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From the article: > June 2022 comes, and the orders for this retailer start coming in from the distributor. This coffee was shipping to five distribution cente

From the article: > June 2022 comes, and the orders for this retailer start coming in from the distributor. This coffee was shipping to five distribution centers so we were receiving multiple orders. The orders were large but we thought we could handle it. Then the orders kept coming, spread apart by days. So it sounds like they had an initial agreement for 6000 units, but the actual purchase orders were coming in piecemeal. There's no question that these business owners made some stupid mistakes and probably failed to read the fine-print. On the other hand, when you are a small business looking to grow, you learn as you go along. And oftentimes you have about zero leverage with a multi-billion dollar distributor or a supermarket. You can't really ask them to change their legal terms from their boilerplate language because fuck if they are going to get their lawyers involved to change boilerplate documents at the request of a new manufacturer fulfilling a tiny order [1]. So you sign anyway and hope for the best. [1] Reminds me of my friend who got a lucrative job offer from a large investment bank out of college, but wanted to adjust the terms in the non-compete section of their contract (something you hear suggested a lot by people here on HN). They literally laughed at him when he suggested it and said something sarcastic along the lines of "yeah, let's phone our legal team and tell them that the first year analyst wants a personalized job contract".

lisper 4y ago
> So it sounds like they had an initial agreement for 6000 units, but the actual purchase orders were coming in piecemeal. What difference does that make? They thought they had a deal to sell 6000 "units" for $250,000. If they had just bothered to divide 250 by 6 they would have immediately realized that a unit could not possibly be a bag, and they would, by their own account, have passed on the deal, and none of this would have happened.
- eternalban 4y ago
  Did they name the distributor? If not, your take on this is compelling. Unless these guys dropped out of middle school to do the startup thing, in which case we now have a good answer for kids in school who ask "But when will I ever need to use this math stuff?" To defend against "grifters", of course.
- dtnewman 4y ago
  You are making the assumption that there's some formal deal for $250k total. I don't think that was ever the case. My guess is that in these negotiations, you tell the buyer that you sell in packs of 6 for say $41/case. They run their numbers and come back to you saying "okay, we have all the info we need and we are going to take 6000 units and the formal POs will come over the next few weeks."
  - lisper 4y ago
    > You are making the assumption that there's some formal deal for $250k total. No, I'm not. I'm not assuming anything. Here is what they wrote: "In April 2022, a representative from this distributor reached out to us to see if we would be interested in participating in an online specialty coffee program for a major nationwide retailer. The opening order would be approximately 6,000 “units”." At this point there are only two possibilities. 1. They asked how much they were going to be paid for these 6000 "units" and on what terms. 2. They didn't. If they asked, the answer should have immediately clued them in that they were making a false assumption that a unit was a bag. And if they didn't, well, that's still on them.
    - cortesoft 4y ago
      You are assuming they knew the $250k amount at that point. When they made the deal for 6000 units, they didn't know the total was going to be $250k. They didn't know the total was $250k until they learned it was for 6000 cases later.
      - lisper 4y ago
        > You are assuming they knew the $250k amount at that point. No, I'm saying they should have asked.
        teawrecks 4y ago
        You're moving your goalpost. Up above you said, > They thought they had a deal to sell 6000 "units" for $250,000. Now you're agreeing that they didn't necessarily have that deal up front, and that they should have asked for it.
deathanatos 4y ago
The person's point, I think, is that even if you incorrectly believe a "unit" to be a bag of coffee, and you're purchasing 6k units (bags) for $250k, you're then, in your mind, being charged $41/bag of coffee. That price is far too high, higher than retail: i.e., you'd be selling at a loss, or at a price point that the market wouldn't take. So if you believe a "unit" is a bag of coffee, you're not making that purchase¹, as the price is too high. The "orders kept coming", as I understood the article, because, again, they were expecting 6,000 bags, not 6,000 cases. So by the 1,001th case arrives, you're raising eyebrows, as you're now getting more than you though you ordered. A few over is perhaps whatever, but they were going to get 5,000 cases more than expected — quite a bit more than a few over. ¹… if you've done the math. But I've seen deals in my own field done where I know very little math got done, so … I can kind of see this mistake being made.
- cortesoft 4y ago
  Because they didn't know the total was going to be $250k until they learned it was for 6000 cases.
  - reverend_gonzo 4y ago
    The point is at some did they not discuss “we will sell you a unit for $x?” If not, why not?
  - xeromal 4y ago
    So they were just shipping goods without discussing price at all?
chucksmash 4y ago
> Reminds me of my friend who got a lucrative job offer from a large investment bank out of college, but wanted to adjust the terms in the non-compete section of their contract [...] Maybe such requests wouldn't work in consulting/IB/law where it seems like starting comp is very regimented ("our first year asssociates all get $X unless our competitor across town raises their offer to all their first years") or in the case of juniors, where firms aren't expecting much from a 22 year old fresh college grad beyond learn to do things the way we want and grind, but I think there's still value in bringing up such matters even if they are non-negotiable. "We can't change the contract? Darn, I really care about IP assignment clauses!" gives you some plausible ammo for asking for higher comp without just transparently saying "give me more money because you have it and I want it," plus you're subtly implying you are someone who produces IP that has value, not like all those other programmers who didn't ask. I've never gotten a company to change their IP assignment clause for me, FWIW, but I have had success getting other exceptions.
- chadash 4y ago
  I’m not totally disagreeing with this advice but it’s just not applicable everywhere. When you are an investment banking analyst coming out of college you don’t have any ability to negotiate salary or pretty much anything.
ericmcer 4y ago
The "big company scams small family coffee roasters" narrative is way easier to sell then the "we made a big oopsie" one though.
ekidd 4y ago
> but wanted to adjust the terms in the non-compete section of their contract (something you hear suggested a lot by people here on HN). You probably hear this a lot on HN because: - In the US, programmer contracts are often negotiable, within reasonable limits. - Default programmer contracts are often shockingly bad for the employee. And no competent lawyer would ever advise you to sign some of the ones I've seen. I've successfully negotiated almost every contract I've signed since I was an intern, and I've been doing this for over two decades. In my experience, very few employers have ever read their contracts. Several years ago, when I renegotiated a contract, the leadership team said, "Wow, that really is ridiculous and unfair," and actually wound up fixing their standard contract.
- pjdesno 4y ago
  I had several f'ed up contracts in the 90s-2000s, and tried to negotiate each of them. In a fairly good position several times, as they had forgotten to have me sign the specific contract (non-compete, outside of CA) when they hired me. I got fuck all, as well. In 2 of 3 cases I think it was the VC who set the contract terms - I assume it was easier to lose 10% of their engineering team than to renegotiate, and I wasn't willing to play chicken and see if they fired me.
  - ekidd 4y ago
    > I wasn't willing to play chicken and see if they fired me. That makes negotiation harder. There a number of books from the Harvard Negotiation Project which offer roughly the following advice: - Make sure your plan B is good enough that walking is no big deal. - Focus on finding a fair solution, even if you need to keep pulling the discussion back to that ideal. Basically, 75% of your negotiation effort should be spent improving your plan B. You want to be mostly saying things like, "I would love to work for you, but a 5 year world-wide, industry-wide non-compete is simply not fair. I knew a guy who basically got locked into indentured servitude when a private equity firm abused a similar clause. I'll tell you what. You have employees in California, right? California law strikes a pretty fair balance on this issue. What contract language do you use there?" And if they say, "No, I don't think we can do that," you say, "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that! I was looking forward to solving your challenges with _____, but it sounds like we can't find mutually agreeable terms. No harm, no foul. I wish you the best of luck." Then you walk out the door and make the phone call to move ahead with plan B or C.

lisper 4y ago

> So it sounds like they had an initial agreement for 6000 units, but the actual purchase orders were coming in piecemeal. What difference does that make? They thought they had a deal to sell 6000 "units" for $250,000. If they had just bothered to divide 250 by 6 they would have immediately realized that a unit could not possibly be a bag, and they would, by their own account, have passed on the deal, and none of this would have happened.

eternalban 4y ago
Did they name the distributor? If not, your take on this is compelling. Unless these guys dropped out of middle school to do the startup thing, in which case we now have a good answer for kids in school who ask "But when will I ever need to use this math stuff?" To defend against "grifters", of course.
dtnewman 4y ago
You are making the assumption that there's some formal deal for $250k total. I don't think that was ever the case. My guess is that in these negotiations, you tell the buyer that you sell in packs of 6 for say $41/case. They run their numbers and come back to you saying "okay, we have all the info we need and we are going to take 6000 units and the formal POs will come over the next few weeks."
- lisper 4y ago
  > You are making the assumption that there's some formal deal for $250k total. No, I'm not. I'm not assuming anything. Here is what they wrote: "In April 2022, a representative from this distributor reached out to us to see if we would be interested in participating in an online specialty coffee program for a major nationwide retailer. The opening order would be approximately 6,000 “units”." At this point there are only two possibilities. 1. They asked how much they were going to be paid for these 6000 "units" and on what terms. 2. They didn't. If they asked, the answer should have immediately clued them in that they were making a false assumption that a unit was a bag. And if they didn't, well, that's still on them.
  - cortesoft 4y ago
    You are assuming they knew the $250k amount at that point. When they made the deal for 6000 units, they didn't know the total was going to be $250k. They didn't know the total was $250k until they learned it was for 6000 cases later.
    - lisper 4y ago
      > You are assuming they knew the $250k amount at that point. No, I'm saying they should have asked.
      - teawrecks 4y ago
        You're moving your goalpost. Up above you said, > They thought they had a deal to sell 6000 "units" for $250,000. Now you're agreeing that they didn't necessarily have that deal up front, and that they should have asked for it.

deathanatos 4y ago

The person's point, I think, is that even if you incorrectly believe a "unit" to be a bag of coffee, and you're purchasing 6k units (bags) for $250k, you're then, in your mind, being charged $41/bag of coffee. That price is far too high, higher than retail: i.e., you'd be selling at a loss, or at a price point that the market wouldn't take. So if you believe a "unit" is a bag of coffee, you're not making that purchase¹, as the price is too high. The "orders kept coming", as I understood the article, because, again, they were expecting 6,000 bags, not 6,000 cases. So by the 1,001th case arrives, you're raising eyebrows, as you're now getting more than you though you ordered. A few over is perhaps whatever, but they were going to get 5,000 cases more than expected — quite a bit more than a few over. ¹… if you've done the math. But I've seen deals in my own field done where I know very little math got done, so … I can kind of see this mistake being made.

cortesoft 4y ago
Because they didn't know the total was going to be $250k until they learned it was for 6000 cases.
- reverend_gonzo 4y ago
  The point is at some did they not discuss “we will sell you a unit for $x?” If not, why not?
- xeromal 4y ago
  So they were just shipping goods without discussing price at all?

chucksmash 4y ago

> Reminds me of my friend who got a lucrative job offer from a large investment bank out of college, but wanted to adjust the terms in the non-compete section of their contract [...] Maybe such requests wouldn't work in consulting/IB/law where it seems like starting comp is very regimented ("our first year asssociates all get $X unless our competitor across town raises their offer to all their first years") or in the case of juniors, where firms aren't expecting much from a 22 year old fresh college grad beyond learn to do things the way we want and grind, but I think there's still value in bringing up such matters even if they are non-negotiable. "We can't change the contract? Darn, I really care about IP assignment clauses!" gives you some plausible ammo for asking for higher comp without just transparently saying "give me more money because you have it and I want it," plus you're subtly implying you are someone who produces IP that has value, not like all those other programmers who didn't ask. I've never gotten a company to change their IP assignment clause for me, FWIW, but I have had success getting other exceptions.

chadash 4y ago
I’m not totally disagreeing with this advice but it’s just not applicable everywhere. When you are an investment banking analyst coming out of college you don’t have any ability to negotiate salary or pretty much anything.

ericmcer 4y ago

The "big company scams small family coffee roasters" narrative is way easier to sell then the "we made a big oopsie" one though.

ekidd 4y ago

> but wanted to adjust the terms in the non-compete section of their contract (something you hear suggested a lot by people here on HN). You probably hear this a lot on HN because: - In the US, programmer contracts are often negotiable, within reasonable limits. - Default programmer contracts are often shockingly bad for the employee. And no competent lawyer would ever advise you to sign some of the ones I've seen. I've successfully negotiated almost every contract I've signed since I was an intern, and I've been doing this for over two decades. In my experience, very few employers have ever read their contracts. Several years ago, when I renegotiated a contract, the leadership team said, "Wow, that really is ridiculous and unfair," and actually wound up fixing their standard contract.

pjdesno 4y ago
I had several f'ed up contracts in the 90s-2000s, and tried to negotiate each of them. In a fairly good position several times, as they had forgotten to have me sign the specific contract (non-compete, outside of CA) when they hired me. I got fuck all, as well. In 2 of 3 cases I think it was the VC who set the contract terms - I assume it was easier to lose 10% of their engineering team than to renegotiate, and I wasn't willing to play chicken and see if they fired me.
- ekidd 4y ago
  > I wasn't willing to play chicken and see if they fired me. That makes negotiation harder. There a number of books from the Harvard Negotiation Project which offer roughly the following advice: - Make sure your plan B is good enough that walking is no big deal. - Focus on finding a fair solution, even if you need to keep pulling the discussion back to that ideal. Basically, 75% of your negotiation effort should be spent improving your plan B. You want to be mostly saying things like, "I would love to work for you, but a 5 year world-wide, industry-wide non-compete is simply not fair. I knew a guy who basically got locked into indentured servitude when a private equity firm abused a similar clause. I'll tell you what. You have employees in California, right? California law strikes a pretty fair balance on this issue. What contract language do you use there?" And if they say, "No, I don't think we can do that," you say, "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that! I was looking forward to solving your challenges with _____, but it sounds like we can't find mutually agreeable terms. No harm, no foul. I wish you the best of luck." Then you walk out the door and make the phone call to move ahead with plan B or C.