Maybe don't take buckets of cash that you don't/shouldn't need? That $XXmm isn't free and is a good way to hand someone a leash tied around your neck.
It looks like Get Satisfaction raised $20mm. Why that much? Did all that money contribute towards success? Or was a good chunk of that money not utilized well? Why did the company tank? Were they not acquiring enough customers? Was their business model unsound? What forced the fire sale?
I don't think founders are supposed to get a big payout for a failure, but we need more info before agreeing with this sob story of founders who didn't get a dime.
The issue is that the founders were pushed out. Lane indicates that business tanked ever since they left, which is what presumably led to a fire sale.
It's one thing if the business tanks when founders are in-charge. You can blame them for failure and say it's fair that they din't get a dime. But why did the VCs take over the reigns? It's criminal to take over from founders and then run the business into the ground, like it seems to have happened here.
Of course, that Series B happened looooooong back. There was no Series C in the following year or two years after that, which might be why investors got jittery. The timing matters - did the founders get pushed out after a decent amount of time after the Series B? Or was it right after the investment? That would tell whether the VC had some reasonable cause to get desperate or they were just trying to "screw" the founders.
It looks like Get Satisfaction raised $20mm. Why that much? Did all that money contribute towards success? Or was a good chunk of that money not utilized well? Why did the company tank? Were they not acquiring enough customers? Was their business model unsound? What forced the fire sale?
I don't think founders are supposed to get a big payout for a failure, but we need more info before agreeing with this sob story of founders who didn't get a dime.