Reporting fake GMV and more

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.

I know sometimes we refrain from saying too much about our company. But exes can usually be talked about, since there's not much holding back. Maybe it helps someone else avoid a mistake you did, or gain a new learning :p Shoot.

It's gonna be long thread. I have been working as lead engineer in a early stage startup since last one year. Founder (20 years exp in Product Management) raised some money from friends & family to start it and but company was running negative from February and he put his money to pay employees salary for March & April and We were hoping for some investment in April but that didn't happen. During May & June, he was looking for funding more aggressively and even after having a good background in academics & top tech work experience in product management, no investor got convinced to invest in it. Our salary for March & April was delayed from actual payroll date by 7 days and 21 days respectively and We were expecting our May salary to be delayed by same period and our company was about to complete one year in first week of July so we had some one year benefits associated as well. But Boom, he invited everyone on call and tells that company will shutting it's operation from next day itself. And he will help us find our new jobs and he doesn't any clarity on pending salary. Although we knew, our company is not in good shape so salary cut or something might be happening soon but didn't expect this. Now, we have to find other jobs and also be unemployed while searching for job and also get exploited by other companies because we will be desperate to find jobs to pay our bills. I think, he did this just before 5-6 days of our one year anniversary just because he doesn't get legally bound to pay our one year benefits. I for sure, not gonna join any early stage in future who doesn't have enough funding. Just wanted to put this story out of my mind. Open for any suggestions you have for me Thank you

So I interviewed for a SaaS company serving US clients. I got selected after three rounds (basic email chat, built a project, technical coding round at last) and got selected. Finally, it was time to discuss salary and joining date with the CEO. He was impressed by the about section on my portfolio, where I mentioned that I like to go on treks, hikes, read books, lift weights, go on a run, etc. During our call he mentioned that everyone at the startup works 6-7days a week, 12hrs a day and asked if I'd be fine with it as I have a "happening life". I said that I'm not used to it but I'll manage and work in appropriate working hours. He seemed to agree on it. But he ghosted me after that, and when I pinged him in the email thread; he said he's not moving ahead with me because my other properties won't allow me to "work as much as other employees". How am I supposed to react to this lol

Alright folks, time for some real talk. I fucked up. Big time. And I'm here to share my story so you don't make the same mistakes I did. Back in 2021, I co-founded a web3 startup. Yeah, you know where this is going. I was caught up in the hype, the FOMO, the promise of changing the world through DAOs. Spoiler alert: We raised more than $5M in seed funding, burned through half of it, never hit product-market fit, and ended up shutting down and returning the remaining capital to our investors. Here's how it went down: It all started when I fell down the web3 rabbit hole. I read a few whitepapers, watched some YouTube videos, and suddenly thought I was the next Vitalik Buterin. I had this "revolutionary" idea for a DAO that would democratize venture capital. Sounds cool, right? I thought so too. Now, here's the thing - I'm a great pitcher. Give me a deck and 30 minutes, and I can make almost anything sound like the next unicorn. So, armed with buzzwords and a slick presentation, I hit the VC circuit. And holy shit, did it work. We were a great team, stellar credentials so were able to close the fundraise pretty quick. I still remember the day we closed the round. Popping champagne, dreaming of TechCrunch headlines once we did our Series A, all the jazz. But here's what I didn't realize at the time: I had zero conviction in what we were building. I was so caught up in the excitement of raising money and being part of the "next big thing" that I never stopped to ask myself if I truly believed in what we were doing. Reality hit hard and fast. As we started building, I realized I didn't really understand the problem we were solving. Our target users weren't as excited about the product as we were. We pivoted, then pivoted again. But nothing stuck. Eighteen months in, we had burned through $3M, had no clear path to revenue, and my co-founder and I were at each other's throats. That's when it hit me - we needed to shut this down before we wasted any more of our investors' money. Making that call was the hardest thing I've ever done. Telling our team, our investors, our families - it sucked. But it was the right thing to do. Here's what I learned from this expensive and humbling experience: 1.⁠ ⁠Hype is not a business model: Just because something is trending doesn't mean it's a good business opportunity. Do your own research, understand the market deeply. 2.⁠ ⁠Raising money ≠ Success: It's easy to get caught up in the vanity of a big round. But money just buys you runway, not success. 3.⁠ ⁠If you can't explain it to your grandma, you don't understand it well enough: I couldn't clearly explain our value proposition without resorting to buzzwords. Red flag. 4.⁠ ⁠Team alignment is everything: Make sure you and your co-founders are on the same page about the vision, not just the potential payout. 5.⁠ ⁠Listen to the market, not your ego: We ignored early signs that users weren't as excited about our product as we were. But the biggest lesson? You need 100% conviction to run a startup. Not 90%, not 99%. 100%. Building a company is hard. Really fucking hard. There will be days when everything seems to be falling apart. If you don't have absolute conviction in what you're building, you won't have the resilience to push through those times. Looking back, I realize I was more in love with the idea of being a founder than with the problem we were solving. I was chasing clout, not impact. To anyone out there thinking of starting a company: Please, please, please make sure you have unwavering conviction in your idea. Make sure you're solving a real problem that you deeply understand and care about. Don't do it for the hype, the money, or the status. Do it because you can't imagine doing anything else. As for me? I'm taking some time off to reflect. Next time (if there is a next time), I'll make damn sure I believe in what I'm building with every fiber of my being. I sort of see this happening now with AI, please take a pause. Let's learn from each other. Because trust me, learning this lesson the hard way? It ain't fun. Keep building!

How many of you had ESOP related promises by founders broken by them ? Could any of you appeal to their better senses and get any money or were you hung out to dry completely ??

This is an after thought from what happened at Mojocare and Gomechanic. I too have been at a startup that was upto similar stuff. Was really large at one point, until everyone figured something was off. For me, the first year or so I never got a hint of things. But over time, as I became closer and more trusted by the founders, things became quite clear. Creation of invoices for the sake of it, recording transactions that were anyway happening in the offline world, as transactions on the platform. Basically buying invoices by giving back businesses some of the VC capital as incentives. It was all messed up. I always thought of doing something once I figured it out, but ended up not doing it. My only action was to find new roles, and leave as soon as I could. I remember discussing with friends - should I reach out to journalists? The answer we came to was that it's too risky, even if done anonymously. AND, that people we know would lose their jobs if the reality came out. Eventually, it did come out. More people lost their jobs, because in that 1 year they ended up growing more and hiring more. Maybe if I'd been a whistleblower earlier, a lot of money could have been saved, so many jobs would not be lost. A thank you to the people who have been braver than I was.

I am currently working as a senior engineer at a startup (yoe 6+). Initially things were good , but from the last few months The workplace turned toxic and all the nasty things started happening around me. The burn out was deteriorating mental and physical health, so i lost my patience and resigned. Making this ama , so that I can help someone who is going through the same situation.

Posted in r/developers