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The founder and chief executive had a majority 55% stake. Considering she had final say on all decisions, you can't blame VCs for blowing up the company.
by pdog 10y ago
The founder and chief executive had a majority 55% stake. Considering she had final say on all decisions, you can't blame VCs for blowing up the company.
- rhizome 10y agoYou can own a majority of a company, still not know what you're doing, and take bad advice. Advice being a VC stock in trade. By my read they tried to do the kind of high-growth strategy that benefits other kinds of online businesses, but routinely kills retail, what I internalize as "the Boston Market problem." They opened two stores while also ramping up manufacturing, while finding new designs, and having an inexperienced CEO, and so on. $40MM should have been enough to create a decent sustaining business, but maybe they thought they'd get acquired? That part isn't mentioned, natch: "what were the actual goals of all this?"
- ChuckMcM 10y agoThis was how I read it as well. A person feeling their way into this level of business, makes some bad hiring decisions and either chooses advisers poorly or doesn't have the skills to listen well. It's a sad outcome but certainly not unheard of.