The US government is also a Ponzi scheme. You just need to be in the too big to fail threshold and you gucci

Founder

All the bubbles in history are a Ponzi scheme.  
  
 Question is whether startups bought benefits which everyone will vouch as a "yes" although 95% of them will fold. The benefits are here to stay

Software Engineer

seems a well executed ponzi or pump and dump scheme given how things have panned out over last 3 years

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Is Indian startup ecosystem a Ponzi scheme?

Is Indian startup ecosystem a Ponzi scheme?- Grapevine

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

- Most VCs are fraud, they never make any money and keep shifting from one fund to another to hide that they never made anyone any money. 
They also have usually no real input to add. 
They are no subject matter except negotiations which too mostly they just prey upon any founders. 

It's a thankless asset class. Most founders will always hate it as they will never get a dollar and most investors hate it as they will never net a dollar. 

Never chase VC, they are supposed to find opportunity .. Chasing them is useless, they judge you for it. 
So treat them from first day like your ex. Gf/bf. 

- Most tech startup founders are fraud,  they never make any money and keep shifting from one idea to another to hide they never made anyone any money. 
it usually takes 20 years to make a real $100 million dollar revenue company, but 20 months to be a unicorn. 
Any unicorn today is priced according to what they would make after 5-10 years... Yeah right. 

- Making real money is hard. Making fake money is easy. 
99% of startup Esops are fraud
If the company is homerun, then they won't get you stock easy. 
If the company is maybe homerun, they won't give you cash easily. 
If you get free cash and esops, just imagine it's an 18 month project. 

- Most of the humblebrags are fraud as half of them don't even understand the fine print of what they think is real money but not. 

- Most of the people who usually ask for change have no intention for it. They want to be seen as leaders, change is hard, negotiated and cried for. 

- you only live once. Go hard.. No one like people who have too much to talk but nothing to show.

Some observations after 10+ years of being in the system

Product Manager

Multiple scams like this going in Indian startup ecosystem

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!

Software Developer

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

There are essentially four parties in the startup economy:

1. The Consumer
2. The Enabler(read, Startup)
3. The Service Provider
4. The Investor

Now let's look at Game Theory motivations:

1. The Indian Consumer wants to minimise money spent per unit value extracted, the Western Consumer wants to maximise value extracted per unit money spent. (There's a massive difference.)

2. The Startup depending on the stage wants to maximise User Growth and Free Cash Flows.

3. The Service provider wants to maximise financial incentives.

4. The Investor is wants to maximise the XIRR of their fund. For this they need to reach a multibagger liquidity event.

Now let's look at what happens when:

1. The Consumer gets f'ed over: 

The startup attains pricing power through deep competitive moats allowing for monopolisation. They can jack up the prices to ensure nice FCF, greater rewards for Service Providers and great returns to their investors. (Think, Uber can charge anything to you now)

2. The Startup gets f'ed over: 

The users get bang for their buck, the service providers get good incentives, the investors push for higher growth but unfortunately the startup does not have enough capital to service their Cost of Operations through their unit economics, so they will either run out of cash or investor patience. Either ways, they are doomed. (Think every legit startup that failed)

3. The Service Provider get f'ed over: 

This is the likeliest scenario as they have the least power in this dynamic. Rewards will be reduced over time or made harder to achieve. They have no option because they got no option for sustenance. (Think any on-demand service providing app)

4. The investor gets f'ed over: 

Now imagine there is a startup that can balance the act very well. They have a service that users are willing to pay a margin on. They pay their service providers fairly and have decent unit economics. Now, the investor will do halla about destruction of shareholder value from little growth. (Is this the case with BluSmart?)

Maybe that's why building in India is tough.

[Rant] Here's why someone usually ends up f'ed over, for a startup to get successful in India

Cred is truly a topic of surprise for me. Yes, I understand it has created a community of top spenders/credit worthy people in India. I also understand that they can use the information on such people for creating value for themselves.

Being a cred user, I only use it to pay the bills. I really wonder if they have built any b2b business or alternative source of income beyond what's seen to the end user. What's the game plan for the cred? 

I also applaud the fact that cred hasn't laid off people having paid them better than most companies. I really wonder if the business is really that strong or the conviction is. Would you join cred if given a chance to work there?

Cred

I feel cred is doomed and just trying to increase its value. 
 And the end goal is to sell the cred to someone with higher value and make money.

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

What do you think about Indian startup business models? Do they really have one or just the pocket filling game is going on?

Product Engineer

Most of the startups are in loss and have no clue whether they would be able to make it to IPO, I've always been wondering how come so they get the funding in hundreds of millions?

Even though the early investors seek to make money off the next funding round but still!

It looks like a 21st century's quick rich scheme for founders!

How come all these startups get funding in hundreds of millions?

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

AMA: Worked at tier 2 VC - got in post a few years of workex and a tier 2 Indian uni

What stops you from *stealing* an idea that you found mind-blowing from a pitch of a startup trying to get a seed funding?

Welcome to News Discussion's Private Community

Let me down slowly 🎶

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

Indian startups are nothing more than a scam.

Consultant

Picture speaks a thousand words

I recently got an offer from a seed stage startup for a SDE2 role. They shared the offer in a 2 liner mail. Weirdly enough they have a probation period of 3 months which could also be extended to 6 months during which there'll be no paid leaves, nothing, and you cannot be late to the office any day.
I asked them to share the detailed offer letter with all these verbal probation clauses penned down and they've not replied for a week.
After getting the offer, they asked me to submit my adhar card, pan card, 10th, 12th marksheet, graduation certificate, passport, birth certificate, payslips, previous offer letter, resignation mail, proof of bonuses and all sorts of documents. 

It's funny how they think trust only works one way. I've withdrawn the application as there were too many red flags during the entire process. I really wish the Indian corporate system had an open culture where trust is bidirectional and not act like we're at the mercy of their job.

Funny interview at a startup

What could they do to undo this downward spiral?

How long before Byjus runs out of funds?

I have been following the Indian startup scene for a while now, and I have to say that I am not impressed. It seems like most of the startups here are nothing more than people chasing quick bucks and the entire scene is a circlejerk of people doing everything, attending these stupid conferences and gatherings than actually building something game-changing.

Every founder is chasing nothing more than a valuation just so they can exit and there’s nothing wrong with it but don’t sit on a moral high ground talking about building business etc. There’s a reason we don’t see startups here penetrating west because most of the founders in the Indian ecosystem reek of ego and it’s all because we don’t judge business on merit but based on the degree the founders have. We all can count stupid startups draining money all because they are from some IIT or IIM or now some fancy degree from Ivy and yes it takes effort and hard work to reach there. Still, it automatically doesn’t translate to you naturally being better than a guy working his ass off to make up that difference.

Also, just because you used your dad’s money to start a 'Venture Firm or be an angel investor after college doesn’t mean you’re an expert at everything. You’re just adding to the noise and the hype that is already too much in this space. You’re not helping anyone but yourself and your ego.

So a friendly reminder can we all actually focus on building things based on hard work and merit instead of glorifying this circlejerk. Can we stop being obsessed with funding rounds and valuations and start being obsessed with solving real problems and creating value for customers and society? Can we stop being influenced by the media and the hype and start being influenced by the data and the feedback? Can we stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution?

Startup scene being a complete circlejerk.

During the bull run folks were investing in all kind of creator companies right from merchandising, community platforms, audience management to payments. 

Interesting to see only a few creator focused companies globally succeeding. 

What went wrong?

Creator economy rocketsip went down pretty quick

Starting a small tradition of our own on Boxing Day: a roast of the Indian startup ecosystem!

Through the year, have seen some of the most Top Kek comments here, and I thought it’d be nice to do this for fun! 

Let’s keep it in good jest, no getting personal 🫣
Looking forward to some really creative burns!

PS: I do realize there’s no real correlation between Boxing Day and actual boxing :)

Boxing Day: A roast of Indian Startups 🥊

A very harsh year indeed 
 Almost 261k techies got laid off, and only 261 got laid :/ 
  
 (Sorry)

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