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Comment by dshanahan | Hacker News Reader

Hey guys, so that's my post. I'm the founder who was here with Jamie, who I consider a friend and think is a really talented and genuine guy. I've watched this story grow and I think even Jamie might agree that it's been hard (and largely inappropriate) to communicate all the specific details which might inform such a wide audience on the events around here.

I was specifically emailed by 'icey' to jump in and be a resource. He/she asked me specifically regarding the stated financing situation prior to my moving to Vancouver from Chicago and joining Bootup.

It was contingent on closing the round. I'm not sure what to say other than that was clear. I took that risk knowingly.

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You know, I'm having difficulty applying a separate set of standard to Bootup. Something like this wouldn't have happened if it were Ycombinator; I'm thinking: why should you take the standards you apply to one incubator, and exempt another from just that set?

Seems rather dodgy to me.

To be honest, for all the talk about 'deals fall through' and 'I'm sure they tried their best', things like this shouldn't have happened in a startup incubator. Things like this wouldn't have happened if the Bootup people knew what they were doing. And a PR fiasco of this magnitude wouldn't have happened if Danny and Boris had been intelligent enough to be humble and apologetic, right from the get-go.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but something tells me we're not dealing with professionals, here.

That is a huge risk for an incubator firm to expect from entrepreneurs, particularly when the firm is set up in such a way that they assume next to no risk. The Bootup intake timing really should have been adjusted to allow for confirmation of funding to come through.

It was made clear, or it was clear because you read through all the agreements?

I'm asking because I think it's a different story if it was buried in some fine print versus stated clearly up front.

Jamie is the one who brought such a wide audience to the story, but he didn't mention anything about being aware of the chance that there may not be any funding.

I still think that what Bootup has done is pretty shady, but it may end up being less shady than the blog posts have made it sound.

I re-read my answer to your question and wanted to clarify; the fact that funding wasn't secure was clear before I moved to Van. It was included as a contingency on the (simple and short) term sheets.

All I can offer is that it wasn't buried in fine print. It was clear and it was something we all had to deal with as soon as we arrived in Vancouver. I think that it was unfortunate is one thing, but that it was 'shady' is misconstrued.

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