Mostly the utter lack of anything remotely resembling research or planning. By their own admission, they learnt a lot of basic facts AFTER they’d already jumped head in. How do you take on another company’s liability with no idea how much it would cost to deliver on it? Set up a manufacturing process and then realise you’re paying double the unit price of a factory in China? Or not even realise that there’s no goodwill to be had from the former customers of the company they’re taking over?
Yeah. I don’t really disagree with any of that but the first time you play chess you are going to do a bad job. It looks super simple from the outside in hindsight, but at the time it’s super easy to make boneheaded decisions. Ask me about the time we agreed to do a software project for fixed price, or put the world’s worst project manager in charge of a vital project for an important client. Or did a ton of work for which the formula which determined how much we would be paid turned out to add up to basically a handful of monkey shit every month. Shit happens. The second time around, with some experience, you’re usually able to do a better job of it.
Also for what it’s worth it doesn’t really sound like the post author’s fault, it sounds like he got hired by a company which was in the midst of trying to do some stuff which they had no qualifications for but were making a go of it anyway. And, to their credit, they were trying to build American and fulfill their obligations to some semi-related kickstarter campaigns which are both nice things for them to be making a go of trying to do.
Mostly the utter lack of anything remotely resembling research or planning. By their own admission, they learnt a lot of basic facts AFTER they’d already jumped head in. How do you take on another company’s liability with no idea how much it would cost to deliver on it? Set up a manufacturing process and then realise you’re paying double the unit price of a factory in China? Or not even realise that there’s no goodwill to be had from the former customers of the company they’re taking over?
Yeah. I don’t really disagree with any of that but the first time you play chess you are going to do a bad job. It looks super simple from the outside in hindsight, but at the time it’s super easy to make boneheaded decisions. Ask me about the time we agreed to do a software project for fixed price, or put the world’s worst project manager in charge of a vital project for an important client. Or did a ton of work for which the formula which determined how much we would be paid turned out to add up to basically a handful of monkey shit every month. Shit happens. The second time around, with some experience, you’re usually able to do a better job of it.
Also for what it’s worth it doesn’t really sound like the post author’s fault, it sounds like he got hired by a company which was in the midst of trying to do some stuff which they had no qualifications for but were making a go of it anyway. And, to their credit, they were trying to build American and fulfill their obligations to some semi-related kickstarter campaigns which are both nice things for them to be making a go of trying to do.
Oh I’m not saying the author is to blame. He’s just some graphics guy. The picture he paints, however…