Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online presence

Re:Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online p... by danso on Tuesday August 30, 2016 @08:23PM (#12395030)

Maybe I'm naive but I was struck at how empty this company's mission and vision was (nevermind its ethics, which were well-covered in the original Medium post), and yet the founder and his friend/CTO put in so much of their own money into it. Were they complete greedy fools, or is VC money that easy to glom on to? WrkRiot didn't even have a "soon-to-be parodied by Silicon Valley HBO", TEDdy nonsensical ring to it, e.g. "its like Airbnb, but for your 401K". It was just a straight up dull and stupid "Yeah, we're gonna beat Linkedin" pitch, just as if someone were to throw $1M of their money behind the claim "We'll take on Google by using advanced AI machine learning!"

According to their Crunchbase [0] (which could obviously be incomplete), there's no institutional investors listed in their initial or seed round. I mean it's one thing to waste other people's money on a dumb idea, but this seems masochistic.

[0] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/1for-one#/entity

edit: Another befuddling thing besides the enormous headcount was the fact that the original whistleblower was brought in from Dallas and offered equity and a $135K salary and a signing bonus. That seems like a huge chunk of money for a marketing executive at a small tech startup. Again, ignoring the reality that he couldn't really afford her, what did the CEO imagine would be investors' reaction to such a pricey hire?

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Re:Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online p... by wtvanhest on Tuesday August 30, 2016 @09:09PM (#12395191)

$135k for someone that really knows marketing is well worth it. The biggest red flag IMO is that the company didn't have product market fit, but hired a marketing professional anyway.

Really, really bad idea.

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Re:Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online p... by danso on Tuesday August 30, 2016 @11:43PM (#12395876)

Oh I agree that a good CMO is worth the money. But -- and I know this is a silly question since the company under discussion seems to be fraudulent to begin with -- would a good CMO seem like a worthy investment for that small size and early of company, when it comes to showing your books to VCs to convince them to join in the funding?

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Re:Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online p... by wtvanhest on Wednesday August 31, 2016 @12:06AM (#12395946)

I am not a VC, but I would think that having a "CMO" would be a disaster for fundraising and a solid "Marketing professional" would bad, but not as bad as having someone with a big title.

Marketing without product market fit is a huge red flag imo.

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Re:Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online p... by dboreham on Tuesday August 30, 2016 @10:23PM (#12395525)

$135k for a competent person? I'm hiring!

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Re:Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online p... by godzillabrennus on Tuesday August 30, 2016 @10:47PM (#12395638)

Cash value is relative.

In the Bay Area $135k salary isn't even enough to rent a one bedroom apartment at current rates.

If you make $135k in the rust belt you can live in a McMansion and own two cars.

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Re:Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online p... by jbpetersen on Wednesday August 31, 2016 @12:41AM (#12396079)

If you're making $135k/year then you can afford the roughly $41.5k/year for a median one bedroom in SF.

Whether it's worth the opportunity cost is another question.

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Re:Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online p... by exolymph on Tuesday August 30, 2016 @11:13PM (#12395753)

> In the Bay Area $135k salary isn't even enough to rent a one bedroom apartment at current rates.

You mean "in San Francisco" — I live in the East Bay and split a one-bedroom with my boyfriend for $1400 per month.

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Re:Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online p... by tylerlh on Tuesday August 30, 2016 @11:27PM (#12395808)

GP's point extends well south of San Francisco. I've lived in the Peninsula/South Bay for a few years and it's pretty much the same down here as it is in SF. Unfortunately for me a commute from the East Bay is out of the question, but I certainly wouldn't mind having that rent!

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Re:Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online p... by cdelsolar on Tuesday August 30, 2016 @11:33PM (#12395830)

Where in the east bay are you paying $1400 for a one bedroom??

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Re:Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online p... by ryguytilidie on Wednesday August 31, 2016 @02:37AM (#12396398)

I live in the Richmond Hills and my MORTGAGE is less than that.

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Re:Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online p... by abritinthebay on Wednesday August 31, 2016 @11:28AM (#12399012)

Yes but... Richmond.

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Re:Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online p... by ryguytilidie on Wednesday August 31, 2016 @12:13PM (#12399372)

Yeah, its so terrible here. I live in the hills overlooking the entire city of SF. I have a view of the bay bridge, the golden gate bridge, angel island and alcatraz from my backyard.

There is zero crime since I live in the hills. There are nice restaurants and nice people.

So yeah, please continue thinking that this place is uninhabitable and stay in SF. :)

Funny how people said the same thing about the Mission 10 years ago, or Oakland 5 years ago.

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Re:Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online p... by abritinthebay on Wednesday August 31, 2016 @01:06PM (#12399802)

Richmond still has the highest violent crime rate in the Bay (and the highest murder rate).

Plus is probably the worst possible commute location while still being in the Bay.

Don't get me wrong - the hills are nice, but there are PLENTY of reasons why your place is cheap.

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Re:Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online p... by snewk on Tuesday August 30, 2016 @10:56PM (#12395682)

you could live in a regular mansion

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Re:Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online p... by collyw on Wednesday August 31, 2016 @10:16AM (#12398447)

Want to hire a remote Django dev? Salaries are crap in Spain, but the lifestyle is good.

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Re:Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online p... by 1_listerine_pls on Wednesday August 31, 2016 @12:16AM (#12395986)

How do you define competence? in what field? which tools?

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