So let's get this straight.
1. There was negative pressure on PostMates' business model sustainability
2. Speculation that the numbers didn't work
3. PostMates is in the process of raising new funding
4. It is in PostMates' best interest to get a positive news buzz going about its business model and numbers to raise valuation of the company in a new round of funding.
5. Financials are "leaked" that show the numbers look better than expected. (Thank you TechCrunch)
6. New round of funding is closed at a higher valuation than what it would have been if these documents were not "leaked" (Speculation based on how investors follow herd mentality)
7. PostMates founders do a high five (Speculation on my part)
There was the same "horrible" thing going on with Uber's financials a while back. The last sentence by TechCrunch back then "...If the readings....are correct though, Uber is in fantastic shape...". PR nicely done.
I guess if you don't pay for the journalism, you shouldn't expect them to provide services like "not being a propaganda mouthpiece".
Not trying to single out TechCrunch; it's a major public goods problem that was solved pre-internet by the difficulty of copying newspapers, so companies could profit by doing thorough research and fact-checking. I hope they solve it by some kind of "one payment, all-you-can-eat, payout-in-proportion-to-views" system.
One could argue a "leak" creates more buzz? A bigger sense of momentum and out-performance?
Also they'd face less scrutiny if the there's some creativity in the numbers. "It's just an internal document, you can't blame us".
I could also think of a scenario where there's some internal conflict and somebody wanted to get the numbers released. Tho ofc it wouldn't be "in PostMates' best interest" anymore perhaps.
Private companies generally prefer to keep their financial statements secret. If your default policy isn't "we never share" then people will assume the worst unless you share. "Leaking" gets around that.
Also, if a company is doing much better than expected, they don't want their competitors to see their margins.
"They are now in the process of raising new funding, although we’re told they have at least half of the financing from the last round in the bank. Existing investors are expected to participate. Some are hoping that the company could eventually even IPO."
Yap, well done. A bit transparent and obvious though.
This is how government disseminates some news They are "leaked" via "unnamed govt officials". Doing it via a "leak" works in some cases better.
The other use of leaks is to public opinion. "Leak" a little bit of a story. See how public reacts. If doesn't react well, re-phrase. If it does, do a full release.
On the broader subject, even if numbers are quite good, there are many reasons why private companies do not want this data to be out in public. Any investor who needs to see the data on Postmates will be seeing it as they fundraise, as that is a relatively small pool of people.
I suspect this factor is the likeliest explanation for the leak. Investors would have access to financials anyway and I can't think of what benefit it would bring to corporate employees.
If it were a public company, I'd agree with you. I don't think the motivations are the same for a private company as they have direct lines of communication with all of their investors.
Nah. This looks like a legit leak. There is no sane reason to do leak that. You are just validating the market for your competitors. Your investors are going to already have this data.
"nearly $500 million valuation. They are now in the process of raising new funding"
That's the reason. Positive buzz. Are you of the opinion that all these VCs and investors are geniuses that do intense due diligence? Or do they herd follow into what turn out to be terrible businesses (note: not saying Postmates necessarily is) all the time? I'm certainly in the camp of the latter.
How do you know what a legit leak looks like? It's certainly suspicious that this "leaked" shortly after some negative sentiment on "Uber"-like services.
If Postmates wants to keep doing well, they need to improve their customer service. A restaurant significantly overcharged me (or the driver bought dinner for himself?) and they wouldn't refund any of it. There are tons of similar comments on the app.
Postmates co-founder here. That is a sentiment and an observation i totally agree with. We're working hard to get this done and we're seeing some first positive signs. It will likely take us a good part of Q2 to get where we want to be though. It is a challenging aspect to our business but i'm 100% confident that we will succeed in making our CS interactions more meaningful and rewarding.
I should point out that we're really talking about two types of customer service experiences here. When it comes to our Plus merchants, we're facing way less challenges simply because we're interacting with them via tablets or electronic ordering. Where we don't succeed yet, is the customer service part of our Anywhere product. Here we don't have integrations with all merchants and the error rates are higher and so is the level of complexity when something goes wrong.
I should point out that we're really talking about two types of customer service experiences here. When it comes to our Plus merchants, we're facing way less challenges simply because we're interacting with them via tablets or electronic ordering. Where we don't succeed yet, is the customer service part of our Anywhere product. Here we don't have integrations with all merchants and the error rates are higher and so is the level of complexity when something goes wrong.
That's great, but it's your responsibility to manage this complexity. You should refund the money to your customers when there's an error, not give excuses.
Yeah, you're right, I didn't word that very well. I edited the comment (it used to say "No, sorry, you shouldn't point that out. You should refund the money…")
The co-founder acknowledged problems but offered reasons instead of a solution. I don't care how hard their job is, I care if they offered a solution for the specific person who complained. (They did not.)
If they know they're unable to cope with load they should auto-refund customers who ask rather than waiting till they ramp up their CS team. Misaligned incentives or what?
Exactly, this is not a company fighting against some force-of-nature problem, curing the sick, or fighting poverty... Explanations for why Postmates doesn't execute well on self-made problems shouldn't hold a lot of water.
I think this is a misunderstanding. I was referring to the first paragraph in my own comment. When it comes to your original comment: Yes, we should have just refunded you. I can look into this if you like.
I agree. Their customer support has declined significantly over the years due to what I assume to be growth and scaling pains. Then again, their early support methods included a live phone operator.
However, it's still no excuse for what they have today. Their support, in my experience, is often lackluster at best and requires the consumer to basically beg for a resolution.
I love Postmates and will continue to use them, but competitors like Doordash who have awesome customer service[0] continue to woo me over to their side.
[0] - Had a bad delivery yesterday.. their support flow to select exactly what was wrong and what I wanted done about it (bring me new item, refund me, other).
I had my first bad experience yesterday. There was a big traffic accident and my order ended up taking over an hour. A cs rep called me to apologize and explain the situation and gave me the whole order for free. I didn't expect that at all. Plus, the sandwich was extra delicious and still warm. They pretty much won my lifetime loyalty with that one $15 gesture.
Exactly. Apparently they have the data, but they're saying things like "might be this", or "suggests that". You have the paperwork, how about you tell us what the numbers actually say? Or is the financial literacy so lacking in the Valley that a mainstream tech blog can't figure these things out from the financials?
Not to be that guy, but isn't this one case where we need to question the ethics of reporting on leaked documents? Especially when the files themselves seem to be leaked only to Techcrunch. So the cat isn't out of the bag yet, and there really is no public interest / whistleblowing that TC is serving when they post numbers here. Seems sketchy at best to me. Unless they were "leaked" deliberately, which isn't much better, but for different reasons.
I'm impressed by their plan to 5X their top-line in one year and improve their margin at the same time (which would indicate either raising prices or reducing subsidies).
Or getting more API partners or converting more suppliers to use the sponsored/promoted placement within the app.
And 5x top-line growth in a year isn't completely crazy at all for a growth-stage startup of Postmates's size. Aside from normal organic/word-of-mouth and paid growth, they can also launch in new markets.
This is admittedly anecdotal, but they seem to be driving at least some of their growth through dodgy tactics. Last time I stayed in a Vegas hotel, I went down in the morning and found a Postmates flyer on my car encouraging me to use their service while I was in town. I'm fairly certain that no large casino would give them permission to do this.
If they are doing this kind of thing in cities everywhere, I can see them growing pretty fast, as long as no one sues them or otherwise stops their "growth hacking" plans.
2. Speculation that the numbers didn't work
3. PostMates is in the process of raising new funding
4. It is in PostMates' best interest to get a positive news buzz going about its business model and numbers to raise valuation of the company in a new round of funding.
5. Financials are "leaked" that show the numbers look better than expected. (Thank you TechCrunch)
6. New round of funding is closed at a higher valuation than what it would have been if these documents were not "leaked" (Speculation based on how investors follow herd mentality)
7. PostMates founders do a high five (Speculation on my part)
8. Mission Accomplished