
Layoffs at stealth payment startup Clinkle  - rpledge
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/12/09/layoffs-clinkle/
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minikites
I think this is their big problem:

[https://twitter.com/mrgan/status/384780273721696256](https://twitter.com/mrgan/status/384780273721696256)

—"I'd like to, uh… "pay with clinkle."

—"Excuse me?"

—"Uh, pay with… clinkle?"

—"Do you need the key to the restroom?"

—"Pay… with… clinkle"

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themoonbus
Apparently the culture there is pretty poor...

[http://www.quora.com/Clinkle/What-is-it-like-to-work-at-
Clin...](http://www.quora.com/Clinkle/What-is-it-like-to-work-at-
Clinkle/answers/3579130)

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nlh
This may have no basis in reality, but I get a sense that there's an inverse
relationship between the amount of hype a "stealth" startup gets and how
successful it is. Or at the very least, if not directly inverse, the hype
factor does little to actually promote success.

Color, Snocap, Asana, Cuil, etc. I feel like the more hype, the more stealthy,
the worse they end up doing.

But I know this can't be right (or rather I hope not). Anyone have some good
counter-examples (Hype => Win)?

~~~
atwebb
I don't really have another example (maybe Diaspora, what are they up to?).

I hadn't seen Cuil in a long time and had to look it up. Looks like 2008 was
the dawn of the Cuil theory, internet nostalgia feels odd.

~~~
cbhl
IIRC, one of the Diaspora guys committed suicide a few years ago. :(

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gfosco
When do we drop the word "stealth"? I think raising a noteworthy funding round
and having articles on CNN are both good indicators the startup is anything
but.

~~~
rubiquity
Stealth is not a synonym for visibility, it's a synonym for zero revenue.

~~~
DigitalJack
Really? I'd think "Broke" would be a much better word than Stealth. What, are
they trying to sneak up on a dollar?

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thatmiddleway
Oh wow, another startup has to lay people off. Why should we care every time a
volatile organization realizes that they're not making money and can't afford
to pay people? Isn't that the nature of working at startups?

~~~
vladimirralev
These guys wasted a lot of money that could have been used to fund 100s of
other companies. This should make the headlines as a case study, what went
wrong and how to avoid it in the future. When a high profile well-funded
startup goes south, there is a lesson to be learned for many people.

~~~
pbreit
It would probably take over $100m to fund "100s of other companies".

The company is not going south. It brought in top-tier talent (Barry McCarthy
ex-Netflix, namely) who reasonably concluded the company wasn't structured
properly from a personnel standpoint. This doesn't appear to be another Color
considering the company has plenty of cash, some quality executives and a
functional product in a huge, well-known category (payments).

~~~
kloncks
Perhaps he was talking about examples like YC funding "100s of companies"
(500? 600?) with less than half of what Clinkle has raised.

~~~
pbreit
Then that's a total mis-understanding of what YC is and how it compares to
venture capital. And no one has really come very close to replicating YC
despite quite a few attempts.

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theboss
I actually interviewed with them...if you can call it that. I saw some
negative post on here about them and decided to submit my resume for the heck
of it.

They called me that day and I talked with HR and then we set up a
``technical'' interview with one of the head-honchos who has left. That
interview lasted all of 5 minutes. He basically said we will have to hire
someone who can interview you and the call ended in 5 minutes.

I don't have some special set of skills or anything...it was weird.
Anyways...I had fun talking to people I read about in articles...

~~~
21echoes
i don't know who you could possibly call a "head honcho" who has left...

~~~
theboss
Well his title started with the letter C. That's head honcho to me.

~~~
21echoes
0 C-level employees have left. The only C-level employees are the CEO Lucas
Duplan and the new COO, Barry McCarthy.

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cylinder
This Clinkle thing is going to end up being one of the big laughingstocks of
the current bubble after it goes down and the bubble bursts. Similar to
Pets.com and Webvan and such.

This actually gave me a flashback to a website I had completely forgotten
about. Does anyone remember FuckedCompany.com?

~~~
prodigal_erik
Pud posts here occasionally. He spent quite a while running an ad exchange
that spun out of Fucked Company. Lately he's been working on distribution for
musicians.

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laurenstill
I interviewed with them a few times last month, and then HR told me they were
re - evaluating their employment needs.

And here I thought it was something I had said. ..

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tedchs
Wonder if having a difficult-to-enunciate name has anything to do with their
lack of success?

~~~
pbreit
I don't love the name but names are rarely make-or-break and the product is
barely even live so "lack of success" is wholly inappropriate at this point.
The company has had success in raising money and hiring top tier talent which
is most important at this stage.

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justinzollars
why is this news? They are stealth

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patmcguire
I'm going to be really annoyed if Clinkle winds up being a performance art
project.

~~~
fleitz
What part of life isn't performance art?

~~~
thoughtpalette
It's all subjective.

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billconan
VCs are stupid.

