Been there done that several times over. One PT bookkeeper would only do books if they also got paid to process payroll which like the books was always behind. They did a good job on the books but I have small brick and mortar biz's. While I can wait a bit for books I can't to get my employees paid correctly, once someone's payroll isn't right/paychecks take longer/etc it gets heated.
Another would produce books that required a lot of work from my CPA which made the CPA a lot more expensive.
I've had it pretty easy - friends of mine have had PT/local bookkeepers do every form of damage you can think of - it's a messy world for SMB books. And those are nothing compared to the carnage I've observed small biz's with an employee PT or FT in house doing the books.
Nitter's been dead for about a year at this point. I'm pretty sure any Nitter instance still running is using some abstract method and not the actual Nitter system.
It's the same Nitter, but using real accounts instead of the "guest accounts" that were used previously.
"Guest accounts" were accounts you could generate to access Twitter without actually signing up, but then Elon Musk killed them so then Nitter was basically declared dead because most people don't want to spend time making tons of actual accounts to run a Nitter instance and then Elon Musk also made the ratelimits stricter so you needed even more accounts.
Some of the bigger Nitter instances used thousands of guest accounts.
Nitter also offers better UX for those who just want to read a Twitter thread and not interact with it. It's been like that even before the Musk acquisition.
Thanks, does nitter still work? Thought it was running into trouble so used xcancel with ok results.
However, I've found that 'the only winning move has been not to play'. Anytime I venture back it's like my psyche entering the matrix and always coming off worse.
Yes it is. If they had written “if you’re posting about hamburgers you need to reevaluate your life” that would be a post expressing their opinion about hamburgers.
> Your post above is a failed attempt at a petty gotcha.
Aside from the poster I was talking to not appearing to agree with you (they immediately made another Elon post), no, it isn’t. If upon seeing the phrase “I don’t like hamburger” I am swept up with an urge to dunk and say “re evaluate your life choices for talking about hamburger” it is very obvious that I’ve taken my time to tell you that I have strong feelings about hamburger and take issue with the position taken, not the subject matter.
Seeing as they then wrote “elon hate is real” moments after my response, it is doubly clear that the issue isn’t mention of the guy but rather any negative mention of the guy.
If I go out of my way to police any negative mention of something, that is a direct expression of how I value that thing.
(The post has since been edited to “obsession with elon is real”, which, yes, it is. Some folks absolutely cannot scroll past that name without it sparking an urge to dunk)
With all due respect to the founder, it's impossible to know, even in hindsight, whether things in a startup would have been similar, better, or worse. This is not an endorsement to firing the CEO or saying that the board was capable in any way. This founder or CEO trap is more common that we think about. It is not only a Steve Jobs story. Founders know that giving equity and power to others include risks.
I advise caution in believing his statements to be true, particularly about Bench’s board and investors. The truth will live in their financial statements, which no doubt will be revealed in bankruptcy proceedings in the coming months.
Ian, I emailed you a couple years ago when I felt Bench had become worse and worse for customers. I was sad to discover that you’d left and I felt the difference was definitely attributable to your departure. I switched providers shortly thereafter.
So, speaking as a former customer, the tragedy and timeline you mention pass the sniff test for me. So glad your next venture has been going well for you!
I’d like to clarify - and ought to have done above - that I’m not saying you’re lying in your Tweets. Just that the story of any business failure is often more nuanced than “investors are bad”. And that story may be revealed in court filings as I’m sure creditors will be going to court to get their money back in the coming months.
Pray tell, how was he possibly supposed to help the customers of the company he was fired from 3 years ago?
I found his posts interesting. I was a Bench customer for several years until we sold our business, and I appreciate the background information about the bullet we dodged.
You're arguing a different point. The old CEO claims it's his absence that caused the failure, not the presence of the new CEO. You're arguing that it's the presence of the new CEO that caused the failure. GP is pointing out that if the absence of the old CEO is what caused the company to fail as the old CEO claims, and not the actions of the new CEO, then it wasn't in good shape to start with.
Ah. That's a bit more sane for sure. Although with some big caveats. A founder can be crucial for a long time, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's a tradeoff. You don't want to spend time operationalizing the business before it's stable for example. That's just a waste of time. The board very well could be mistaken on which stage the business is in.
Bad investors and a dysfunctional board can destroy a company. When late-stage investors push to fire the CEO, they often do so to install a puppet CEO who will give them greater control over the board. This allows them to prioritize financial decisions that serve their own interests, often at the expense of other shareholders, such as early employees, whom they disregard.
You make a fair point. I would have liked him to elaborate more on the potential acquisition that was declined.
However, he mentioned they just raised $60 million. If his approach wasn’t working, why would anyone invest that amount? And if the plan was to fire him, given that his vote was required, wouldn’t it have been more transparent to say upfront: “If you reject the acquisition and opt for this $60 million investment instead, we’re going to fire you”?
I agree that the financial statements will be a key artifact of truth + I cannot speak to the validity of the statements made by Ian as I have no context or knowledge of Bench outside of my experience of being a long time customer.
However I can, albeit anecdotally from my perspective, say that I felt there was a marked difference in Bench's quality/service/responsiveness/performance/etc about 3yrs ago. This aligns with the timeline given by the former CEO in his post for his departure.
Kick is not affiliated with Bench in any way. We've onboarded a significant number of customers from Bench onto Kick before this happened, so this may have been why were were mentioned.
We're working fast right now to try to provide resources and help Bench users migrate and will be sharing updates here: https://x.co/kickfinance
Thanks Conrad however in the interest of clarity + transparency can you add some insight/details into how/why this statement came about in both the shut down email customers got today + what is currently posted on the Bench.co page?
"For continued support with your bookkeeping, we recommend exploring Kick, a modern accounting software, which has created an exclusive offer to handle your ongoing needs: kick.co/bench."
Having an "exclusive offer" listed in the initial closure communication/announcement + you having a landing page ready to go sounds like there was more to Bench just happening to mention Kick because your company has "onboarded a significant number of customers from Bench onto Kick before this happened"...
Hopefully you'll get an answer from Conrad, but the landing page does not mention the shutdown, so I would point out when I was comparison shopping something else recently, their website had dedicated pages to why you should choose them over each major competitor, and a switching discount is also not uncommon.
It's entirely possible this landing page is Kick's competitive offer, and Bench linked to it because it offers all the people they just screwed over by collapsing a discount.
Good point! I like what I see so far in Kick. It's just given the level of pain Bench has just caused me, my businesses, and a couple very unlucky employees in my office + the financial cost = I have to make super duper sure Kick is not related to/involved with Bench in any way shape or form.
If they asked Kick to be listed as an alternative in the closure email or asked them to do a discount nbd I have no issue there. I just want the full story given Bench events.
I am not related to any of the parties in this dolce, but I did discontinue a product once.
On the shutdown page I listed some alternatives people could try. I found them via Google, but i didn't first try them or talk to them.
They were really just a helpful hint for folk wanting to change to get started. (The thing I was killing was a product not a service so it wasn't going to actually stop working, it was just no longer being updated.)
So, in this case, a simple statement of fact (as above) would be good enough for me. But feel free to do your due diligence.
Does shutting down mean bankruptcy? My businesses will have real damages from this - both the money that has been paid to bench all year for now no output of annual books/a financial summary as well as the cost of now having to pay to redo my 2024 books.
Another would produce books that required a lot of work from my CPA which made the CPA a lot more expensive.
I've had it pretty easy - friends of mine have had PT/local bookkeepers do every form of damage you can think of - it's a messy world for SMB books. And those are nothing compared to the carnage I've observed small biz's with an employee PT or FT in house doing the books.