LivingSocial Offers a Cautionary Tale to Today’s Unicorns
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I like the ring of "unicorpse", hopefully it becomes out go-to word to describe the upcoming batch of startup failures.
Start-ups fail, they did so in the past, they will do so in the future and giving those failures cutesy names to make fun of them is a pretty nasty thing to do. Behind every start-up that fails (ok, almost every) are people working their asses off to try to make a success and in some (again, not all) cases to make a difference.
The number of things they have to get right is pretty vast and all it takes is for one of those 'and' gates not to fire or to fire at the wrong moment and all that work was for nothing.
Most start-ups are pretty realistic about their chances of success and to exhibit glee at the prospect of failure of others is a negative trait. Suggestion: instead of standing by the wayside and making fun of those that try, try it yourself, give your best idea your best shot and see how that works out. And if you fail, I'll give you props for trying anyway.
That seems like a pretty loaded question.
You have attributed malice to something that may have been an understanding. Liking how a potential buzzword sounds shouldn't (in my opinion) be equated to enjoying the misery of others.
"Unicorpse" is a fun word (in my opinion). Although it might be offensive, it is also fun to say. I don't think the user was showing "glee at the prospect of failure of others" as much as he or she was commenting on how fun it is to say.
"hopefully it becomes out go-to word to describe the upcoming batch of startup failures"
It smacks of 'schadenfreude' (for which there is an English term but I can't remember it).
If you wanna wage a campaign against this, then you might as well start with the term "unicorn", which is itself subtly mocking; after all, unicorns aren't rare: they are non-existent. The root term implies the same thing that bothers you about the derived -corpse: these valuations are irrational, and a reckoning will be had.
We'll make an exception for those start-ups that call themselves unicorns.
"Comeuppance," maybe? I don't take pleasure in the misery of others in general, but when smarmy hucksters are brought low, I can't help but feel a little twinge of satisfaction. It feels a bit like justice...
Such is the beauty of language, and the absurdity of communicating through it.
Correct.
Many startups actively seek out the unicorn label as it helps them with getting press, recruiting employees, etc. Being a unicorn is shorthand to folks that this company might be big and successful. Unicorpse is shorthand for this company is dying. That seems fair.
Allow me to address the larger, hurt feelings behind this post, with a reminder of the difference between a cult and a religion:
> If, on appropriate occasions, the members tell, enjoy, trade, and/or devise transgressively funny jokes about their denomination, it’s a church.
> If such jokes reliably meet with stifling social disapproval, it’s a cult. [1]
The phrase "Cult of growth" comes to mind. While I don't know if it actually exists ( ask PG? ), I do believe that the way communities censor humor can shine a light on their insecurities. As in, the community may be actively avoiding an uncomfortable truth by stamping out the slightest whiff of satire.
Not always, of course. Sometimes, the community wishes to remove "kidding in the square" or other insidious sleight-of-mind tricks from their discourse.
For me, restricting the band of humor is fine if it arises from a thoughtful & honest discussion, as opposed to knee-jerk emotion. The more the latter happens, the more insecure the community perhaps (and vica versa).
In any case, I'm glad to know that most people here don't seem to be flipping out over a fun neologism.
[1] http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006152.html#00... (originally seen at http://www.fluff.info/blog/arch/00000127.htm)
The same issue comes up with racism. Activists will complain about race jokes being made by white people, with exactly the same characterization: "[black lives matter/brainwashed university liberals are] actively avoiding an uncomfortable truth by stamping out the slightest whiff of satire!"
But of course they are making satirical remarks constantly within their ranks. It's satire from the outside that loses it's protection because from the outside it is just a pattern of abuse. Only from within is it the necessary ingredient for healthy discourse you describe.
And of course I don't mean outside/inside to be white/black or man/woman. It's just the distinction of whether you're coming from within the movement or without. It's not hard to make jokes about feminists if you're coming from within that intellectual tradition, even if you're a man.
Such as?
People say that this is not chance that so many different businesses happen to be worth the same but that they have accepted punitive terms to stretch their valuation to 1B because the press advantages are worth the cost. This effect will also have applied to all the companies now valued above 1B because they played the same game when they were <1B and "reached" to get the label.
They're interested enough that they provide paperwork to prove the valuation when we are unable to independently verify.
Musicians will still be telling rock critics to try making their own music when the sun burns out, but it won't be a valid complaint, even then.
Because everyone knows real unicorns have an aura of otherworldly beauty and carry an innate magic that shields them from all but the most innocent of maidens.
So the term "unicorn" completely fails to match "overvalued Silicon Valley company".
I see everyone else disagreeing with your points regarding the use of the word "unicorpse". To me, however, that's not the most interesting part of your post. The most interesting part of your post is the implication that Living Social is a start-up. According to the article, at its peak, Living Social had 4,500 employees (more than Twitter has right now!). If Living Social is a "start-up", then so are Facebook, Google, and heck, even Microsoft.
>The number of things they have to get right is pretty vast and all it takes is for one of those 'and' gates not to fire or to fire at the wrong moment and all that work was for nothing.
I find that statement to be disingenuous for this example. Living Social wasn't brought down by "bad luck". They grew too fast without having a clear road to profitability (something that they themselves admit in the article) and now they're paying the price for their poor decisionmaking in the past. The troubles they're running into are of their own making, and the schadenfreude they're getting is reflective of that.
They appear to have vaporized .9 billion dollars!
This makes no sense. The switching costs for both consumers and businesses is basically zero, and there are aren't really any network effects like there are with Facebook, Twitter, etc. What did they expect to happen at the end of those 2 months? That consumers would ignore the hundreds of other deal players in the market and only buy from LivingSocial?
It seems like the investment community is finally learning that yes you can get millions of people excited about something that is free or heavily discounted to the point of losing money but actually making money that way is extremely difficult. How many billions in financial and years of human capital have been burned learning this lesson?
The rise and fall of Groupon, LivingSocial and others just makes me wonder how much damage was done to small businesses in the process.
The monetary cost of delivering most new products to users is pretty much at most $100 (the time cost hasn't changed though; it still takes forever to get really good at doing something). Which means, for the majority of small businesses, millions of investors dollars is next to useless to the expert owner when he or she can bootstrap him/herself to profitability without them. Sure, it might take 2 or 3 years longer, but the small business owner is also under no sleep-depriving pressure to go fast, and when one's runway is effectively infinite, one doesn't run out of it.
So to the DIY owner with plenty of professional skill, discipline, and patience, investor money (and the associated risk and burnout) just isn't attractive. Which leaves the venture investment field largely populated by impatient hot-shots peddling get-rich-quick schemes. And, having been burned time and time again, perhaps these investors would have learned by now.
It seems that these heavy discounts weren't really profitable and didn't bring back repeat customers, and many places sold multiple lifetimes of services (like at nail salons, etc) at a loss.
That said, without attempting to ascribe anything to the people at LivingSocial, one thing I have noticed is that a large number - if not most - talented devs are also really shit at interviewing and negotiation.
Myself and some others I know enjoy interviewing and are at least half-okay at negotiation, so we're very confident on the job market. I have met many developers who can code circles around me for whom interviewing carries a lot of dread, and they won't do it unless they feel they really need to.
I wouldn't consider that a cautionary tale for anyone but easily conned New York investors.
"Ha Ha let's go fleece some of those hayseeds from NYC. Rubes & their money are soon parted when they start playing with the big boys!"
As a rule, especially with deals like these the founders do not get to take money off the table until the company has achieved certain benchmarks so I'm as curious as the GGP is.