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Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer
- moralestapia 3y ago1.1B USD in funding! I'd definitely want to know more about how things came to be like this.
- x0x0 3y ago1500 employees on an average of $100k pa is approx $195m dollars in salary, taxes, benefits, etc. If you have a bunch of engineers and that average is more like $150k, it goes even faster. They raised $260m in April 2022.
- IshKebab 3y agoNo customers. If you get $1Bn in funding that doesn't mean you get to hire 10 people and never run out of money. You have to hire 500 people and run out of money in 5 years!
- __coaxialcabal 3y ago1.1B in NOLs. How does this not become a $200MM acquihire by UPS pre-bankruptcy? I’m asking because I would assume that the tax mitigation could be an asset and feel like I am missing something. I am not an accountant, but would love for one to explain why bankruptcy is the best choice.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- floxy 3y agoWhy would UPS be interested? They just sold of their freight division to T-Force in 2021.
- Johnie 3y agoBecause they have a pretty significant outstanding lending portfolio that they are on the hook for. See: https://twitter.com/adam_keesling/status/1715063558898364602?s=20 https://twitter.com/adam_keesling/status/1715063558898364602... Convoy effectively got into the factoring business and extended short term (30/60/90 days) loans to the trucking companies. Now, they don't hold these loans on their balance sheet but rather package them and sell them to lenders as asset-backed lending portfolio. The thing with these is that typically the originator (in this case Convoy) will need to take the first tranche of losses. (This is where the $240M debt facility came in). As the freight market deteriorated, Convoy was effectively margin called by the lenders and could not come up with the money. Any acquirer would then have to take up this debt. Even though Convoy may have a valuable asset, UPS is not in the business of managing a debt portfolio. Any acquirer would be dissuade by this baggage.
- __coaxialcabal 3y agoThank you so much for the detailed response. This makes perfect sense.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoRelated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37946030 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37946030
- tapatio 3y agoHow many "empty miles" did they prevent over their 8 years of existance?
- toomuchtodo 3y agoRelated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37931893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37931893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37937165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37937165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37935804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37935804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37946017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37946017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37945817 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37945817 (dang: feel free to macroexpand and replace my comment with yours if you happen upon)
- dang 3y agoThe ones with comments: Big layoffs coming at Convoy, a logistics startup backed by Bezos and Gates - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37937165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37937165 - Oct 2023 (3 comments) Convoy cancels all shipments, load board is empty, announcement upcoming - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37931893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37931893 - Oct 2023 (6 comments)
- infrawhispers 3y agoFrom a friend: Everyone was laid off with no severance or benefits. The CEO put all the blame on a lender in order to explain why there were no severance packages. This sucks because they took it upon themselves to offer staff retention bonuses earlier this year to keep people around after the earlier layoff.
- apercu 3y agoI'd be interested in whether the C-level got any severance or healthcare....
- bastardoperator 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- justrealist 3y agoWhy do you assume the worst, with absolutely no information? The company is shutting down. I'd bet you a lot of money nobody gets anything.
- mmanfrin 3y agoProbably because C-levels almost always get disproportionate parachutes regardless of performance.
- alex_lav 3y ago> The company is shutting down. I'd bet you a lot of money nobody gets anything. Let's define a lot and then I'll take this bet.
- apercu 3y agoAt higher levels you usually have insight that these things are coming and can negotiate retention bonuses and other benefits, or threaten to walk (sinking shop and all), and I think it's likely, so I asked the question....
- sputknick 3y agostart-up idea if anyone is bored: disrupt car shipping. When I moved from Seattle to Raleigh shipping my car was BY FAR the biggest headache. It's a 20th century business where you have to call people, who will bid for you, and you have no idea if your bid is accepted. Agents will promise a low price to get your business, then tell you a week later that bid was too low, you need to double it. I eventually just gave up and drove it cross country.
- dghlsakjg 3y agoIsn’t this uship? You place anything you need shipped on there and various shippers can bid without having to go through a broker.
- S201 3y agoPretty much, yeah. And from my personal experience, uship is useless. Lots of independent people that charge too much due to small economies of scale (one guy with a goose-neck truck vs. a car carrier). The few times I've had to ship a vehicle cross country I've wasted time on uship before going back to a traditional broker and letting them handle it for less money and less hassle. It's still annoying dealing with the salespeople, but if you're good at playing that game you can at least use the usual negotiation tactics to get an even lower price.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ejstronge 3y agoIf one searches Reddit, there are brokers who will pass on wholesale car shipping prices which are lower than the prices of those one may find on Google.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago"Disrupting" this is quite a challenge due to the nature of the service and the logistics around this type of freight. You either pay for someone to drive it which will be on an ad hoc basis when someone is available and interested or you pay to ship it on a Class 8 hauled flatbed or car trailer. A possible brokerage opportunity would be to inquire with Carvana or Carmax if you can buy slots on their cross country shipments as capacity allows, and sell those to customers. You'll be at the mercy of their schedules and capacity, but could be a service tier along with other more "white glove" services (dedicated driver "hot shot", semi shipment, etc). You could also buy capacity on freight rail cars shipping back empty to factories (depending on destination and routing). High touch biz, beware, there be dragons.
- wooly_bully 3y ago(Ex-)Convoy engineer here. No mystery as to why this happened, sudden tight market and low available capital demolished us. External reasons given in the article were the same we knew and couldn't do anything about considering that none of the M&A options materialized. Detailed the shutdown on a call at 8:30am Pacific this morning. CEO said there'll be no severance or healthcare. Lot of talented folks in Seattle and beyond who'll be looking for new gigs.
- bloopernova 3y ago> CEO said there'll be no severance or healthcare. That should be illegal. How much are the executives making from this? I'm really sorry you're in the middle of this. I hope you can find a better job soon.
- bradleybuda 3y agoWhat makes you think the executives are making anything from this? It's a startup, it ran out of money, it failed, there is nothing left. Joining a startup is risky.
- ctvo 3y agoShutting down 3 months earlier, but everyone getting severance is an option. Let's not pretend it had to happen this way because it's a startup. They made the decision, if true, to use up every cent clinging on trying to find an exit or more runway.
- pxx 3y agoThe very nature of a startup, especially one funded like this, means that your whole existence is predicated on the hopes that you make it big. As such, spending your last cent to try to find a lifeline makes far more sense than calling it quits early. It's also certainly not in the interests of investors to just call things off.
- 3y ago
- renegade-otter 3y ago"The appetite for venture funding of freight brokerages has been dead for over a year and is partially responsible for the reason Convoy has failed. VC investors have woken to the reality that freight brokerage is not venture-investible." So they WeWorked it. Instead of focusing on long-term growth strategy for a very good and sustainable business, the top management decided to get rich quickly, destroying the company. But I am sure they did get rich quickly. Also see: Bed Bath & Beyond
- echelon 3y ago> Bed Bath & Beyond Is this why BBB failed? My perception is that the retailer was stuck in 2000. The stores always felt stuffy.
- cariaso 3y agohttps://www.epsilontheory.com/the-united-states-of-bed-bath-beyond/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/the-united-states-of-bed-bath-... gives more details
- nerdponx 3y agoI used to really enjoy BB&B shopping. It was like Santa's Workshop of medium-quality products stacked floor to ceiling. And I liked their Wamsutta brand stuff years ago when the quality was still decent.
- jeffreyrogers 3y agoHow would top management get rick quick with no exit? Equity presumably went to 0, so their compensation is the cash flow they got from their salary while Convoy was in business.
- dilyevsky 3y agoNot saying that’s what happened here but occasionally you can get money off the table by selling some of your equity during a funding round. Afaik that’s how Hopin and WeWork ceos got hundreds of millions despite their companies going to zero basically
- fairity 3y agoAnd so it begins. A large wave of unprofitable startups that raised in 2021/2022 are going to fail at becoming profitable and be forced into fire sales or bankruptcy over the next 12 months. The capital constriction really started in Q3 2022. Here's a graph: https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Screenshot-2023-03-28-at-9.06.04-AM.png https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Screenshot... If I had to guess, bankruptcies like this peak sometime next year since many of these companies will find a way to last 24 months on their last fundraise. Another recent example is Clutter, a moving company that raised $300m, who was forced into a fire sale for $30m.
- tempsy 3y agoYes feels like we've seen surprisingly few shutdowns.
- opportune 3y agoA lot of companies that raised a lot in 2021-22 didn’t hire much because the labor market was so tight. Also, I think many knew that the availability of capital was unnaturally high and that they shouldn’t plan as if those conditions would continue.
- fidotron 3y agoA huge part of modern startup culture is to put on a happy face in all situations to project an aura of confidence. Cynics would call it fake it until you make it, but for many businesses if they don’t look secure they will find it harder to get new customers in order to survive.
- moneywoes 3y agoWhat's the opportunity here, bigger companies consolidate markets?
- fairity 3y agoI think behind most big failures (at least the ones where meaningful revenue was generated) is a healthy, sustainable business idea. Oftentimes, the founders just grew too fast or flew too close to the sun. So, there’s an opportunity to pick up the pieces and rebuild, or start from scratch with the learnings. In most cases, the firm handling liquidation auctions off the firm’s assets, so if you have the motivation to pick up the pieces and grind out a sustainable business, you can usually purchase the tech and customer lists for six or low seven figures (varies based on size of business of course). If you actually pursue this, my advice is to make your offer as simple as possible (don’t ask for a bunch of diligence) and set an expiration on your offer so they don’t shop around. The liquidators are often not incentivized to maximize value - they just want to finish the project as painlessly as possible.
- neonate 3y agohttps://archive.ph/iulxE https://archive.ph/iulxE
- Mistletoe 3y agoFrom another article: "Between the lines: The shipping and logistics markets have turned south since the pandemic era's boomtimes." I think what you mean is this business makes no sense when interest rates aren't zero and investors aren't looking for places to stuff money. >The trucking marketplace gained a lot of buzz a few years ago, raising over $670 million from top investors like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Capital G, Greylock, Y Combinator, and Fidelity.
- nevir 3y agoMy navel-gazing take (as a very early Convoy person): It is really hard to get the kind of exponential efficiency gains in this space that a 'blitzscale'-focused startup needs in order to really succeed. Trucking is an industry that relies heavily on relationships (trucker <-> broker, broker <-> shipper, broker <-> facility, etc), and you're not going to change that (required for true automation) without already being at an absurdly large scale. Convoy spent too much effort on chasing things that had the potential to give the company those exponential gains without addressing the high-touch nature of the industry (but were just not a good fit, and ultimately fell flat). And Convoy—conversely—had very little incentive to spend most of its effort on iterative improvements to the core brokerage (which would have probably led to profitability, but not the kind of returns that VCs ultimately want)
- duxup 3y agoYeah that relationship is important and no reason any given trucker, carrier, broker can't just offer lower rates and suddenly you're out of the picture. You gotta offer more than just a rate...
- guidoism 3y agoI honestly thought the original pitch had to do with self-driving trucks because in my mind how could it not.
- bagels 3y agoVertical integration is one way. I'm not saying it's easy or they would have succeeded, but it doesn't have to rely on so many other parties. Definitely would require tremendous scale.
- thegginthesky 3y agoI work for one of their competitors and I can empathize with them. My thoughts goes to all the employees and their families. The Freight business is collapsing after an unrealistic high during the pandemic. Since April 2022, revenue per load has decreased to about 70%, this means less ways to generate a profit under the same headcount. We also saw a decrease in volume as companies overstocked and consumer spending has shrunk to less than 50% of what it used to be. Just add it all up and you see why so many companies are collapsing, carriers and brokers alike. Though market.
- monero-xmr 3y agoI think Flock Freight will be the next shutdown. Rough industry.
- extr 3y agoTook an interview with them last year. Glad I didn't proceed.
- Workaccount2 3y agoThis just made me realize that things are back in stock regularly again. I suppose it happened slowly so I didn't notice, but shortages seem to be totally gone and things are back to 2019 stock levels.
- h2odragon 3y agoThe shelves may have stuff one them, but there's like 4 bags of each of 6 brands, instead of 24 brands.
- hshsbs84848 3y agoNot everything, cars still have super long wait times if you buy new Especially hybrid or PHEV
- h2odragon 3y ago> consumer spending has shrunk to less than 50% of what it used to be and you're in a position to be concerned with the accuracy of your numbers, i assume. CNN Tuesday: "US retail sales rose in September for the sixth-straight month" https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/17/economy/retail-sales-september/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/17/economy/retail-sales-septembe... ... id be interested in your thoughts on the apparent conflict of viewpoint there.
- gcampos 3y agoTo think that 1 year ago they were aggressively spamming me for an engineering position there. How you go from "hyper growth mode" (according to the recruiter email) to closed operations within 13 months?
- tmshu1 3y ago“Hyper growth mode” = hiring as fast as possible. Startups gotta borrow and spend their way to success, and fast, ya know. Can’t keep the VC’s waiting on their returns.
- boringg 3y agoEasy - high burn rate and no revenue.
- baq 3y agoLose 90% revenue in 1 quarter
- whalesalad 3y agoNot everyone knows how to run a company successfully, despite hyper growth fervor. Just look at FTX lol.
- eli 3y agoWhy didn’t employees get more notice? Why wasn’t WARN Act triggered?
- adastra22 3y agoCompany shutdown != layoff.
- eli 3y agoYes it does though? The legal entity of the company still exists, it’s just no longer conducting business or paying employees. Thats a mass layoff. The California version of the WARN Act explicitly covers terminating business operations.
- adastra22 3y agoIf the company is actually shutting down (is it?) then no, the legal entity will not exist for much longer.
- paulddraper 3y agoOkay, sue them.
- benced 3y ago> A "faltering company" is not required to give notice of a layoff or plant closing when, before the plant closing, it is actively seeking capital or business, which if obtained would avoid or postpone the layoff or clo- sure, and if it reasonably believes that advance notice would hurt its ability to find the capital or business it needs to continue operating https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/Layoff/pdfs/WorkerWARN2003.pdf https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/Layoff/pdfs/Worke...
- duxup 3y agoIs all they had was a sorta bid board and lots of spot rates with small carriers? That's a recipe for disaster if prices move...
- legitster 3y agoWhat would a buyer have even been purchasing in this scenario? A bunch of talented employees? Cool, they are all on the market anyway. A bunch of tiny commodity contracts? Why? A pile of code? Is it particularly hard to recreate? Valuations are having a big wake-up call across the industry. While a company can be more than the sum of its parts, VC-backed tech companies have really struggled in industries where unit-economics rule.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- fullshark 3y agoProbably patents mostly, perhaps around some novel hardware the buyer wants to utilize.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Johnie 3y agoIn addition, you take on the debt and the loan portfolio that it's responsible for.
- e2e4 3y ago> What would a buyer have even been purchasing in this scenario? > A pile of code? Is it particularly hard to recreate? I think you are buying time. Yes, code could be written, but would probably take at least a year. Additionally, money-wise what matters is net, even if something is overpriced, all that matters in the end, can you make more than you've spent. p.s. thanks for the interesting question to ponder and discuss
- jsdwarf 3y agoTrucking startup? Convoy sounds like an ordinary freight exchange to me, where truckers trade available loading space against transport orders. For each assigned order, the trucker pays a transaction fee to the platform. Plus there are additional services like factoring: get paid immediately by the platform instead of 30 days later by the shipper, platform usually keeps 5% commission for this. Dozens of platforms like this exist in Europe, not sure why everybody makes a fuss about it.
- sharkweek 3y agoAnyone here looking at this and wanting to tie it into broader market trends should read the following: https://www.freightwaves.com/news/freight-brokerage-bubble-bursting-as-freight-markets-face-long-winter https://www.freightwaves.com/news/freight-brokerage-bubble-b... Great deep dive into how drastically the freight market has shifted the last 12 months and the likelihood that Convoy will be the first of many more to fall in coming months. Fascinating explainer of a market I didn’t know much about, especially the terms (covenants) laid out by banks that float the money on shipping accounts receivables.
- JohnMakin 3y agoReading a lot of comments it's clear to me some of the people commenting have never been through a startup in its final phases. At least in my case, it was well obvious to everyone 1+ year before it happened because repeated attempts at funding kept failing, parties got smaller/disappeared, pay freezes, layoffs, snacks in the fridge started getting slimmer and slimmer pickings. The worst part though is when you're in that spot you should jump ship, unfortunately, there are sunk cost fallacies involved and sometimes a fair amount of equity that makes you want to try to hold on for just one more month. Who knows, maybe a miracle will happen or a deal will be closed. I did not appreciate in my scenario that the founder REJECTED a buy offer for what would have been a life changing amount of money for me, because he thought it was too low. We were gone less than a year later, and in the final 4 months, we didn't receive paychecks and were told if we left it'd ruin an acquisition and we'd screw all of our coworkers over. So that wasn't fun. We never got bought and were peddled around the country like prized cattle to disinterested companies that didn't want or understand our tech. Very miserable.
- djmips 3y ago> I did not appreciate in my scenario that the founder REJECTED a buy offer for what would have been a life changing amount of money for me, because he thought it was too low. Same scenario for me - so I left - and then shortly after they did sell. Argh.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kepano 3y agoIt's the same story over and over (Deliverr, Flexport, Amazon, Shopify, etc) 1. the entire ecomm supply chain got way ahead of their skis during the pandemic thinking boom times would never end 2. no matter how good your software is, supply chain is cutthroat — a motivated low-tech salesperson can always undercut you 3. margins are razor thin, so if you're subsidizing prices with VC money to buy growth you can easily rug yourself 4. when the storm comes to supply chain, the ones who stay alive are those with the biggest balance sheet and diversified business (e.g. Amazon)
- bombcar 3y agoThe other reason we'll see it in these businesses first is it's entirely measurable - did you get the shipment where it needed to go without destroying it? Nothing else matters beyond that and the price. And it's entirely fungible - nobody cares if it's UPS or FedEx or some random truck that delivers stuff to Walmart or whatever. The only way they had a chance was getting their APIs so ingrained in companies they couldn't switch, and companies are rightly suspicious of that.
- wg0 3y agoWhen there's no buyer what happens to all the code/IP? I mean there must be something functional anyway at this point no matter how lean and mean.
- __coaxialcabal 3y agoThis…not to mention NOLs, contracts, MSAs, etc. At some level there is a market price for these “assets”. Maybe we need an eBay for near bankrupt startups? The bankers aren’t getting it done.
- umeshunni 3y agowhat's an NOL?
- __coaxialcabal 3y agohttps://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/netoperatingloss.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/netoperatingloss.asp
- ryandrake 3y ago> When there's no buyer what happens to all the code/IP? I'll start the bidding at $1
- throwaway9274 3y agoHopefully the ZIRP idea that dies is that VC and Big Tech can create companies off a conveyer belt. VCs today go after shiny baubles, like “27 innovators under 27” nonsense, and have forgotten they’re mainly looking for high talent very resilient technical weirdos and any other characteristics are bonus.
- hexo 3y agoWhat was this company about?
- thegginthesky 3y agoFreight broker that wanted to use technology to automate the work of finding trucks, managing the communication between truck, shipper and facilities, and auditing the job of moving the load. But the job is very high revenue (thousands of dollars per cargo depending on the distance) but low profit (5%-10%) in these times.
- nojvek 3y agoWow! I did not expect this. Convoy was hiring like crazy at one point, touting how fast they are growing and how much money they have raised. They were going to be the Uber for Trucking.
- joneholland 3y agoFrom what I can tell, convoy has not filed for bankruptcy protection yet, which indicates that after dumping the load of their payroll, they believe they can remain solvent long enough to continue to shop their tech stack around. That’s kinda disgusting imo. People deserve severances.
- v1l 3y agoThe entitlement in the comments for severance, healthcare etc baffles me. You were paid a salary for your services while you were employed. You didn't give more, they didn't pay less. Now you're not - that's the end of the contract. Yes, it's a nice thing some companies do when they lay people off but that can't be an expectation.
- margalabargala 3y agoPeople say that, but it's not really true. Employees do much more than they are contractually obligated to. There's a reason why "work to rule", meticulously doing exactly and only what one is required to, is functionally a strike. Same with why there was all the uproar over "quiet quitting", where a worker only did their minimum job duties. So this is as acceptable as "quiet quitting" is. In an industry where it's normal to do more than the bare minimum legally required, someone who does no more than the minimum required is blackballing themselves. These c-levels will never start a successful company again.
- whatilearned 3y ago[dead]
- xyst 3y agoNever heard of this company. Thought it was another automated trucking company. Bloomberg profile of the company shows it’s actually a platform for truckers (finding “routes”), and larger companies to manage routes, their fleets, and status of delivery. Most of this appears to rely on GPS. Not sure why this was valued at $3.8B. Wall Street investment bankers smoking crack while evaluating this one.
- paulddraper 3y ago> Never heard of this company. Well that puts you in a perfect position to value it.
- chadash 3y agoBecause trucking is an enormous industry and $3.8b is a tiny slice. Sure, it's a tough nut to crack, but if someone does crack it they can be worth a lot more than that.
- hshsbs84848 3y agoIt was basically Uber for truckers
- revel 3y agoThere are some really profound misunderstandings of how bankruptcy and credit work in this thread. Creditors are ranked by seniority and get paid out in order by seniority. Equity is below every creditor and has been completely wiped out. Companies are not allowed to take cash or sell the furniture to pay out employees. That money is legally owed to creditors and attempting to stiff them is theft. I'm sorry to those affected at Convoy, but that is the reality of working at a startup that goes through a hasty liquidation. Convoy is not being "cheap" about this, as some are suggesting. Any "retention bonuses" are to keep executives around for long enough to unwind the company in an orderly fashion. Nobody is getting rich off failure; if everyone were to walk away there'd be nothing left and therefore nothing to recover and distribute. It's bad for everyone, but the alternative is worse. As for the larger situation: Convoy were a digital freight brokerage. They acted as intermediaries between shippers and carriers and make money on the spread between the two. They got into trouble because the entire freight sector has been suffering a double whammy of cost increases due to inflation (ie. diesel costs) and a slowdown in demand. This has caused a number of carriers and brokerages to go bust. Freight brokerage has some other properties that make Convoy's situation particularly serious. In particular, carriers typically securitize their accounts receivable. In freight, this is known as "factoring." Convoy got stuck holding the bag after their partner carriers went under, having already paid them for their service, but still waiting for payment from the shipper. Worst of all, Convoy had no exits because their only potential acquirers are in the same industry and are also getting completely crushed.
- stuaxo 3y agoI've worked in the UK for Glu Mobile, who were taken over by EA and all the UK and US staff let go. The US staff had to just go. I got my last month's pay + about 6 to 8 weeks.
- paulddraper 3y ago> who were taken over by EA Yes, what happens in an acquisition vs a insolvency are different.
- batmansmk 3y ago
- stuaxo 3y agoReally terrible labour laws they can just tell you it's your last day.
- paulddraper 3y agoIf they run out of money, for sure. Do you want to foot the bill?
- asimovfan 3y agoWell with proper labor laws in place, that bill could be secured in expense of the shareholders. A wage labourer should be able to expect to know if they will be able to feed their families the next month.
- paulddraper 3y ago> in expense of the shareholders. Lol, lose more money than invested. > A wage labourer should be able to expect to know if they will be able to feed their families the next month. A wage laborer should make $1,000,000 per year.
- asimovfan 3y agoThey already do lose a lot of money if things go south. Its a risk they should, as investors, be willing to take. If their idea is successful, as they expected, they will make it back. Wage labourers lose a lot of time and money invested as well, when their livelihood is taken away from them, do they not count?
- drewcoo 3y agoWe normally talk about the risk burden of founders (we're all either founders or will be soon, right?). We don't often talk about how everyone involved in a business takes on risk. This is a great example of all the employees risking being cut off from funds and health care. Those employees won't be lionized for "learning from their mistakes" when they get a new (better paying?) job, will they? Those employees also didn't get a say in how the company was run despite the fact that they were taking a serious risk, too. Probably a more serious risk than a founder, given that most founders are wealthy or backed by wealth. Convoy closing sucks. But it does not suck at all as an illustration of the problems in startup culture . . .
- paulddraper 3y ago> most founders are wealthy or backed by wealth Back that up
- acyou 3y agoMoney losing VC backed transportation brokerage goes broke. Doesn't sound like this amazing ripe area for automation anyways as long as truckers are still at the wheel. Can't imagine they were adding much if any value.
- trucking 3y agoAre they not going to pay us? We hauled the load from convoy but didn’t get the payment that was supposed to released yesterday. I tried calling them but nobody answered.we are just a small company and we are not getting paid for the we have done. Diesel is so expensive. Do I have pay expense out of my pocket?
- ilamont 3y agoYou should check the bankruptcy documentation and register as a creditor. Sorry to hear this, too … what was your experience working with Convoy?
- trucking 3y agoAre we not getting paid? I hauled a load from convoy and I supposed to get my payment yesterday but didn’t get any. I tried calling them but nobody answered my call. Diesel is so expensive. Are we not getting the payment that we worked for?
- juliangmp 3y agoI'm a bit confused by the fact that the article doesn't seem to mention what the company was even trying to do. Like they had 1500 people at their peek... what were they doing? What was the business model here? Just farm investment and pull out before they notice you dont actually have any idea what to do?
- ejb999 3y agosucks for employees, but lets be honest - if you worked at a company of 1500 people, and you watched that number dwindle to 500 over the course of a year, unless you lived under a rock, you pretty much knew this day was coming. Exec's can probably be faulted to waiting until the last minute/dollar to close up shop to see if they could pull a rabbit out of the hat - but it seems there were about 500 employees also hoping against all hope that said rabbit would be pulled. Advice for employees - when the writing is on the wall, read it, and plan/act accordingly - best to start interviewing for a new job before everyone else from the same company, in the same area, is doing the same thing.
- userinanother 3y ago[flagged]