowned already

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

Founder Scandals

Founder

Founder Scandals- Grapevine

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

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

What are some unethical thngs your funded company founders and core nepotism team.hve done??


Ex my ex company founder hired wife, sister, and friends as board of director giving 4 seats to the family itself + fancy designations like cfo, coo  cmo and ceo. All took 5 lakhs per month each as salary which means 20 lakhs going home from VC funded money per month. 1 million fundraise goes home in about 3 - 4 years used to set up paralell businesses, etc and no money made in core business

Unethical things by startup founders

Growth Manager

I was speaking to an ex-colleague and he mentioned how my previous employer, a lending startup, has been intentionally over-reporting disbursal numbers and under-reporting delinquencies in portfolio.

They conveniently chuck the NBFC partners who dare to ask questions and instead catch new fish. During my time I saw sales staff committing rampant frauds and making money on the sides from users. The founders conveniently turned a blind eye till there was new business coming in. They've seemingly moved on to the next level now.

The founders have top pedigree and already come from well off families. Makes me wonder how many such skeletons are buried across startups and what leads to such behaviour. Especially in the wake of what we saw with GoMechanic, Zilingo etc.

Frauds at startups

Business Operations

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

Investor

Whats with Fi money laying of 10% of their workforce for a 2 yr extended runway

Clueless founders, panicking investors, dead market and garbage product. All combine to create these situations.

Analyst

Product Manager

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

Welcome to News Discussion's Private Community

Hey Viners, do you think Startups should provide the details of their financial health to new employees so as for employees to know where they stand ???

Many startups, no financial transparency, founders who say we have enough runway, all bs and in the end laying off people, reducing benefits. Doing secondaries for founders and making big money and running away

Startup Career Rant !!

Founders usually know what they’re signing up for

Software Developer

As a vanity Indian founder of a startup, you have overcome certain very complicated social issues to reach here. 

While this is important, founders also engage in mindless hedonistic activities while all throughout claiming the company in loss or market crash. 

1. I engage in individual interests selflessly while the employee might have to go through a pay cut or salary hold up. 
For ex: Founders minting expensive tickets for horse polo or football finals abroad, the same month employees were laid off.

2. I engage Celebrity Warlords and build fancy academies to bring stardom while mercilessly laying off people and trampling over their familial relations. 
Throughout I ensure through PR that my company forecasts are always on top. 

3. I maintain a fancy following in the office who sings Bhajans on me and my life and stories.
For ex: They prefer passouts from small towns or Tier 2- 3 colleges so they accept without questions.

4. I need a hot female in the office who can help compensate for my emasculated and punctured ego.
For ex: this lady will get hikes and unconditional promotion in a year or so. 

5. I hire more than I can afford so this is my way of buffering and validating my own immature decisions. This way I don't lose out on supposed opportunities but I ensure that my company always looks buoyant and alive. 


6. I don't believe in any political correctness but if the business needs it I will engage people to write for my company as promoting ideas and ideologies superfluously. 

7. I want my organisation to be a vanity circus rather than for hiring quality folks. I market as hiring for diversity but this is just the PR stunt.

Vanity Founders of Indian startups.

Journalist

1. hiring very expensive law firms with kick back. 
2. Buying the office space and then hiking the rent to the office around 5x and made money.
3. Fake invoices
4. hiring friends companies for consulting
5. setting up shell companies for hiring
6. Buying Forbes 30 under 30  slots with VC money


Make this list more exhaustive. 

I want to say to these founders : bhai kisko chutiya bana rahe ho... And after all this, they have galls to become Gyan chodeswar on LinkedIn, podcasts etc.

List of different ways through which founder has routed VC money for personal gains

https://twitter.com/bhash/status/1684955165865213952?t=njFwNN-WfHqYdF-eTfxVcg&s=19

What he is not telling that, at the end of 5-7 years of usage you will need to replace your whole battery which will cost 60% of the scooter value.

Why do founders lie?

This is an interesting trend fully driven by VCs/board

(Co)founders laid-off

Apart from a few good ones here rest are toxic-ologists 🥲. Startup ecosystem is rosy from outside only (folks who know, know :))

Private Equity

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.

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!

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

Sharing frustrations with starting up a business. In my career I have raised over $30m over multiple rounds.

Co-founders in non-business roles get pushed out by politics. Sharing control with co-founders is messy, inconvenient, time consuming. Money lets you hire people who have to answer to you.

If you are not the main ‘Business person’ in a startup high chance you are disposable, no matter what skills you have. And it sucks to spend so much effort only to get bullied out and left with nothing.

Some investors will follow you on social media, if your business is not growing QoQ don’t post anything on social media that implies you are not working every weekend. They will ask why you are not working.

 If you are CEO, be ready for every random person to tell you how to run your business. Not in a ‘friendly advice’ kind of way, if you are the CEO you have a target on your back.

 Investors don’t know about your industry or have very dated knowledge. Some will just say random tips like ‘try web3’ or ‘try SaaS’ and blame you for following their advice when it fails.

 Your progress is measured against fraud companies who fake numbers, or the 1 in thousands who succeed. Get made to feel like you are failing to live up to super high expectations constantly.

 Employees work half your hours, off sick usuall one day a week, deliver next to nothing and expect 20% hikes every year because that’s what their friends make, or they read some dumb startup hires freshers at 20LPA. 

Smooth talking people with the same idea as you, no traction, never shipped a product in life, will raise a huge seed round due to 'pedigree' and spend it all on self promotion. You will always be compared to these clowns who find ways to lecture others while building nothing of value.

Dark side of starting up.

So much truth in everything you’ve written 
 “your progress is measured against fraud companies who fake numbers”  
  
 This has become just more prevalent over time. Confidently advice learnings from startups that are faking GMV or PMF metrics :)

Investment Associate

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

Founders are scapgoat

Business Development Manager

Another consumer tech startup bites the dust :/

https://entrackr.com/2023/10/ex-myntra-ceos-startup-virgio-shuts-down-after-raising-37-mn/

Virgio shuts down a year into raising $37Mn

Get a tag(college/company) -> Open a startup -> Get Funding (even seed stage is fine) -> Burn money -> sell or shut down startup. 
  
 Fastest way to accumulate wealth in today's time.

Corporate Strategist

It’s hard time for the community with these kind of asshole founders enjoying limelight with articles and media sitting quiet on this. 
They have fired almost everyone with their crooked and cruel strategy. 
Lame founders who micro manage and build strategies to fire people. They have a layer of puppets under them and make the whole plan to fire the employees- bhai itna mehnat kyu karte ho yaar, seedha muh pe bol do. 
They’re burning investor money and despite being productive laying these foundations for firing. Layoff everyone then, those puppets desite taking tons of bad decisions are being protected just because they lick their ass and pound them to be rockstars. 
They’ve hired hot girls under them for timepass and so called secret parties. Complete BS. 

I’m still surprised itna karne ke bad they are being celebrated what a country we live in.

Classplus firing and fraud

Head of fin transferred money from company’s account to personal account. Where is the innovation?

Founder Scandals

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