GoMechanic

Don’t think Zilingo, GoMechanic, Mojocare founders faced any such enquiries? Or did they?

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

I work in a few months old as a software developer. In a startup . Being Only employee. The CTO left some days back. Pay is decent . Around three year of exp. However I don’t feel like learning anything having no senior in tech background. Also working there isn’t motivating at all. Since the founder are basically getting a tech product made and then keeping on adding features, rather than selling already what’s been made. Make me work all days including Saturdays. I am preparing dsa for whatever 1-2 hrs i get but I dont like doing my job. Since market is bad and ive been out of touch with DSA, I am not able to decide whether to quit and prepare for a job full fledged or keep whatever’s going going. These people have also said they will try this project for max 6 months if nothing works.

I'm starting a new company and am assembling a team, in all my previous startups had like 7 people working but now everyone is settled and few have retired coz made too much from the exits so back to assembling a new team :p As in all my previous startups I paid an average of 40Lpa an 2-3% ESOPs to all the early team they made insane wealth. But now I'm thinking of going lower and meet the realities of the market rather than paying higher why not paying the market rate? I have been taking multiple interviews and experienced this people consider higher salaries to be a lie they want to earn dirt-cheap salaries and don't trust themselves with what they deserve and in the end ended up mocking me. One of the senior people that I interviewed thought 3lakhs per month was very high no-one pays that much. Same goes for an intern who I decided to pay 1lakh per month thought it's not possible and ghosted me thinking I'm scamming him ( his job was to meet high profile people make connection with different founders by going to parties and events regularly )! My new startup is not in crypto but in something unique! What do you'll think should I pay people less as that's what they think they deserve?

Go ahead, ask if we pushed founders to commit fraud.

I won’t shy away from taking the name - Mr. Manas Sunita Pal, founder of Pedalstart(Gurgaon based) is threatening the employees against exit. Here are some of the ill-intent actions taken by him; 1. Threatening to provide bad feedback to next company/college if in case an employee leaves the company. He even sent out letters with poor feedback to college of some interns who left due to the toxic culture. 2. Asking employees to pay for the training and time spent in the company. According to him the employees are liable to pay to him as he has spent time with them training them. 3. Making employees work more than 18 hours everyday. Employees have a KRA where they have to take part in late night discussions at his flat and failing to do so would affect your promotions 4. Abusing the employees and using vulgar language against them I know all this because I know a few people working at the company. Can you folks let me know what could be the course of action for the employees. Can we do something to call out such toxic founders?

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.

VC here. Doing this for fun. Don't take all views seriously.