Don't believe the numbers just as is

I was leading a team which was involved in launching BNPL for a commodity product( flight tickets/train tickets), and the API we were using to cancel the tickets at the last moment from the 3rd party providers was flaky. It was supposed to cancel the tickets and provide refund back to minimize any losses we had.

It was such a hit feature that led to 250% growth in numbers within a week. I was promoted, the star. My manager was promoted too..

But I knew inside something wasn't correct, BNPL just meant people not paying then but still had to pay sometime and 250% growth was just not something I could digest.

I asked the team to switch it off for a couple of days, the whole company esp. Revenue teams were baying for my blood.

After a month, there was financial reconciliation, and we realised the API was just giving the response of successful cancellation but was never actually cancelling it.

The company lost almost 15 cr / day. No one wanted to believe this at all from top to bottom

The company never told the investors we fudged up but instead raised more funding by mentioning the 250% growth.

From then on I realised most investors are just watchmen.

They want to be on the fast deal more than being on the correct deal.

Don't believe anything on the internet that you read. Almost all GMV numbers are cooked.