Kia Ora,
Today I'm speaking up! We’ve had some super shameful and unethical BAD BUSINESS happening in Aotearoa’s Small Business Ecosystem from a few well known bad actors. Today, let's address it so we can help educate and protect others. Soooo…………
Here’s a few tips of what NOT TO DO:
DON’T wave the flag of savior/support for a group of minorities, when it’s been those same minorities that you have directly targeted and eventually exploited.
DON’T leverage someone else’s personal rolodex to deceive initial investors with a 7 figure valuation without any proper DD, timeline and paperwork involved.
DON’T agree to a 50/50 business venture but then add additional shares with the Companies Office behind your new partners back without them even agreeing or being aware.
DON’T backchannel personal contacts in public/private organisations to try gain confidential intel so you can try shield you/your business from any investigations.
DON’T fraudulently report 6 figures of expenses to ANY type of agency (especially government).
DON’T try setup a clear bait and switch 'project' to quickly raise external funds to try clear debt without other shareholders/investors finding out.
DON’T claim equality/transparency to your business partners whilst withdrawing 100% of revenue for months and then blame ‘accounting’ when its audited.
DON’T leverage and exploit a partners public profile and database claiming it as your own to gain a 6 figure sponsorship for a public campaign, then retain 100% of said funds for your own business.
DON’T document inaccurate information on shareholders reports to try craft a narrative which misleads directors/shareholders into factual current issues (inc. state of all pending legal proceedings).
DON’T mislead potential new partners by indicating well known industry players are lined up as possible new investors - when their CEO killed it in the back channels long ago.
DON’T advertise or publicly flex on any conference stage to be the co-founder and brains of a venture which you never even started and don’t even technically own.
DON’T bully/pressure a first time founder into giving up more shares of their company for your support/services/resources which were never rendered.
DON’T try to pressure previous service partners to sign a NDA to hide some of your shameful behaviour (NZ is a village).
DON’T promise a contractor company shares for their services, only to pull out after they’ve completed all the work.
DON’T pay yourself a salary without the knowledge of all other shareholders/directors.
DON’T pay out 'consulting fees' to your own partners without even talking to other shareholders/directors.
Finally, DON’T run a ‘private’ financial slack channel planning any type of BAD BUSINESS that isn’t actually private. (Yes this actually happened).
So - if you’re a corporate sponsor / gov agency looking into financing others - please do some ACTUAL DD. You’re there to protect and support SME’s - not let a WHOLE bunch of innocent kiwis and their businesses get rolled by these commercial/culture vultures. Founders deserve better - So does our ecosystem.
Finally to the BAD BUSINESS Captains behind all this - All of these people/companies completely trusted you. You screwed them - you really really hurt them and their whanau - And you've left many of them with nothing but mental anguish, emotional overload and commercial despair.
This whole thing gets me so gutted!
'Legacy over Currency'. And unfortunately, when the dust finally settles - many legacies will probably be finished.
Let the dominoes fall where they may.
- Robett Hollis
Ps. I will NOT be making any more comments on this publicly.
The fact that some of these even have to be documented is truly worrying.