Another Twin Cities-based dotcom bit the dust yesterday. I know the founders of Wwwrrr and some of the 120 people who worked there. Just last summer, one of the founders was giving me helpful feedback on my Real Joe business plan. Employees didn’t get paid for their last week of work as they tried to put together a last minute buyout deal. The paper says that after employees returned from a two-week unpaid leave over the holidays, they discovered that they had no health insurance. Ouch.
It’s got to be a tough way to fold a company. It’s one thing to fail but if the ending has employees feeling screwed (I don’t know if this is the case), then it would likely leave a bad memory for everyone involved, even if it was generally a great work experience. I sure hope to hell I’ll never have to do that. But in some ways, I’m running this risk now. I’ve gone too long without hanging out my shingle to bring in some extra income. I can now see how it could happen to me on a larger scale… and helps me to not be judgmental of the folks running the show at Wwwrrr.