{
    "href": "/post/2012/06/06/what-are-telltale-signs-that-youre-working-at-a-sinking-ship-company/",
    "relId": "2012/06/06/what-are-telltale-signs-that-youre-working-at-a-sinking-ship-company",
    "title": "What are telltale signs that you're working at a \"sinking ship\" company?",
    "author": "pmjones",
    "markup": "html",
    "tags": [
        {
            "href": "/tag/management/",
            "relId": "management",
            "title": "Management",
            "author": null,
            "created": null,
            "updated": [],
            "markup": "markdown"
        },
        {
            "href": "/tag/mba/",
            "relId": "mba",
            "title": "MBA",
            "author": null,
            "created": null,
            "updated": [],
            "markup": "markdown"
        }
    ],
    "created": "2012-06-07 01:04:15 UTC",
    "updated": [
        "2012-06-07 01:04:15 UTC"
    ],
    "html": "<p>Small-company edition:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>When pressured on the business by employees, CEO always starts with, \"I need you to stay focused on...\"</p>\n<p>You have more than one MBA on the team.</p>\n<p>You have a Chief Strategy Officer.</p>\n<p>Your CTO just came out of a Phd program.</p>\n<p>Your CEO sells instead of listens.</p>\n<p>You have a launch party, and no customers attend.</p>\n<p>Customers hate the product and vision, so the sales guy is fired.</p>\n<p>You are not told the terms of the last funding round (5x liquidation preference?)</p>\n<p>You never hear how much cash you have in the bank or see board meeting notes.</p>\n<p>You complain about how the customers \"just don't get it\" and aren't \"visionary.\"</p>\n<p>Your CEO says revenue is coming in in two weeks, just after he gets a meeting with the buyer, negotiates price, gets it approved, agrees on terms, writes up up contracts, negotiates them, signs them, and invoices the customer on net 30 terms.</p>\n<p>You add features because board members want them.</p>\n<p>Your CEO calls himself a \"visionary\" in his bio.</p>\n<p>The CEO keeps everything secret because, \"that is how Apple does it.\"</p>\n<p>The CEO approves all of the design decisions because, \"that is how Apple does it.\"</p>\n<p>You are selling a platform.</p>\n<p>Co-founder agrees to bring in experienced execs but thinks they will report to him.</p>\n<p>You are selling to schools, hospitals, or non-profits.</p>\n<p>You are commercializing a technology.</p>\n<p>Your value proposition is that you help workers break down organizational barriers and work cross-functionally.</p>\n<p>Your business model assume you will become one of the 7 websites that the average user visits every day.</p>\n<p>Your site is going to be ad-supported, and you have 1500 users.</p>\n<p>CEO avoids eye contact.</p>\n<p>It gets really quiet.</p>\n<p>You get free lunch but have no customers.</p>\n<p>Your free lunch is taken away.</p>\n<p>You get asked, \"how much do you really need to live on?\"</p>\n<p>You get a pay cut. Your co-worker disappears.</p>\n<p>Your CEO still doesn't make eye contact.</p>\n<p>You get laid off and become a creditor to the company because they didn't reimburse your last 5 expense reports.</p>\n<p>The company declines to buy your unvested shares back.</p>\n<p>The liquidation yields 5 Aeron chairs and an espresso machine, and Ashton Kutcher's stock is senior to yours.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>via <em><a href=\"http://www.quora.com/What-are-telltale-signs-that-youre-working-at-a-sinking-ship-company\">What are telltale signs that you're working at a \"sinking ship\" company? - Quora</a></em>.</p>\n"
}