There might be very few startups that really add value or are solving a problem. Most of them are trying to run a valuation game.

Recruiter

For the folks working in startups, do you actually think the leadership is working towards making a profit or just playing pleasing the investor game by doing layoffs and building products that don...

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

For the folks working in startups, do you actually think the leadership is working towards making a profit or just playing pleasing the investor game by doing layoffs and building products that don't sell just to get the next round of funding?

Opinion on Company

Software Engineer

Opinion on Company- Grapevine

How much importance is given to Finance head in strategy decision making/strategy planning in your companies?

Finance folks at startup

Director Finance

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.

Founder

have been seeing a lot of startup’s having multiple CXOs leaving within a short duration of them becoming profitable.

Is this another cost saving measure?

What do CXO exits in a profitable startup mean

Product Manager

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 ?

I am so frustrated by observing how some Indian startup founders have been mistreating employees. This is happening literally in all the startups and corporates.

Many of us invest their precious time and money obtaining degrees, only to become corporate employees.

India won the WC on Saturday night, and since then, I have seen numerous rant posts from people complaining that they missed this moment because they were overworked.

The rate of employee exploitation is alarmingly high, as founders often believe they have alot of options and are driven by their greed for money.

Look at the plight of startups, the top management says they do not have money so they lay off the whole departments without any prior notice. Yet they spend so lavishly on showing investors or on their socials how cool they all are.

We are bloody engineers, not their family bound slaves.
Why do we suffer ? 

I believe it is high time that we establish a union for employees working in the IT industry.
This exploitative culture needs to come to an end.

A Union of-by-for White Collar Employees

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

Why: I know that with all the job layoffs happening, it's kinda stupid to quit but I just can't. After almost a decade in the startup scene I'm taking a break, probably for good. 

From AI to B2C to ed-tech and more I have worked with startups at every stage of growth and across sectors. Almost in every one of these w/o exception, I have experienced burnout, mindless pressure, and being underpaid because I'm not from an IIT or IIM. 

Context: I love technology, I have been a sci-fi nerd since school and I threw myself into the stories of startups changing the world. But because of family finances and the overall culture of startups I haven't taken a break in about 10 years and it's starting to show. 

I don't have savings to last me more than 3-4 months but at this rate I'll end up checking out of society. 

Unsolicited advice: 
1) Most startups and the VCs that back them know they're going to fail but don't internalise their failure as yours. 
2) Always, always take care of your mental + physical health. Doesn't matter if you're intern and you're expected to slog 12-15 hours in the name of learning. 
3) I missed moments with my ageing mom and dad, school friends and just time to read and relax because I was afraid of missing out on "networking" and "office night outs". Fuck all that, it is and it will always be family and frit first. 


Finally, Fuck all you hustle bro CEOs, they have done more to damage the mentor health of a generation more than any politician. I feel stupid and useless because you can't help posturing and creating panic in the name of disruption. Hope AI takes your jobs too. 

PS: See you on the other side.

I'm laying myself off. Indian start-ups have killed my sense of purpose

Product Marketing Manager

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 !!

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

Investor

Pathetic

Was asking for some advice on fundraising. Got to know if you are building something with no revenue, literally impossible to raise.

He explained how hard it is even for the current founders and expecting 100s of startups to fail next year with talent going cheap due to all the layoffs.

Very hard to think how to monetise B2C if people don’t even link their credit or debit cards with Apple Pay and Android for in-app purchases. Also for B2B Saas, it’s better to build for US from India than building for India.

Just “profit” over growth now. Nothing else matters 💭

Had a chat with a Unicorn Founder

Udaan fired more than 150 employees after raising $340 million dollar

What are generally the metrics used during layoffs ?

Is it division by division or each employee is vetted for his performance and contributions ?

Do high salaried folks generally targeted even if they have good performance and history with company ?

With the overall bleak atmosphere in startup ecosystem and lack of transparency in this process from employers wanted to know how are decisions made. Most say it is performance based in news, how true is that ?

Layoff Parameters

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

So I joined a startup on Oct, 23(6 months completed).  They are struggling to raise funds. From Jan, they started layoffs from ops and customer support, went to major cost-cutting: no tea, snacks, giving the floor to rent, restricting the leaves: like for leave, you have to get approval from HR and the CEO, not the manager.  I'm in a tech team, and multiple products are lined up for release, so work is there, but ultra micro-managing. I'm getting opportunities but I'm not sure whether to switch or not. 

I leave my last job in 5 months due to their funding issue. That's why I'm skeptical to leave or not. 

Would love to hear advice.

To switch or not

This may sound like a dumb question, but why do these companies fire just before the IPO? isn't an IPO a good thing? More cashflow. Shouldn't they be taking care of their employees who made it reach there?

What exactly is the thought process behind this mass layoff before IPO?

Swiggy possible layoffs

Analyst

Hola people! Today I am gonna tell what is happening in Swiggy since last couple of months. This is a everyday story in Swiggy’s private feed on this app. So thought to enlighten others as well. Sit back, grab a coffee and enjoy the rant of a frustrated employee.

For everyone’s understanding, work culture in Swiggy has gone for a toss. Employees are working day and night to meet the never ending and unexpected goals set by our leaders. All because of the next year planned IPO. Many talented folks have left the company and many are in the process. New CTO is trash and super aggressive. Empathy died a million times the moment he became the CTO.  The only goal which the company has now is to deliver FAST! Nothing else matters. This is for literally every org!  

Micromanagement has significantly increased and you are expected to provide update for every damn thing! Employee motivation level is literal 0 and no one gives a f**k about anything. Some people are put in PIP and there is no chance of coming back from there. Cost cutting is being done on whatever means possible to achieve profitability. 

Number of outages in the last few months have significantly increased and most of the employees are working in the weekends to complete their assigned tasks. People are just surviving and will leave the moment any opportunity knocks at the door. Its sad to see a company who was once known for its work culture is now struggling on almost every front. 💔

Fading glory: A company that couldn’t sustain its excellence

Welcome to Product Managers's Private Community

Hey everyone, excited to be doing this AMA!

A brief about me, I work currently as a Director of Product at an Indian unicorn startup 

About my career: 
- Did my undergrad from IIT and then masters from an Ivy league school
- Have been in product for almost 10 years now - across 2 Indian unicorn startups and a publicly listed company

Would love to take questions on what it means to be a PM, growing within the role, building your career, and other things :) 

Will be back here at 4 pm and start replying
Shoot away!

AMA 🎙️: Hey all, I am pmsprint, Director of Product Management at a Unicorn in India!

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

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