The Curious Case Of Vancouver Incubator Bootup Labs | Hacker News Reader

The Curious Case Of Vancouver Incubator Bootup Labs

techcrunch.com

Danny Robinson, that same person who left the jackass "why art thou complaining?" comment on Jamie's blog, has apologized, finally seeing the light after Techcrunch posted this story:

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You’re right. We deserve to be lambasted. If you were actually in my shoes, you would have already apologized, in person, many times, and done everything possible to make it right. Which is exactly what we did, and explains why we have not done so in public prior to now. We feel terrible about what happened are are truly sorry. We’re still working to make it right and will always be there for these companies.

///// (http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/15/the-curious-case-of-vancouv...)

I'm not sure he gets it. There is nothing he can say, no matter how much apologizing he's done, that will make this seem better. The only thing he can do is to be humble about this, and to say that he'll work to make sure this never happens again.

Danny Robinson might be a good man for all I know. But he's really dropped the ball on this one. And I'm starting to feel sorry for him.

I agree, really bad PR and crisis management. I’m just left to wonder, what were they thinking, moving folks from Tucson/ Kansas City with all their dreams just to drop them by the road side; these are definitely not serious people.

Techcrunch misses on some of the small details.

For instance:

"... he shouldn’t have claimed that Bootup Labs was running out of money (which he did in the original title of his blog post)." [emphasis mine]

I believe that the part in italics should read "original title of his HN submission."

The article also states that Bootup Labs responded in the comments on HN. I haven't read every single comment, but I think Techcrunch is confusing a copy-and-paste of the blog comment by someone not associated with Bootup Labs with a response by Bootup Labs itself. Here's a link to the comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1266863

They both also commented here as well.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1266872 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1267256

This type of snafu is not unique to Bootuplabs and can happen even to best run orgs (I remember someone here ranting about ill-treatment at Seedcamp last year). I think managing nerds gets a little tricky when high expectations are involved. After enduring the flames,the guys at Bootuplabs have done their best to explain and apologize about the whole incident. I for one think the world needs more startup minded groups like this, not less. As a startup commnunity, I sincerely hope we can be forgiving.

>After enduring the flames,the guys at Bootuplabs have done their best to explain and apologize about the whole incident.

That's the thing, josephd. They haven't done their best to 'explain and apologize about the whole incident'.

http://livejamie.com/post/522093261/booted-out-of-bootup-lab...

And the thing is, they're still clinging to this hope that it's possible to spin this story to their advantage. It's only at this Techcrunch post that anybody's actually came out and apologized all the way, and even then, Danny's added the qualifier "if you'd been in my shoes ..."

Which is fine, really, except that just 11 hours ago he left a comment to the effect of "we took you to Canada, and then we dropped you, why're you complaining?"

If I were bootup, I would've never accepted startuply if I didn't have the cash, but I don't see what else they could've done once they realized they didn't have a backup.

That they didn't have a contingency plan in place or a backup investor is quite ridiculous, however, these things do happen.

I think there are VERY different standards for startups applying to seed accelerators, versus companies trying to get VC. A lot of startups who do seed accelerators are, in a large part, going full-time DIRECTLY because of promised investment. That's certainly been true of a ton of YC startups.

They go full-time because a reputable business promises them funding, and signs an agreement to that effect. They wouldn't go full-time without the funding.

When founders are leaving behind their jobs to take part in a program due to a promise from a seed firm, the partners of that seed firm should be mortgaging their homes before they completely fuck four companies by dropping them like this.

And, on Bootup's side, their reputation is irreparably demolished- just google 'Bootup Labs'. How does a budding VC firm recover from that?

The comment in http://bmannconsulting.com/2843/personal/keep-calm-and-carry said it best.

I think this now can be called "As the Startup Turns" with all this drama.

deals fall through.

promises broken.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com