[HN Gopher] One-click checkout startup Fast is laying off its staff
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One-click checkout startup Fast is laying off its staff
Author : hubraumhugo
Score : 70 points
Date : 2022-04-05 18:33 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (airtable.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (airtable.com)
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| Their YouTube account was a guilty pleasure of mine it always
| looked like straight out of Silicon Valley... the tvshow.
| Straight cringe inducing marketing bro culture bullshit.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Wow, they spent god knows how much on a race car driver
| sponsorship to get... 100 views.
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| They deleted the good stuff like the ceo skydiving to a
| keynote presentation :(
|
| He still has a nice compilation twitter
| https://twitter.com/domm/status/1423346248329879554
| hildaman wrote:
| This is just the beginning. As we see easy money dry up, we are
| going to see a lot of unprofitable startups go belly up.
| threeseed wrote:
| I am sure the VCs will be flush from their ponzi scheme
| investments in the Web3 space.
| kache_ wrote:
| Exactly. Cheap debt is not so cheap anymore, so VCs are going
| to stop steam rolling all their asymmetric bets.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| So the heavy investment from stripe didn't pan out then? I wonder
| how much of that thread is true at least when it comes to
| investments.
| sithlord wrote:
| for some reason i thought that amazon had a patent on 1 click
| checkout?
| teraflop wrote:
| They applied for the patent in 1997, which means it expired in
| 2017.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US5960411A/en
|
| https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/37/e6/81/3ebb1f3.
| ..
| UglyToad wrote:
| You're right but how the hell is this patentable!? The patent
| system is patently nonsense if "make there be as few clicks as
| possible" is worthy of a couple of decades of protection.
| Probably more context in the patent doc which I'm not going to
| read because any energy expended on the whole stupid system
| (other than ranting) is wasted.
| stainforth wrote:
| Whats the secret sauce here to Fast or Bolt or whatever? 1000
| integrations, a plugin for WooCommerce or Shopify that points at
| your profile that has loaded your Paypal or Visa or merchant
| processor(another set of integrations)?
| simonsarris wrote:
| Half? This says they are finished:
|
| https://twitter.com/fast/status/1511399486836334592
| neya wrote:
| They over did that one with that last sentence - an obligatory
| reference to some abstract quote about failure.
| mkl95 wrote:
| That was fast. They should explore the niche of one-click mass
| layoffs next.
| j_walter wrote:
| Pretty sure better.com tried that already...
| Cockbrand wrote:
| > That was fast.
|
| I see what you did there.
| paxys wrote:
| It's not quite clear whether they are shutting the company down
| entirely or shutting the product and pivoting to something else
| with a smaller team.
| parkingrift wrote:
| Their website indicates they are shutting down for good.
|
| https://www.fast.co
| [deleted]
| snowman-yelling wrote:
| It's interesting to me that Stripe funded Fast because Stripe has
| built their own one click checkout solution.
| vincentmarle wrote:
| Just for perspective on the startups who are trying to compete
| with Apple and Google:
|
| Apple Pay - 1,621,494 customers
|
| Google Pay - 1,107,759 customers
|
| Bold - 7,593 customers
|
| Fast - 1,203 customers
|
| Bolt - 581 customers
|
| Bolt is next?
| mtoddsmith wrote:
| If Bolt captures half of the Fast customers they can have 100%
| growth!
| rsstack wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/1102/
| threeseed wrote:
| The company that is missing there is Shopify.
|
| They somewhat quietly released ShopPay which at least based on
| our store is doing well.
| hizxy wrote:
| Wow. I almost took a job there but something felt very off.
| czbond wrote:
| How did they blow through $102M in ~14 months?
| x0x0 wrote:
| LinkedIn says they had north of 600 employees -- 666 oddly
| enough. 456 in the US.
|
| If your average payroll cost is $100k for 600 employees, that
| costs the business $135k, so payroll alone is $76m/year, or
| $6.5m/mo. If average payroll were closer to $200k, double that
| obviously. You can blow through $100m in no time.
|
| On, unbelievably, $600k in revenue in 2021 per The Information.
| https://www.theinformation.com/articles/why-stripes-fast-hor...
| czbond wrote:
| Great contextualization.... I can see the payroll now. But on
| $600k revenue?? That is super nuts. There are sites selling
| on 'empire flippers / flippa' that make equal to that revenue
| for a WHOLE lot less valuation. nuts...
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Pieter Levels is a 1 man PHP shop doing more revenue than
| that and at 95% margin.
| [deleted]
| coldpie wrote:
| Welcome to the tech startup world, baby.
| ptudan wrote:
| Seems like they have a bunch of highly expensive sports
| sponsorships. This seems to happen often when you have a bro-y
| CEO who wants to rub elbows with that kind of crowd. I can't
| imagine that moved the needle much for them - but it sure costs
| a lot
| CyberRabbi wrote:
| It might be hard to believe but that is closer to the norm than
| not. Unicorn-bound tech startups tend to operate by spending
| all their cash to grow the business as fast as possible,
| intending to raise another round once the previous round dries
| up. An annual cycle is about right.
|
| What happened here isn't necessarily poor management of
| finances, instead they failed to grow the business and thus
| couldn't attract more investors for a second round.
| czbond wrote:
| >Unicorn-bound tech startups tend to operate by spending all
| their cash to grow the business as fast as possible That
| seems slow and risky. I come from the world of B2B slow and
| steady startups - painful both ways I guess.
| doctor_eval wrote:
| IMO "failure to grow the business" is totally the same as
| poor management of finances, when the financial health of the
| business demands growth.
|
| If you keep your burn rate high while you fail to reach your
| sales targets then you need to pivot well before you run out
| of cash.
|
| I'm continually astounded by the acceptance of businesses
| which fly themselves into the ground. Repeatedly failing to
| meet targets requires change, not just charging ahead and
| damn the torpedoes.
| CyberRabbi wrote:
| I don't necessarily disagree with you, just wanted to draw
| a distinction between a blatant failure to manage finances
| and an excessively aggressive growth strategy that fails to
| pan out.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| http://www.paulgraham.com/pinch.html
|
| It's only a difference of scale, not of kind.
| czbond wrote:
| Thanks for the link!
| causi wrote:
| _One-click checkout_
|
| Under what circumstances is this not a foolish thing to want? I
| thought it was cool on Amazon until I realized it was just a tool
| for generating unwanted orders that you then have to cancel.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| I've never thought one-click checkout was a good idea. I buy
| stuff on Amazon on a semi-regular basis and I've never used it.
|
| Just seems like a great way to accidentally order the wrong
| thing occasionally.
| ghostly_s wrote:
| I thought Amazon held a patent on this?
| feifan wrote:
| It expired a few years ago, hence the startups chasing the
| space.
| [deleted]
| TrueGeek wrote:
| I love one click checkout. Amazon is okay, and I've used it a
| few times on sites that support it. But if a site has one click
| Apple checkout it makes it so much easier. I don't have to
| worry about them having my credit card info, and it takes 1
| second to check out.
| threeseed wrote:
| B2B. My partner runs a Shopify store where companies come back
| each month to stock up.
|
| Apple Pay, Shop Pay etc. have made a big difference in
| conversions and customers seem to like it as it skips a few
| steps for them.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| What websites was the 1 click checkout on? Honestly with Amazon
| dominating so much of online retail can a company like this even
| land enough customers to make a profit?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| cyrux004 wrote:
| Yesterday they launched a re-designed website. Today they closed
| doors. https://www.fast.co/
|
| Yikes
| 1270018080 wrote:
| Talk about engineers having an existential crisis on making
| things no one will ever use.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| And I'm sure they all knew it was happening as they were
| working on it. Things like that are why I gave up on caring
| about anything in this industry and just do the bare minimum
| to earn my paycheck.
| danso wrote:
| The Information broke the news[0] (both the earlier mass layoff
| report and today's closure), but TechCrunch has a non-paywall
| full article [1]
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30922051
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30923032
| atestu wrote:
| This guy was sounding the alarm a few days ago
| https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1509854025746898946
|
| Apparently the founder has a shady past
| https://www.npr.org/2022/02/17/1081201040/domm-holland-fast-...
| idontknowifican wrote:
| a dude of mine was hired there a few months ago and given:
|
| 30k sign 220k base
|
| 4 yoe as a react developer
|
| he told me he didn't understand the business bit it seemed cool.
| at least i can steal him away now but damn
| paxys wrote:
| That's a crazy salary for someone 4 years in the industry,
| _way_ above average. When you get offered that, the company is
| either truly hiring the best of the best and doing
| revolutionary work, or throwing away cash and about to go bust.
| Seems we found out which one this was.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| 84k for 3 months of work ain't bad, on to the next gig in a
| stupid hot job market. Maybe apply for unemployment too until
| landing the next gig.
| altdataseller wrote:
| And I presume he got severance?
| evan_ wrote:
| if the company is folding as it sounds like, severance
| might just be whatever you can steal from the supply closet
| clpm4j wrote:
| From what I've heard so far, no severance - just
| pay/benefits through Friday of this week.
| fndomoraes wrote:
| sorry, but what does "30k sign 220k base" mean?
| etimberg wrote:
| $220,000 base compensation per year. $30,000 signing bonus
| tebbers wrote:
| 30k signing bonus, 220k normal base salary
| danso wrote:
| Can the link for this thread be changed to the official
| announcement: https://www.fast.co/
|
| Whatever was at the Airtable link submitted is now private
| jmu1234567890 wrote:
| The Airtable was a list of Fast employees looking for work
| sbmthakur wrote:
| The page appears to be private. How to get the access?
| ceasesurthinko wrote:
| This is the mentioned startup from that "Stripe & YC are the Mobs
| of Silicon Valley" tweet thread:
|
| https://twitter.com/theryanking/status/1485784884681474048
|
| In the tweet: Ryan Breslow, CEO of Bolt, talks about how Stripe
| funded Fast which is a competitor of Bolt, and for the same
| valuation despite Fast having no traction and being relatively
| new.
|
| (I do not condone or condemn the opinion of this person, just
| thought it would be relevant to this post)
| [deleted]
| ajkjk wrote:
| The page isn't loading, but anyway it's pretty clear that what
| makes a mob a mob is its use of violence to get its way, so...
| that doesn't sound right.
| ceasesurthinko wrote:
| Updated the link to the proper one
| yunohn wrote:
| That's Bolt, this is Fast.
| danappelxx wrote:
| It's the founder of Bolt talking about Fast raising funding.
| axutio wrote:
| Got curious about this so I found the original HN discussion
| [0], which is a definite must-read for context/response if you
| read the tweet thread.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30066969
| _fat_santa wrote:
| That's gotta be cathartic for the founder of Bolt. Seeing the
| company that made a deal with "the Mob" go belly up.
| nighthawk454 wrote:
| Maybe, maybe not. That thread makes it sounds like Fast was
| cannon fodder to prevent Bolt and others from growing.
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