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At Burning Man While Your Startup Burns (techcrunch.com)

Posted by msmash on from the priorities dept.

There's a difference between clearing your head, and ditching your dying startup to do drugs in the desert. From a report: Whether you're going to Burning Man, Ibiza, SXSW, or some big international tech conference, the message you send is the same. If your startup isn't succeeding, you're skipping out on the dirty work while hoping some miracle revelation or networking connection will save you. And it probably won't. For those less familiar, Burning Man is when 70,000 people build a temporary city of tents and RVs in the Nevada desert where no money is exchanged, and instead everyone seeks to gift strangers with giant art installations, workshops, food, drinks, and celebrations. But I get a sinking feeling when I notice or hear about the leaders of a struggling startup trying to dance or dose away their troubles. Being out of a contact for several days to a week since there's no reliable cellular connection and a stigma against phone use creates a decision-making bottleneck that can slow down your company. Ex-Oculus founder Palmer Luckey here points out how juice presser startup Juicero's founder Doug Evans took off to Burning Man for week. That's despite the company recently admitting it needed to lower prices after Bloomberg reporters revealed you could simply squeeze Juicero juice packs by hand without the $400 machine. In the middle of that week Evans was at Burning Man, Juicero announced it would suspend sales of its juicer and juice packs as it desperately tries to find an acquirer. While Evans handed over the CEO title to former Coca-Cola exec Jeff Dunn late last year, the company told TechCrunch "Evans is Juicero's full time Founder and Chairman of the Board and very active within the company."

40 of 199 comments (clear)

  1. Work 24/7! by kamapuaa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Shouldn't people be allowed to take vacations? I have no problem with this.

    --
    Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
    1. Re: Work 24/7! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No. Startup founders owe their investors and employees more than the typical 9-5er like you.

      You get yo go home to get drunk or play with your kids. They do not.

    2. Re:Work 24/7! by Baron_Yam · · Score: 4, Insightful

      CEOs shouldn't vacation while their company is failing.

      On the other hand, when your company is essentially running a scam that has been uncovered, I don't think there's much for a CEO to do except get the hell out ASAP with as much money as they can extract.

      I think if you're watching your scam's easy money dry up, you might want to get stoned in the desert for a while to avoid thinking about the sudden and likely long-term drop in standard of living you're going to have in the future.

    3. Re: Work 24/7! by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 5, Funny

      You're damn right they don't! I catch Elon Musk getting drunk and playing with my kids I will shoot his mutant-looking ass!

    4. Re:Work 24/7! by AlanObject · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Shouldn't people be allowed to take vacations? I have no problem with this.

      Yes people should be allowed to take vacations. Not under all circumstances.

      When you are an entrepreneur and you take money from an investor you are not just like any other employee of the company. You are getting a deal other employees don't get. You get a bigger payout in return for a bigger commitment.

      As an investor I would say: if you are hitting the planned milestones (i.e. investor return) then do whatever you want. If you are not generating a return or not hitting the milestones then you do nothing except those activities that will increase the likelihood of getting a return. Traipsing of to BM for a week does not count and is in fact the opposite. Think about how that looks to any potential buyer.

      An entrepreneur has to have many qualifications but a sense of entitlement is not one of them.

    5. Re: Work 24/7! by KiloByte · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's a wee bit of difference between getting drunk for an evening and a week of vacation with no phone coverage at all, in the days most crucial for the company's survival (in this case, getting bought out so they can continue to scam).

      It's like a sysape going on a trip right after your company's servers got broken into and wiped, while machines meant for backup are sitting in a closet not even been set up despite having been purchased a year ago.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    6. Re:Work 24/7! by Baron_Yam · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I never claimed authority over him, just the right of armchair quarterbacking.

      If you're responsible for making a business work and you walk away while it is floundering, that's not really fulfilling your responsibilities. Whether that's fine with the stakeholders or not for some reason doesn't make it optimal.

      That's not class envy.

    7. Re:Work 24/7! by king+neckbeard · · Score: 2

      Yeah, I can't imagine why people would badmouth an obvious scam artist, while the rest of us are forced to be productive members of society for substantially less. You can't simply handwave such criticisms as merely "class envy," because those feelings are justified.

      --
      This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    8. Re:Work 24/7! by Baron_Yam · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If we went by 'none of your business' there would be nothing to talk about on this site at all. Since you're here, that can't be your standard and I'm forced to conclude you're simply being an ass.

    9. Re:Work 24/7! by mjwx · · Score: 2

      Shouldn't people be allowed to take vacations? I have no problem with this.

      Whilst your company is going down the tubes, you're damn straight an exec should not be on holiday. But hey, at least this guy is consistent, consistently a douche-bag, but consistent.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    10. Re:Work 24/7! by spun · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, it must suck to live in those first world socialist democracies in Europe, with their free college and free health care and their advanced industrial economies and that annoying fact that everyone there is happy all the time. Who'd want that? Here in America we love working three shitty jobs and having our kids die because we can't do health care like literally the entire rest of the world. It builds character.

      Educate yourself, you've been fed a load of propaganda by the folks who are profiting off of you.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  2. And burning yourself out is useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Everybody need some break from work. And frankly being at work without a solution just shuffling paper around would not help either. You gotta be American thinking you gotta work 110% of your time and have success. Hint : success is 10% sweat, 30% connection, and 60% luck. Beside that Juicero was a stupid product for stupid people, not taking one day off will not help it, it is by now a dead product.

    1. Re:And burning yourself out is useless by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      I want one, for the parts. Ave took that thing apart, apparently the $400 juicer cost at least $1000 to make.

      BTW: 110% = 25% mon-thur + 10% fri

      Only way I can get to 110%

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    2. Re:And burning yourself out is useless by pubwvj · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "success is 10% sweat, 30% connection, and 60% luck."

      That attitude explains why a lot of people fail and then bemoan failing but won't take ownership of their own failure.

      My success is 80% sweat, 1% connection and 19% luck.

      Luck comes in two varieties: good and bad. You need to be prepared to take advantage of the good luck and resilient enough to keep pushing through the bad luck.

      Stop thinking that other people are succeeding because of their connections and luck. Your attitude is just excuse making. Start putting in the sweat to make things happen and stick with it. Good things take a lot of time and work.

    3. Re:And burning yourself out is useless by JohnFen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      My success is 80% sweat, 1% connection and 19% luck.

      While I agree with this, I'd like to make two observations:

      First, the difference between someone who succeeds and someone who fails is that the one who succeeds doesn't give up after each failure. I've known quite a lot of very successful people, but I've never met a single one who hasn't left a string of failures behind them on the way.

      Second, what people call "luck" isn't. One thing that stands out to me about people who are "lucky" is that they have a skill that can be somewhat subtle. All of us are surrounded by opportunities of all sorts, every day. We don't notice or recognize the majority of them (and, truthfully, most of them aren't of interest to us).

      People who are "lucky" are people who are better at noticing these opportunities and taking advantage of them.

    4. Re:And burning yourself out is useless by gnick · · Score: 3, Insightful

      First, the difference between someone who succeeds and someone who fails is that the one who succeeds doesn't give up after each failure.

      The determining factor between someone succeeding and failing is their definition of "success".

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    5. Re:And burning yourself out is useless by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Best definition of "luck" I have seen: "When Preparation Meets Opportunity"

      Like you said, opportunity happens all the time, all around us. The problem is, we are unprepared for it, don't recognize it, and can't actually capitalize on it.

      Missing opportunities is as easy as going home after 8 hours of work, getting drunk and playing the latest Skyrim DLC for the next six hours. Finding opportunities is hard work, consistent behaviors to improve one's skills, connections, sweating, and practice. I would suggest to you, that there is very little in the actual way of "luck". People don't see the toil, sweat, agony, brokenheart of failures that lead to success, and call everything they miss "luck".

      "Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect." Ralph Waldo Emerson

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    6. Re:And burning yourself out is useless by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      $8/half cup of juice.

      It was dead from the word go. They were just looking for a sucker and failed.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    7. Re:And burning yourself out is useless by theendlessnow · · Score: 2

      My success is 80% sweat, 1% connection and 19% luck.

      Note: helps if your business makes anti-antiperspirants and/or deodorants.

    8. Re:And burning yourself out is useless by nine-times · · Score: 2

      First, the difference between someone who succeeds and someone who fails is that the one who succeeds doesn't give up after each failure. I've known quite a lot of very successful people, but I've never met a single one who hasn't left a string of failures behind them on the way.

      Have you considered that there might be plenty of people out there who fail, don't give up, try again, fail again, and just never hit the point of success? Maybe you don't know them, or maybe you attribute their failure to something else, but I don't think it's true that everyone who keeps trying will necessarily succeed eventually.

      One thing that stands out to me about people who are "lucky" is that they have a skill that can be somewhat subtle.

      I think that's somewhat true. To me, the real "luck" that makes a meaningful difference is basic/fundamental stuff. For example, I was lucky to be born into a upper-middle class white family. I didn't really have to deal with poverty or racism, and in that fact alone, I was set up to succeed more than a lot of people out there. I was lucky to have parents who instilled certain habits and values, and those things have served me well. I had less control over those things than someone has control over whether they win the lottery-- at least they made a decision to buy a ticket. I was just born into a bunch of advantages. Likewise, someone who was born without those advantages had no control over that. Those things are just an issue of luck.

      There are other things that are, to a certain extent, luck. If you win the lottery, that's luck. You can't control that.

      However, I think you're right when you say "what people call 'luck' isn't." I've come to the idea that a lot of "luck" really comes down to keeping yourself open to opportunities, and having good judgement on which opportunities to seize. A lot of people let opportunities pass them by, without even realizing it. A lot of people see opportunities where there are none. You're being given new opportunities every day, and it take skill and courage to make something of them. That's not really luck.

      Still, some people get better opportunities than others, so... luck is still a part of it.

    9. Re:And burning yourself out is useless by JohnFen · · Score: 2

      Have you considered that there might be plenty of people out there who fail, don't give up, try again, fail again, and just never hit the point of success? Maybe you don't know them, or maybe you attribute their failure to something else, but I don't think it's true that everyone who keeps trying will necessarily succeed eventually.

      This is correct. I never meant to imply that persistence guarantees success. It most certainly does not. However, lack of persistence pretty much guarantees failure.

      Still, some people get better opportunities than others, so... luck is still a part of it.

      Yes, this is true. The world is not fair, and the playing field (whichever one you're playing on) is not level. I wasn't addressing that. I was really trying to point out that lots of people ascribe other people's success to random chance when, in fact, those people learned how to load the dice.

  3. Don't These Hipsters Know Burning Man is Over? by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Was clever and original enough when is started, for a few years, back in the 90s. Now? An over-priced Disneyland for Marketing Execs going through their second childhood or third divorce...

    1. Re:Don't These Hipsters Know Burning Man is Over? by fluffernutter · · Score: 5, Funny

      $425 a ticket for a festival with a primary purpose of discouraging use of money? That's so precious!

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    2. Re:Don't These Hipsters Know Burning Man is Over? by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Dude, it's Burning Man! You are paying someone to sit in the desert, discard your gadgets, and feel good about yourself! Not since Tom Sawyer tricked half his town into white-washing his fence for him has there been a bigger scam than Burning Man 2017!

    3. Re:Don't These Hipsters Know Burning Man is Over? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Was clever and original enough when is started, for a few years, back in the 90s. Now? An over-priced Disneyland for Marketing Execs going through their second childhood or third divorce...

      Meh. It was contrived and cliche even then.

      Quiznos got it right in their fucking hilarious sendup of Burning Man.

  4. OK by Brett+Buck · · Score: 2

    Does any of this surprise anyone? What in the world did anyone expect better than this from a guy trying to sell $8 glasses of juice on a subscription?

  5. no surprise here by supernova87a · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Poor Juicero -- fell into the trap that so many people who think highly of their own talents and desires fall into:

    As with so many areas where people work on something that is their passion (whether food, music, art, coffee, wine) is that they start to forget that the effort (or depth of intention) they put into it does not necessarily translate into how much other people value it, or how much people are willing to pay for it.

    You get people who think that because they slaved away for hours on a painting, essay, cup of coffee or artisinal x,y,z, etc, or that they did it with such depth of feeling means that they can charge big $$ for it.

    If that were true, history / philosophy / library science majors would be pulling in huge bucks for all the time they spent studying esoteric things that no one cares about, while people who scrape the internet for cute cat videos would be sitting in poverty. And arc welders who do a job on site, leave, and never have to think about it again would be barely getting by instead of being paid $70 / hour.

    The other thing they start to forget is that few people care about the extra details that they care about, because they've been immersed in the topic for years and lost an absolute sense of proportion, such as:
    - the ability to remotely cancel juice bags on expiration
    - having a squeezing mechanism that saves you 10 seconds of effort but costs $400...

    People who go to Burning Man (in my stereotyped way of thinking) tend to have a mindset that belief and values and ideology will carry the day -- and this resonates in my mind with what happened at Juicero. They tend not to be the people who put their nose to the grindstone and do a dirty job that has no glory or isn't "humanity-changing", but pays well and is reliable.

    At this point, it doesn't really matter if the CEO is on vacation -- it's just a symptom of what was happening all along. 3 days absence isn't going to change the company's future...

  6. Juicero is a bad example by BrookHarty · · Score: 2

    Nothing could save Juicero bad pricing model. They tried to make money on a 400$ juicer and not the juice, then on top of that, be a super niche market for the rich.

    Yeah, 1 week off isn't going to make a difference when a company that already failed.

    1. Re:Juicero is a bad example by JohnFen · · Score: 2

      They tried to make money on a 400$ juicer and not the juice

      I don't think that's accurate. They were selling the juicer at a clear loss. Yes, it was expensive -- but the thing was unbelievably overengineered and cost them a lot more to build than they were asking.

      The juice was the most massively overpriced part of the whole thing, and that you had to subscribe to regular deliveries of the stuff. They were clearly aiming to make their money on the juice.

      Their problem was that they wanted to get sillicon valley VC money -- and there's no way those VCs were going to fund a food company. So they had to overengineer the juicer to make it "high tech" and sell that to the VCs.

  7. Indispensable is bad by JohnFen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A fundamental rule about businesses is: you should never have anyone who is actually indispensable. If that person gets hit by a bus, the business is toast -- so a company with one of more indispensable people in it is a company in a weak or precarious position.

    If the company really can't do without an exec for a week or so, I take that as a big red flag that the company is, at best, teetering. So let them have their vacation, it's probably not making anything worse.

  8. unreasonable expectations by Goldsmith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm a startup founder, I've never been to Burning Man, or any similar events, and probably never will be. I agree that those are not actually networking events, but I don't think it's ok to dictate the type of vacation someone should take. If raving in the desert is what someone needs to clear their head and make better decisions, they should do it. Not everyone gets the same thing from meditation and solitary introspection. Sometimes you just need something different. There are times I need to go take a peaceful hike by myself to reflect, and there are times I need to go to Vegas with an old friend to make bad decisions on purpose.

    For a startup founder, your company is ALWAYS in crisis. Every week you're burning cash to keep things going. If you wait for the perfect time to take a vacation, you'll be waiting for a very long time. Whether you can bear to leave your co-workers working while you go is highly personal and unique to every situation... it's impossible to generalize.

    Now, I've seen people who do take way too much time off, and do expect to come up with a miracle on the fly to replace the work they should have put in. But that's a different thing.

    1. Re:unreasonable expectations by JohnFen · · Score: 2

      For a startup founder, your company is ALWAYS in crisis.

      Truer words were never spoken! A corollary to that is if the founder isn't aware that the startup is in crisis, that startup is doomed.

      This, by the way, is one of the reasons I consider a large amount of funding for a startup to be toxic. It can encourage the illusion that the startup is on its feet, and can cause a startup to be operated as if it were actually an established business -- which is one of the quicker ways to kill a startup.

  9. Daily Dose of Puritanism? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What is this shit doing on the Slashdot front page? It's wrong in every aspect of business management and is just a long way around to say "work good, drugs bad". It's the prose equivalent of Nancy Reagan wearing a nun's outfit having an auditory seizure.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    1. Re:Daily Dose of Puritanism? by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2

      LOL, pure projection on your part. When people you've invested in are supposed to be busting their asses and instead take the company's money and go on vacation, that's bad.

      Nancy Reagan? Seriously? You triggered, bro?

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  10. Re:Stop deflection ad hominem: It was a $400 blend by swan5566 · · Score: 2

    You should go hang out in places like Boulder, SF, Santa Fe, etc..., and watch how people spend their money there for a little while. Trust me, there's a market for things like this.

    --
    In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
  11. maybe by nospam007 · · Score: 2

    "Whether you're going to Burning Man, Ibiza, SXSW, or ..."

    but this year at Burning Man, there was actually a man burning.

  12. Who cares? (Those who invested in shit, fuck'em) by HeckRuler · · Score: 4, Informative

    If, at any point in my life, I somehow managed by any possible means to get people to purchase a $400 bag squeezer... I really wouldn't give a shit.

    He's already won. Will his empire persist throughout all time and dominate the consumer-grade fruit-bag squeezing market? No? Maybe? Is that even a real market? Who gives a fuck, he managed to dupe a non-insignificant number of people into actually giving him money. This IS the victory scenario. Of course he's going to try and have an exit strategy. This is NOT a long-term company. If anyone for a moment really thought that fruit-bag-squeezer was a legit product, then you deserve to watch your investment burn down in flames. Are you upset your investment isn't pay off? Too bad, you invested in a BAG SQUEEZER.

    There's a TON of really stupid startups. There's also a few good ones. If your little baby business can't survive a weekend without someone in constant phone contact, that's a sign that it's fucked. If it's a shitty startup, all it takes is one investor to get their head on straight and realize it's shit. If the founder needs to be in constant contact to maintain that suspension of disbelief, then the company is fucked. If the startup has a legit idea that will make millions, but is working paycheck to paycheck and has the organization of a season of Lost, and every employee has no clue what to do without you there, and it can't survive one weekend without the founder there manually holding together the duck tape and twine contraption, then the company is fucked.

    If the company has a real idea. And has some semblance of people knowing what to do. And there isn't some hard contractual obligation deadline. Then the world will continue to turn for a few days without you getting that email. "Hey Bob, you're in charge this weekend, I'm out" That's all that's needed.

    And the sad fact is that this message will put an unnerving number of startup types into a cold sweat.

  13. On the JuiceAero by shellster_dude · · Score: 4, Informative

    The thing was always a scam (or at least a terrible idea). AvE did a great video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  14. Re:Stop deflection ad hominem: It was a $400 blend by ctilsie242 · · Score: 2

    Austin as well. I've seen stores selling $700 single serve cappuccino machines (where the cartridge one pops in has the milk and everything else in it)... and people buy them.

  15. Re:Who cares? (Those who invested in shit, fuck'em by HeckRuler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    He has a ... net worth of a couple of million

    HE'S WON BABY!

    With a $2 million dollars of stocks you can have an income of (around and averaged to) $200,000/year from stock market gains alone. You can live anywhere in the world and that money still comes in. You don't have to put in a single hour of work. It just happens.

    Considering the typical person in the world lives on ~$10,000/year and you'd be making 20x that, for doing nothing other than breathing, I think you've got a VERY strange definition of "paltry". Hell, even in first-world top-dog USA where everyone is rich and the median income is $51,939, you'd still be doing REAL fine just living on the gains from your stocks.

    Let me make this abundantly clear: Most people still have to work for a living because they cannot simply choose to get out of the SanFran housing clusterfuck and retire with a big-ass pile of a "paltry" $2,000,000. If I were handed even $1 mil, I'd stop working for someone else and start making the things I WANT to make (or fuck around all day like the unmotivated slob I am, but regardless). If you think having a net worth of $2 mil makes this guy a loser, then you need to go travel the world a little. The parts which don't have a cabana boy with mimosas on hand. You need some perspective. It'll do you good.