Comment by vlokshin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vlokshin | Hacker News Reader

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I'm going to be as clear as can be here --

AwesomenessReminders deservers absolutely ZERO positive press and I hope you're VERY careful in working with Zach Burt.

He underpaid my team significantly for good work (kept my most senior JS guru busy for a month, only to underpay by a LOT), and was a hassle and a half to deal with. The kid needs to grow up and learn how to run a business respectfully -- not just go through cycles of picking up contracted devs, getting 1-2 months of work done from them, then disappearing and avoiding paying out what he owes.

Even after he underpaid my team for the work, his check bounced. The guy is pathetic. (full disclosure, he sent the underpaid amount again + 10$ for the bounced check fee I incurred)

When I contacted other devs that worked with him on the same projects, they said that they didn't get paid at all. I guess the underpayment was the best result of dealing with this retard.

Please be VERY careful in working with him, and HN -- please avoid giving a piece of shit any positive press.

I have nothing negative to say about iDoneThis, and I wish you guys the best of luck, but I have absolutely nothing positive to say about Zach Burt and his projects. Please proceed with caution.

+1 on this. Had a similar bad experience as a customer of Aw.Rem. After a few months of charging $10/month, Zach increased the price to $40 and cut the calls to my girlfriend roughly twice a week -- instead of every day.

That's fair enough. I didn't mind all that much. But then a few month later the calls stopped alltogether, then Zach went in and cancelled the $10 subscription manually on Paypal.

I didn't complain about the frequency of calls, but sent an email asking about the cancellation. That went unanswered. Sorry but this guy doesn't seem responsible.

And one more insight from this interview: http://www.twilio.com/blog/2010/12/awesomeness-reminders-mak...:

'...I made all the phone calls while I was high...'

Wait. What? I'm gonna need some deets here. Please provide more context to the story of your paying strangers to call up your girlfriend every day.

-What did you have them say? -Did she find your delegation of affection to a paid third party extremely bizarre and off-putting? -What was her reaction to only receiving encouraging calls from strangers twice a week rather than every day?

Awesomeness Reminders was a service introduced at $10/month that would call you (or someone else) once a day to say "You're Awesome" -- as a way to cheer you up.

I opted to have this call go to my girlfriend. Didn't tell her anything. She's a very girly girl, and loves when anyone says "Your shoes look pretty etc". She thought it was quirky, funny, but then liked getting the awesome calls.

After a while, the daily calls became biweekly calls. Then I got this email: http://i.imgur.com/iqGmE.png

Since the original posting, Mr. Burt has cleared his debt and I have no further qualms over our business together in the past

I'm going to be as clear as I can be here-

"running a business respectfully," does that include calling someone a "retard" and "piece of shit?"

Probably not.

Ever hear the phrase "proper channels for grievances?"

Probably not.

You really took the high road here didn't you? I've only heard positive things, and I think it's a great idea. Nice collaboration.

You're right, I probably should have left those out. Pathos has a nasty habit of creeping up on logos though.

After working with him, seeing him treat my team like crap, having him NOT PAY my team after them having to go through that and deliver great work (they basically rebuilt his only two products and built them right), and having to take my own money to pay my team instead (because I think running a business respectfully means paying good developers everything they deserve on time so they can worry about what they do best and not about IF they'll get paid) -- I think I deserve to throw a few disrespectful grievances there. We're human, after all.

I also respectfully disagree on the "nice" collaboration, but best of luck to the iDoneThis side of the collab.

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