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Ask HN: This is weird, right?

5 points by moron4hire ↗ HN
Met this dude at a meetup here in DC and he said he was looking for early stage investments, wanted to hear pitches. I started a few phone conversations with him and got that unmistakable vibe I was getting my ego stroked by a salesman. He seemed way too interested in moving through his process (which keeps coming back to him mentioning offshore outsourcing) without really seeming to know much about my project. That is certainly due to me not explaining it well, but it seems like a legitimate investor would have passed on me pretty early on, rather than keep telling me "everything sounds great, let's move on to the next step in the process".

I start trying to look up his "portfolio companies" to see what they are like, see if I can't contact any of them and get an idea of what sort of contribution he made for them. I don't know what I'd get out of it, I at least wanted to know what size of companies he's investing in.

And in the process, I find this. This is his site: http://www.3siholdings.com/#!portfolio/cee5

The first logo is his own company. The second logo isn't even a company, it's the logo for a technology incubation initiative from our governor. The third logo, I did a reverse image search on and all of the links, for several pages, are just like this:

http://www.healthstylecatalogue.com/#!hc-providers/cee5

http://www.scprivatecapital.net/#!portfolio/cee5

http://www.acisup.com/#!portfolio/cee5

They all have completely different "teams". What is this, some form of multi-level marketing scheme with which I'm not familiar?

17 comments

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pieperz
Get everything in writing....cuz that sounds sketch.
moron4hire
Yeah, nothing's been agreed to yet. More concerned about the complete waste of our time. More concerned about the other founders who might fall for this. Can't imagine any explanation being adequate, even if it's just straight incompetent web design.
noahc
Get everything in writing is not the correct advice when something is sketchy.

Getting it in writing means you'll have to invest significant cost/effort/stress in getting it sorted out.

gus_massa
Perhaps this sound silly, but just a check:

Is he going to give money to you, or are you going to give money to him?

(For this calculation, don't count the money that he or his partners will give back in just a few month.)

moron4hire
Heh, I don't know. We haven't gotten quiet that far. It started to sound like he was going to pitch management consulting services to build a business plan document. I figured it'd be smart to know who I was dealing with early on and ended up stepping in something that smelled in the process.
Someone1234
If you look at the team page and go to the LinkedIn profiles for each one, you can see this one in a series of similar businesses. A previous business describes them as micro-investors, but they primarily seem to focus on advising startups/entrepreneurs.

It is unclear what specific expertise they have, aside from all being ex-US Military. For example the CEO went from the US Marines (Logistics Supervisor) straight into "Founder Juliet Foxtrot Ventures" (which is a micro-investment business).

I suspect they're trying to sell you their expertise/advice/mentorship, but it is unclear if they possess any to begin with. It is also unclear if they are in fact investors where the investment capital is coming from.

I seriously doubt their micro-investment business from 2013 that started with a bunch of Marine's salaries made enough to fund bigger investments, but maybe I'm wrong? Although I'm unclear why they'd operate under a different moniker if that was the source the funds.

The whole thing seems like a "house of cards" built of shell companies with no substance.

kleer001
Trust your instincts and lose this weirdo's number. Real money with real people behind it will be super clear and easy to identify.
JSeymourATL
Trust your gut instinct. You will run across all kinds of bozos & imposters in this game.
partisan
I wonder what the counter was at on their main page before this posting.

All of the interleaving of people and their different companies makes it appear as if they are trying to obscure the true structure of their company and what it does. That's not a good way to gain confidence and trust when they are in a business that is all about each of those.

Also, the logo is pretty bad and clashes with their stylish, likely prefab, website template.

api
Run away unless you want to experience the business equivalent of being uhh... touched inappropriately.
MichaelBurge
He's got dollar signs in his eyes, and he's hoping to use people's desperation for investor money to lower their guard.

Wild guess: He's going to sell you management consulting, in which he tells you all the money you can save by outsourcing your software development. Any 'seed funding' he gives will be eaten up by a deal with him and somebody he knows, who will play the software developer. When that runs out, you'll look for additional funding and spend it on his buddy who shares a cut with him. He might get a share of the company, but I don't think he cares about it.