It's the death that shook the startup world.
Fast closed its doors weeks after damning articles revealed its dark side.
The startup died as fast as it rose to the top.
Months ago, Fast had raised $168 million and was taking the world by storm.
People loved the marketing campaigns.
Plus, the company promised to be the one-click shopping solution for everyone.
But behind the scenes, Fast was seconds away from an implosion.
Then, time ran out.
The company shut its doors, and that was it.
Fast disappeared.
So, how did it go from being the talk of the town to nothing in such a short time?
Is there more than meets the eye?
Let's dive into Fast in this episode of Company Forensics.
This story has two timelines that sometimes move in parallel and sometimes intertwine.
It's what we've seen countless times in Silicon Valley and still teaches us lessons.
In early April 2022, Fast's CEO Domm Holland took to social media to release a sad statement.
His company shut down following a series of articles that dug up dirt about him, his past,
and his startup.
He praised himself and did credit his employees.
But unfortunately, his vision failed to reach the tipping point, and, as we dig deeper,
we see that it would never do.
Fast was a company that wanted to make one-click shopping effortless.
Amazon had lost the patents to one-click payments in 2017, leading to hundreds of competitors.
Fast was one of the many companies trying to make it big with this technology that was
now available to everyone.
And I think that was one of the initial problems.
There was too much competition.
Big names such as Apple and PayPal were duking out with small but tough companies such as
Bolt and Shopify.
And, here was Fast, trying to outmuscle all of them.
But how?
Well, with the CEO.
Holland had one goal: to wow the world into believing in Fast.
If the startup was going to win this race, it'd be through marketing more than anything
else.
He played the eccentricity card from the start.
Fast was born in 2019 with 5000 hoodies for a dollar and genius social media.
That's how, months later, it had already raised $2.5 million and had no sign of slowing down.
Part of this initial success was Holland's storytelling.
He used this narrative of his grandmother struggling with online shopping as fuel for
Fast.
It wouldn't be the only time he'd use it.
Instead, it would be crucial for clearing all the mess up.
Besides the emotional aspect, there was the hype.
Holland's energy and charisma were contagious.
A year and a half after the release, the company raised $124 million in two rounds.
Its valuation had reached close to $600 million.
Part of this funding came from Stripe, a big name in the financial services sector.
And, yes, a company that could be both competition and a great backer to have.
Under Stripe, the company went through massive growth, but there was a problem.
The product wasn't close to working well.
It turns out that, all through 2019, Holland had rushed the product to get investors' attention.
That's nothing new in the startup world.
A flawed product at least gives an idea of the future.
But underneath it all, there were some red flags.
An NPR investigation revealed he hired engineers from Nigeria to work on the prototype, underpaying
them.
They were even part of the hype campaigns, attending conferences and wearing Fast merchandise.
But, three months later, he fired them on the spot.
No warning, no notice.
Then, he told investors that he had developed the platform himself.
And, it seems the world believed him.
Silicon Valley loved him because there was nothing new.
It was a brash CEO breaking the norm.
So, his antics were typical.
Plus, as a startup itself, Fast was going through the normal stages.
It had grown from 2 founders to 90.
But, then, it ballooned up to almost 400 employees.
The reason for this growth is a source of debate.
Some say it was Stripe's demand, while others say Holland wanted or needed growth.
After all, the product wasn't working.
Leaked documents revealed that the company had never been able to overcome many of the
challenges they face on the product side.
Fast bragged about having tons of companies use its product, but were they actually using it?
The clear answer it seems...It was No.
Close to 40% of the surveyed companies who had the product didn't offer it.
The software was hard to implement and even harder to convince businesses to make it visible.
Don't get me wrong.
Fast was fast when it worked, and the businesses used it.
But, this rarely happened. But before I go on we have to talk about today's sponsor which is Chartmogul.
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Let's get back to our video.
Let's face it.
It's no mystery that startup culture can turn toxic in an instant.
Fast was no different in the race to grow and meet massive sales goals.
Or was it?
A Business Insider investigation revealed that sales goals were unrealistic.
They were evolving day in and day out, but with a product that didn't work, they were
impossible to achieve, for the team.
The company kept a tight lid.
So, once information leaked, it reached the employees from the outside in a twist of irony.
It turns out that Fast was burning through $10 million in cash per month.
The media said that this spending was to keep the crazy marketing campaign going.
But, Holland insisted that most of it went to paying salaries and packages.
The problem is that there was good evidence of the contrary.
But, spend money to make money, right?
That was the problem.
Fast wasn't making money.
It was only generating an average of $50,000 a month during 2021.
Which is... we can say we were bigger than Fast and that's not a secret
And most employees inside Fast didn't know about this.
It wasn't until the articles came out that reality hit.
Should they be looking for work?
People inside the company were desperate.
When word got out that Fast was a trainwreck, many stopped working and started literately looking for new jobs.
Now, employees were confused and scared.
In the subsequent online meetings, Holland took some heat.
One employee was blunt about it:
"Should we be looking for a new profession?"
Now, this is in early 2022; we're talking about January, February, and March, which
is vital for the timeline.
After all, Fast was doing great to the outside world around that time.
The articles came out days after the company had announced that it was partnering with
Jessica Alba's business.
By the way, shameless plug, we did a video about her business.
Check it out.
But inside, times were tense.
Employees started pressuring the company on their bonuses and team offsites.
This was on March 25th.
Then, both Holland and the COO, Allison Barr Allen, said that wouldn't happen until they
reduced their burn rate.
And Holland insisted that Fast wasn't burning $10 million for crazy marketing.
Instead, it was to pay salaries and packages.
To a degree, it makes sense.
After all, the company had grown to almost 400 employees in two years.
Is not that crazy to think that the operation cost that much.
Especially if you're not making any revenue.
But there's a BIG question here, which is WHY didn't anybody actually take action to cut down the burn rate?
Everybody knew things were going down the drain.
Many companies I've seen assume is that they just can raise the next round.
If they keep this a secret, they can find and honestly foul the next investor.
who'll founder the next big round and keep things a flow
If they just are able to keep this image.
and maybe this strategy that Holland was trying to follow
That's how the company was going down in a sea of confusion.
But, things would worsen.
On April 5th, 2022, Holland had a virtual meeting with all the company.
He logged in, read a statement that the company was shutting down, and logged off.
He gave no chance for questions and made no further comments.
When Holland released the statement about the shutdown, it told us two things.
One, in his eyes, he didn't do a lot wrong.
He called himself a trailblazer that failed to reach the finish line.
By 2021, as the company rose, Domm Holland was turning from a hero to a villain.
While Silicon Valley loved him, his native Australia reviled him.
He had created a startup that was the Uber of tow trucks for Australia.
But, after another brash and quick rise in popularity, the company found itself in tough
times.
A legal battle ensued, and it still hasn't paid $4.1 million to small businesses.
But, Holland blames the Australian government, and it seems the story doesn't have an ending
soon.
As far as his bio goes, he used to say he had experience in logistics and vehicles.
But, he didn't mention the startup.
It wasn't until the article came out that he referenced it.
But, he still claimed innocence.
Then, let's go even further back to the whole Qantas thing.
Holland purchased the domain Qant.as to prank the national airline by rerouting the website
to Virgin Blue, its competition.
Then, he sold it to a "mystery" buyer for $1.3 million.
All this dirt adds to a divisive persona, something that he recognizes.
Holland mentioned the problems and challenges with investors and growth.
He also talks about the burn rate.
But, he never touches on the faulty product and what he planned to do.
Instead, he insisted he didn't do much wrong and a lot right.
Holland managed to bring emotion again as a powerful narrative.
That's how he deflected responsibility.
And he's a genius at that.
In the end, a CEO with a flawed idea, toxic work culture and a bold personality comes
out almost unscathed.
By the way, Stripe remained silent through all of this.
But, regardless of what the public says, Fast is a tale of a startup in Silicon Valley.
It's a thousand startups all in one.
It made the rights and the wrongs that we all expect.
And, in the end, the winner is Holland.
Not the employees, not the brand, not Stripe.
It's Holland.
Even with all this, investors have said they're willing to put money on him.
That's how this Silicon Valley works.