Don’t Be Evil: How Google Screwed a Startup

After trying to go through the “proper channels” for almost a year now it’s time to share this story of how Google screwed over our startup with the world.

Hatchlings is the world’s largest Easter Egg hunt. We have over 3.5 million users spanning all 50 states and almost every country on Earth. We have been in operation for over 4 years and are launching our new version, Hatchlings 2, this spring.

In a nutshell: Google bid on, displayed, and then failed to pay for over $40,000 of advertising space on Hatchlings. They have since stonewalled us for almost a year, locking us out of our accounts, screening our phone calls, ignoring our emails, and making it a living hell to figure out what exactly went wrong.

What you can do to help: please share, tweet, and reblog this post. Help us get the word out so that others don’t fall into this same trap.

——————————-

Since early 2008 we have been running the world’s largest Easter Egg Hunt on Facebook and hatchlings.com. We have amassed a loyal following of users from all over the globe who have spent untold hours collecting over 1,300 unique eggs and pets.

We are a bootstrapped startup located in Des Moines, Iowa and now have a full-time team of 5 and are currently looking to hire 2 more. We owe many thanks to our paying users for supporting us by purchasing premium memberships and eggs over the years. Without you we would be out of business right now.

Because of Google.

Our relationship with Google started out great, continued on great for several years, and in an instant they banned us, confiscated two months of our earnings, and have never contacted us again despite our repeated efforts.

Let’s go through a brief timeline of our relationship with Google. (Links will open supporting documentation or referenced email correspondence)

We have been advised that to sue Google (even though we are completely in the right and would probably win) would cost more money than we’d get out of it. We are just spreading the word about what happened to us to help other startups.

The moral of the story is to be careful when planning your business that one “partner” company can’t pull the rug out from under you. While this is a story about Google it could very well have been another large “partner.” Who does your business hinge on? A lot of startups accept the implied risks of building on “platforms” or having big, faceless “partners” form an integral part of their business foundation without a second thought.

We were very fortunate to have a diversified revenue stream with paying users to support us and help us remain a viable business even after losing a large chunk of advertising revenue (and we thank our users from the bottom of our heart for that) but others wouldn’t have been so lucky.

Personal Note to Google: I realize that this probably wasn’t done maliciously and that we were probably caught up in some algorithm gone awry. And I also realize that for the amount of money we’re talking about you probably don’t even consider this to be an issue worth your time. But for a startup like us this is a huge deal. Feel free to reach out.. you have my cell number and email address. But after almost a year of being ignored I’m not holding my breath.

What you can do to help: please share, tweet, and reblog this post. Help us get the word out so that others don’t fall into this same trap.

Media Roundup: Startup Iowa, Silicon Prairie News, DM Reg, Hacker News, Business Insider, Tech Meme, The Economist