am sharing this documented account to prevent exploitation by the co-founders of Shapes Inc., a company that raised $4.2 Million from Lightspeed Venture Partners. Their deliberate conduct proves their model involves deceit and intentional non-payment to harvest high-value technical feedback.
The Incident Timeline:
Contract Fraud (Bait-and-Switch): On November 6th, co-founder Anushk offered $100 for a 30-minute consultation. This offer was unilaterally and without notice reduced to $50 for 15 minutes, demonstrating immediate founder deceit.
Product Deception: During the November 9th session, the co-founder actively lied about my user status, falsely claiming I was among the first new users. This directly contradicts the company’s history: a forced shutdown of a 10M+ user Discord community due to Developer Terms of Service violations. They are actively deceiving contractors about their true operational status.
Intentional Breach: Despite two formal warnings and a non-negotiable deadline (6:00 PM MST, Nov 11th), the founders chose sustained silence. Their refusal to pay a simple $50 debt, despite $4.2M in funding, confirms a calculated strategy of exploiting contractors.
Investor Notification: All documented evidence, including the full email correspondence detailing the fraud and breach of contract, has been formally submitted to Lightspeed Venture Partners for immediate due diligence.
Conclusion:
A company with this level of funding that intentionally breaches a contract and risks its reputation over a negligible $50 debt demonstrates fundamental ethical liability. Developers and contractors should exercise extreme caution when dealing with this company.
I am sharing this publicly to warn others and ensure these actions have consequences.
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45895200
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Source: news.ycombinator.com
