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Not alone Made my startup worked hard. Got contracts. Customers forgot to pay. It sucked. And in my country it was normal. It was not Africa. It was France.

Not alone Made my startup worked hard. Got contracts. Customers forgot to pay. It sucked. And in my country it was normal. It was not Africa. It was France. Big corporations do whatever the fuck want even if it is illegal. Trades dispute are regulated by "peers" tribunal dating from middle age that are crooked. And newspapers, teachers and politics that never had a job were pointing fingers randomly at problems.

Mahn 11y ago
This is why I don't like B2B much; a monolith company can randomly decide to pay 5-10 months late and no one bats an eye because that's the normal thing to do for a company of that size, small entrepreneurs that are barely making it be damned.
- godzillabrennus 11y ago
  Small startups can leverage a factoring company to handle A/R and do risk assessment for lines of credit with customers before doing work. Definitely a worthwhile service to leverage if you do B2B.
  - SFjulie1 11y ago
    Oh yes. The short list/affacturation scam. Software can only support safely at most 10 providers ... for RA.. facturing ... limitations. Thus I had between 1 and 4 mans in the middle for the purpose of "factoring, risks assessments" and shits. I usually was paid 300€ to 400€ / days when customers were billed between 1000€ and more. Each companies adding delays and free to use and recycle my specs, my codes, my works to compete against me next time. Added value : negative. Have you ever been 38 yo, back at your mum's place, honoring a contract and eating ramen while waiting 18 months for the magic of "affacturation" to work and discovering that the men in the middle are now making money from YOUR creation ? Fuck rotten so called capitalism. Only the kids born rich gets the money and they scam people like me to have the job done. This business is very close to both scam and extortion.
- robocat 11y ago
  B2B is fine so long as you retain some leveragee. A common form of leverage is a contractual "switch" with SaaS. If your service if valuable, they pay on time, otherwise you turn off their service (after suitable warning procedures).
logingone 11y ago
There's been something related in the UK recently - Tesco not paying their suppliers. "...dating from middle age..." I've been noticing increasingly, while technology is buzzing ahead, just how many mechanisms and interactions in society are unbelievably outdated. Is this what sociologists are supposed to be advancing? What are they doing?
- Cthulhu_ 11y ago
  That's different though - Tesco needs those suppliers, and the suppliers can boycott Tesco for not paying up, which would cause them to go down very quickly.
  - mattmanser 11y ago
    No, Tesco can just buy it from someone else (or even import it at a loss) and good luck staying afloat when 80% of your business just went elsewhere.
- rmellow 11y ago
  They are too busy with the low hanging fruit of demanding political correctness.
- SFjulie1 11y ago
  I know this will look like SciFi dystopia. But it is real: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribunal_de_commerce_%28France%29 https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribunal_de_commerce_%28France... Basically it is the most influential traders from your vicinity that decides how to settle your dispute. Being judge and stake holder, what a nice idea of the independence of the justice. Bankruptcy in our country is being fed to vultures stripping you down to the core and making money out of your misery. Business in France requires way more bigger balls than in USA. This joke is around untouched since 500 years. 2 times older than USA constitution. And socialist and liberal alike don't want to touch that. EDIT: France is traditionally built on big corporations. Consular justice favors the most influential companies, that are often "represented" at the national assembly or founding politics. Not all "national" companies are equal. My great great grandfather was was shamed publicly in 1900 for having one of his employee presenting himself and him giving 5francs to the "société pour l'amitié franco allemande" and considered a dirty "fritz" working for the schleues. Big corporations are dynasty built (like Gates fortune and other US big corporations) but the catholic french long lineage dynasties are a tad more equal than the others. Irony part of my family was protestant and being sacked from france in 1750. They tried to come back after some persecutions, and they almost all fled to the USA after 1900. Basically my family is consistently emigrating since 350 years. So I am too like my family before a refugee of some kind and we have a tradition to build back our fortune. But actual immigration laws are a pain in the ass in every countries for business men with nothing but "know how" and no capitals. Emigrants are more and more second rank citizens nowadays in every countries.

Mahn 11y ago

This is why I don't like B2B much; a monolith company can randomly decide to pay 5-10 months late and no one bats an eye because that's the normal thing to do for a company of that size, small entrepreneurs that are barely making it be damned.

godzillabrennus 11y ago
Small startups can leverage a factoring company to handle A/R and do risk assessment for lines of credit with customers before doing work. Definitely a worthwhile service to leverage if you do B2B.
- SFjulie1 11y ago
  Oh yes. The short list/affacturation scam. Software can only support safely at most 10 providers ... for RA.. facturing ... limitations. Thus I had between 1 and 4 mans in the middle for the purpose of "factoring, risks assessments" and shits. I usually was paid 300€ to 400€ / days when customers were billed between 1000€ and more. Each companies adding delays and free to use and recycle my specs, my codes, my works to compete against me next time. Added value : negative. Have you ever been 38 yo, back at your mum's place, honoring a contract and eating ramen while waiting 18 months for the magic of "affacturation" to work and discovering that the men in the middle are now making money from YOUR creation ? Fuck rotten so called capitalism. Only the kids born rich gets the money and they scam people like me to have the job done. This business is very close to both scam and extortion.
robocat 11y ago
B2B is fine so long as you retain some leveragee. A common form of leverage is a contractual "switch" with SaaS. If your service if valuable, they pay on time, otherwise you turn off their service (after suitable warning procedures).

logingone 11y ago

There's been something related in the UK recently - Tesco not paying their suppliers. "...dating from middle age..." I've been noticing increasingly, while technology is buzzing ahead, just how many mechanisms and interactions in society are unbelievably outdated. Is this what sociologists are supposed to be advancing? What are they doing?

Cthulhu_ 11y ago
That's different though - Tesco needs those suppliers, and the suppliers can boycott Tesco for not paying up, which would cause them to go down very quickly.
- mattmanser 11y ago
  No, Tesco can just buy it from someone else (or even import it at a loss) and good luck staying afloat when 80% of your business just went elsewhere.
rmellow 11y ago
They are too busy with the low hanging fruit of demanding political correctness.
SFjulie1 11y ago
I know this will look like SciFi dystopia. But it is real: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribunal_de_commerce_%28France%29 https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribunal_de_commerce_%28France... Basically it is the most influential traders from your vicinity that decides how to settle your dispute. Being judge and stake holder, what a nice idea of the independence of the justice. Bankruptcy in our country is being fed to vultures stripping you down to the core and making money out of your misery. Business in France requires way more bigger balls than in USA. This joke is around untouched since 500 years. 2 times older than USA constitution. And socialist and liberal alike don't want to touch that. EDIT: France is traditionally built on big corporations. Consular justice favors the most influential companies, that are often "represented" at the national assembly or founding politics. Not all "national" companies are equal. My great great grandfather was was shamed publicly in 1900 for having one of his employee presenting himself and him giving 5francs to the "société pour l'amitié franco allemande" and considered a dirty "fritz" working for the schleues. Big corporations are dynasty built (like Gates fortune and other US big corporations) but the catholic french long lineage dynasties are a tad more equal than the others. Irony part of my family was protestant and being sacked from france in 1750. They tried to come back after some persecutions, and they almost all fled to the USA after 1900. Basically my family is consistently emigrating since 350 years. So I am too like my family before a refugee of some kind and we have a tradition to build back our fortune. But actual immigration laws are a pain in the ass in every countries for business men with nothing but "know how" and no capitals. Emigrants are more and more second rank citizens nowadays in every countries.