I couldn’t sell because the company is in $200k in debt with invoices over 3 months old (and another being $100k in due invoices) and if any of those companies came to collect we’d ruin someone’s supply chain and be forced to close our doors. How is one expected to sell a product that doesn’t actually exist?
The company is a freight brokerage and was destined to fail due to the owner being egotistical, greedy and lazy. The business seemed to be more of a vanity project than an actual business as he wouldn’t pickup the phone when key clients would call him to express concern.
I knew we had a problem when I called him 5 times and texted him 6 times to get an issue resolved with our factoring company (handles carrier payment and customer payment collection while giving us the remainder we’re owed) because the accountant, a friend of mine (who is really just a payroll accountant) wasn’t given authority to make decisions concerning factoring. Well the factoring company director didn’t go for it as she needed to talk to the contract holder and ceased our payments from other companies to collect.
We had over $300k seized up as a result for over two months. And had to back pay carriers. He also hired people (paid them starting bonuses) to persuade them to join even though they were unfit for the position (easy position) but the guy would cost us $40k in two months because he isn’t thorough.
We also took huge projects while being understaffed and already having a lot on our plate of which. He simply had me finish the project because he no longer wanted to do it because he saw the money but did not see the potential for error.
He even harassed my best friend on a casual “friend” trip calling her “Precious” in a group setting over a disagreement. She is very body conscious. Of which he later “promoted” her to GM and giving her these responsibilities (company of only 5 people) because she was keeping the organization running operationally.
His attitude was always we can find new customers but would barely try to retain our previous customers. As of my departure they only made like $12k last month due to port congestion. Which doesn’t even cover the employee expenses and of that $12k most of it is supposed to be used to pay carrier. We have a credit score of 26/100 with a 50 days to pay on DAT (Beyond Horrible). The next lowest was a 92/100 with 20 days to pay.
The new sales guy he hired last November expressed that he can’t sell if the company doesn’t fix its issues as he would be jeopardizing his book of business because we already dropped the ball on the customer he had provided us. He left the owner an extremely detailed list of issues via email (I no longer have access to).
The only reason they’re still in business is because they would delay payment to other carriers in order to eek out as much time as possible and ultimately pay themselves. (Thanks to the accountant trying to manage what little funds they had left).
Meanwhile they’re hosting team building exercises like virtual watch parties and virtual karaoke while the ship is sinking around them. We used to have hour long meetings discussing a damn “work retreat” this year that would cost a bare minimum of $20k to the Dominican Republic.
The owner ended up being a manipulative, gaslighting, megalomaniac and quite frankly I’m relieved to be free of the toxic environment. Thinking back the moment he said that we’re a family early on I should have dipped. He attempts to become friends with people to use them.
Sorry for the rant. It goes to show that small companies/startups are not free of scrutiny.