3 ms·

I wonder if the t-shirts were basically a way to siphon some investor money directly into their own pockets. Or if someone just thought they can do it cheaper a

I wonder if the t-shirts were basically a way to siphon some investor money directly into their own pockets. Or if someone just thought they can do it cheaper and then ran into sunk cost fallacy.

bravetraveler 3y ago
Interesting to think about/play with "why pay for shirts or advertising when we can own it?" Anyway, that's how I felt it happened. Build over buy. Siphoning is an interesting thought It's mind blowing. The earliest internet ventures were selling shirts that somebody else made for huge margins. Why take on the costs in-house, lol. Either way: by making it yourself or dealing with problematic suppliers, it's not worth the hassle. Shirts aren't their business and for those still in it, the margins are razor thin. Madness.
rsynnott 3y ago
I mean, Occam's razor says they were just naive and didn't realise what a huge pain doing stuff like that is. There's a reason that pretty much everyone uses a third party for this.
carlosjobim 3y ago
Yes, of course they created a consumer product that outperforms the main product of the third largest company in the world just as a measure to cheat investors out of a couple of hundred thousand. That's why I won't buy Apple products either, because I'm sure all these iPhones and Macbooks are just a tricky plan to build up investor confidence so that they can cheat them out of money in the future. Useless snark aside, if the Kagi team wanted more "money directly into their own pockets" they could just raise their salaries. If their product is comparable to Google their salaries could be as well.
- marcinzm 3y ago
  > Useless snark aside, if the Kagi team wanted more "money directly into their own pockets" they could just raise their salaries. If their product is comparable to Google their salaries could be as well. And they'd get the money for those massive salaries from what magic money tree? They're at best barely profitable, revenue is probably around $2m, and they only raised $670k in funding. This isn't a particularly money making enterprise.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    What I'm saying is that they could take all the investor money as salaries for themselves if they wanted, and easily motivate it by comparing to industry compensation for similar work. They don't need to invent any Yugoslavian scheme to put "money directly into their own pockets."

I wonder if the t-shirts were basically a way to siphon some investor money directly into their own pockets. Or if someone just thought they can do it cheaper and then ran into sunk cost fallacy.

bravetraveler 3y ago

Interesting to think about/play with "why pay for shirts or advertising when we can own it?" Anyway, that's how I felt it happened. Build over buy. Siphoning is an interesting thought It's mind blowing. The earliest internet ventures were selling shirts that somebody else made for huge margins. Why take on the costs in-house, lol. Either way: by making it yourself or dealing with problematic suppliers, it's not worth the hassle. Shirts aren't their business and for those still in it, the margins are razor thin. Madness.

rsynnott 3y ago

I mean, Occam's razor says they were just naive and didn't realise what a huge pain doing stuff like that is. There's a reason that pretty much everyone uses a third party for this.

carlosjobim 3y ago

Yes, of course they created a consumer product that outperforms the main product of the third largest company in the world just as a measure to cheat investors out of a couple of hundred thousand. That's why I won't buy Apple products either, because I'm sure all these iPhones and Macbooks are just a tricky plan to build up investor confidence so that they can cheat them out of money in the future. Useless snark aside, if the Kagi team wanted more "money directly into their own pockets" they could just raise their salaries. If their product is comparable to Google their salaries could be as well.

marcinzm 3y ago
> Useless snark aside, if the Kagi team wanted more "money directly into their own pockets" they could just raise their salaries. If their product is comparable to Google their salaries could be as well. And they'd get the money for those massive salaries from what magic money tree? They're at best barely profitable, revenue is probably around $2m, and they only raised $670k in funding. This isn't a particularly money making enterprise.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  What I'm saying is that they could take all the investor money as salaries for themselves if they wanted, and easily motivate it by comparing to industry compensation for similar work. They don't need to invent any Yugoslavian scheme to put "money directly into their own pockets."