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That's not the criticism. They're not cobbling a solution together to prevent bankruptcy, they're cobbling together a solution to an already solved problem. E

by nols 11y ago

That's not the criticism. They're not cobbling a solution together to prevent bankruptcy, they're cobbling together a solution to an already solved problem. Ecommerce fulfillment companies exist, and they chose a freight company with inadequate technology for their needs. Then they're justifying it by saying they hacked a solution for only $500, when it's really costing $500 + 6 months salary + hurt reputation for an extremely late delivery. They could've incorporated a company that used EDI (or an API) to tie into their database to process orders much more effectively than hacking together a solution with a store bought laptop.

angersock 11y ago
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_%28drink%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_%28drink%29 ) Look at the timeline. They only started shipping in like May of '14. This article covers April of '14. They had only run a crowdfunding campaign like less than a year prior. They raised funding (a lot) a year later. The problem with "but but but they should've used an API or an order-fulfillment company" ignores that, at that time, they very likely were lacking the upfront capital required to setup and guarantee that relationship. The problem with "but but but they wasted a ~salary~" is that, if you looked at their payroll at that time, I'm willing to bet they were being compensated mostly in equity and not market wages. Again, there is an entire solution space that is strictly better that is also strictly off-limits if you don't have the spare funding. EDIT: More to the point, this thread is full of Monday-morning quarterbacking. The fact is, these guys raised $20M, and we're bitching on the internet.
- chrisBob 11y ago
  Lots of people make bad business decisions, and I don't want to give them a hard time about the shipping company they chose, especially when they were willing to share the experience in a blog post. What worries me most is the internal accounting that gets them to $500. I am pretty stingy with the money I spend on my hobby projects, and sometimes it is fun to build things that I could buy for slightly more money. That's ok when the goal is entertainment. If I was at work I would do completely different math, and probably consider a few hours work to save $20 to be a complete failure.
  - angersock 11y ago
    I absolutely agree that your logic is correct, for a grad student or full-time engineer. But again, early-stage startups != normal business calculus. Look at it this way: You've got two buckets, one of cash and one of time. You can fulfill business goals by dipping into either or both buckets. The time bucket continually replenishes at a fixed rate but never change capacity, the money bucket may replenish unpredictably in both amount and time and have its capacity expanded (more employees, capital, whatever). If either bucket goes dry, you lose. At an early stage, your cash bucket is near empty compared to your time bucket. If you've spec'ed your business properly (hah) and are not too unlucky (hah hah), you will never have a demand that exceeds the total available amount in the two buckets. So, to fulfill demands, you pull from the time bucket, because it has the greater reserves, and because it'll replenish as every second tics by. As time goes on, though, the demands outstrip what your time bucket can handle. Your time bucket, remember, never gets larger. But, since your business is growing, the cash bucket has been getting larger, and so you start to fulfill demands out of that bucket, using contractors or vendors or whatever. Eventually, you are fulfilling demands entirely out of the cash bucket, because you simply will never have enough time to do them in the required timeline otherwise. The same rule ("gotta fulfill my business demands without emptying my buckets") applies at both ends of a company's lifecycle, but results in entirely different behavior--and that's not bad.

by nols 11y ago

angersock 11y ago

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_%28drink%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_%28drink%29 ) Look at the timeline. They only started shipping in like May of '14. This article covers April of '14. They had only run a crowdfunding campaign like less than a year prior. They raised funding (a lot) a year later. The problem with "but but but they should've used an API or an order-fulfillment company" ignores that, at that time, they very likely were lacking the upfront capital required to setup and guarantee that relationship. The problem with "but but but they wasted a ~salary~" is that, if you looked at their payroll at that time, I'm willing to bet they were being compensated mostly in equity and not market wages. Again, there is an entire solution space that is strictly better that is also strictly off-limits if you don't have the spare funding. EDIT: More to the point, this thread is full of Monday-morning quarterbacking. The fact is, these guys raised $20M, and we're bitching on the internet.

chrisBob 11y ago
Lots of people make bad business decisions, and I don't want to give them a hard time about the shipping company they chose, especially when they were willing to share the experience in a blog post. What worries me most is the internal accounting that gets them to $500. I am pretty stingy with the money I spend on my hobby projects, and sometimes it is fun to build things that I could buy for slightly more money. That's ok when the goal is entertainment. If I was at work I would do completely different math, and probably consider a few hours work to save $20 to be a complete failure.
- angersock 11y ago
  I absolutely agree that your logic is correct, for a grad student or full-time engineer. But again, early-stage startups != normal business calculus. Look at it this way: You've got two buckets, one of cash and one of time. You can fulfill business goals by dipping into either or both buckets. The time bucket continually replenishes at a fixed rate but never change capacity, the money bucket may replenish unpredictably in both amount and time and have its capacity expanded (more employees, capital, whatever). If either bucket goes dry, you lose. At an early stage, your cash bucket is near empty compared to your time bucket. If you've spec'ed your business properly (hah) and are not too unlucky (hah hah), you will never have a demand that exceeds the total available amount in the two buckets. So, to fulfill demands, you pull from the time bucket, because it has the greater reserves, and because it'll replenish as every second tics by. As time goes on, though, the demands outstrip what your time bucket can handle. Your time bucket, remember, never gets larger. But, since your business is growing, the cash bucket has been getting larger, and so you start to fulfill demands out of that bucket, using contractors or vendors or whatever. Eventually, you are fulfilling demands entirely out of the cash bucket, because you simply will never have enough time to do them in the required timeline otherwise. The same rule ("gotta fulfill my business demands without emptying my buckets") applies at both ends of a company's lifecycle, but results in entirely different behavior--and that's not bad.