
Ask HN: This is weird, right? - moron4hire
Met this dude at a meetup here in DC and he said he was looking for early stage investments, wanted to hear pitches. I started a few phone conversations with him and got that unmistakable vibe I was getting my ego stroked by a salesman. He seemed way too interested in moving through his process (which keeps coming back to him mentioning offshore outsourcing) without really seeming to know much about my project. That is certainly due to me not explaining it well, but it seems like a legitimate investor would have passed on me pretty early on, rather than keep telling me &quot;everything sounds great, let&#x27;s move on to the next step in the process&quot;.<p>I start trying to look up his &quot;portfolio companies&quot; to see what they are like, see if I can&#x27;t contact any of them and get an idea of what sort of contribution he made for them. I don&#x27;t know what I&#x27;d get out of it, I at least wanted to know what size of companies he&#x27;s investing in.<p>And in the process, I find this. This is his site: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.3siholdings.com&#x2F;#!portfolio&#x2F;cee5<p>The first logo is his own company. The second logo isn&#x27;t even a company, it&#x27;s the logo for a technology incubation initiative from our governor. The third logo, I did a reverse image search on and all of the links, for several pages, are just like this:<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.healthstylecatalogue.com&#x2F;#!hc-providers&#x2F;cee5<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scprivatecapital.net&#x2F;#!portfolio&#x2F;cee5<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.acisup.com&#x2F;#!portfolio&#x2F;cee5<p>They all have completely different &quot;teams&quot;. What is this, some form of multi-level marketing scheme with which I&#x27;m not familiar?
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MichaelBurge
He's got dollar signs in his eyes, and he's hoping to use people's desperation
for investor money to lower their guard.

Wild guess: He's going to sell you management consulting, in which he tells
you all the money you can save by outsourcing your software development. Any
'seed funding' he gives will be eaten up by a deal with him and somebody he
knows, who will play the software developer. When that runs out, you'll look
for additional funding and spend it on his buddy who shares a cut with him. He
might get a share of the company, but I don't think he cares about it.

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moron4hire
That's pretty much the exact scenario I had imagined.

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ahazred8ta
and their investor relations guy is anonymous
[https://www.linkedin.com/vsearch/p?f_CC=10319430](https://www.linkedin.com/vsearch/p?f_CC=10319430)

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Someone1234
If you look at the team page and go to the LinkedIn profiles for each one, you
can see this one in a series of similar businesses. A previous business
describes them as micro-investors, but they primarily seem to focus on
advising startups/entrepreneurs.

It is unclear what specific expertise they have, aside from all being ex-US
Military. For example the CEO went from the US Marines (Logistics Supervisor)
straight into "Founder Juliet Foxtrot Ventures" (which is a micro-investment
business).

I suspect they're trying to sell you their expertise/advice/mentorship, but it
is unclear if they possess any to begin with. It is also unclear if they are
in fact investors where the investment capital is coming from.

I seriously doubt their micro-investment business from 2013 that started with
a bunch of Marine's salaries made enough to fund bigger investments, but maybe
I'm wrong? Although I'm unclear why they'd operate under a different moniker
if that was the source the funds.

The whole thing seems like a "house of cards" built of shell companies with no
substance.

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moron4hire
Nice callout. Thanks.

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gus_massa
Perhaps this sound silly, but just a check:

Is he going to give money to you, or are you going to give money to him?

(For this calculation, don't count the money that he or his partners will give
back in just a few month.)

~~~
moron4hire
Heh, I don't know. We haven't gotten quiet that far. It started to sound like
he was going to pitch management consulting services to build a business plan
document. I figured it'd be smart to know who I was dealing with early on and
ended up stepping in something that smelled in the process.

~~~
Someone1234
This is one of their other businesses:

[http://www.lifemarkers.co/](http://www.lifemarkers.co/)

So I think your instincts are right on. They are going to sell you consulting
services.

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partisan
I wonder what the counter was at on their main page before this posting.

All of the interleaving of people and their different companies makes it
appear as if they are trying to obscure the true structure of their company
and what it does. That's not a good way to gain confidence and trust when they
are in a business that is all about each of those.

Also, the logo is pretty bad and clashes with their stylish, likely prefab,
website template.

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kleer001
Trust your instincts and lose this weirdo's number. Real money with real
people behind it will be super clear and easy to identify.

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api
Run away unless you want to experience the business equivalent of being uhh...
touched inappropriately.

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JSeymourATL
Trust your gut instinct. You will run across all kinds of bozos & imposters in
this game.

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27182818284
Walk away.

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pieperz
Get everything in writing....cuz that sounds sketch.

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noahc
Get everything in writing is not the correct advice when something is sketchy.

Getting it in writing means you'll have to invest significant
cost/effort/stress in getting it sorted out.

