The only people "relying" on this are other startups whose VC benefactors force them to use other products under their portfolio in order to goose up their numbers.

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b65e8bee43c2ed0 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

that makes so much sense. I always wondered how the fuck did all those ZIRP era "hello world as a service" bullshit startups have any customers at all.

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CityOfThrowaway an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I've raised venture from a lot of the big firms (and a lot of small firms) and have never had any of them attempt to force me to use anything.

	▲	rafram 29 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Go to the website of pretty much any AI startupslop, Google who led their series A, then Google who led the series A of the other AI startups (it’s always other AI startups) whose logos they show as users/testimonials/case studies on their landing page. You’ll start seeing a pattern.
	▲	windexh8er an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		You may not even see it. I worked in a startup whose founder had money dipped into about a dozen products in the cyber security vertical. Many of those startups, I later found out, had access or used products from others in his portfolio. Basically taking $50k and cycling it through all of them buying something from the other one. I doubt it was a money laundering scheme, but it sure was convenient to just add logos of "customers" to the Nascar pitch slide.
	▲	gneray an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		+1