Giving corporate speak a run

My corporate speak example for the month comes from MilkRun's CEO Dany Milham. In announcing the closure of the business at the end of last week, this after 'structural changes' in February, a mere two months ago Dany said:

Since we announced our structural changes in February, economic and capital market conditions have continued to deteriorate, and while the business has continued to perform well, we feel strongly that this is the right decision [pulling the pin on MilkRun] in the current environment'.

OK, let's unpack what he is really saying here.

1. We've burnt through $86 million of investors funds in two years, roughly $3.6 million a month over 24 months. Sad but true. Sorry.
2. Our pitch deck revenue targets that amounted to securing 20% of Australia's online grocery market - $4.8 billion (the total of Woolworths' and Wesfarmers online businesses) - were really just wishful thinking.
3. You knew the numbers, this is startup world after all, not the real world. In our Series B funding document we shared that we were consistently losing as much as $13 an order, and yeah, it was costing us $57 to acquire a new customer, but hey, we were chasing market share, not profitability.
4. Yeah we said we'd turn this around by June 30 by making $1.38 per order rather than it costing us $13 (by almost doubling the average order value and cutting wages/rider costs), but these were just spit-ball numbers. They looked good and we even thew in a comparison to Amazon's US retail business, that we'd be on a par with their annual revenue per customer by 2024. Everyone LOVES an Amazon comparison.
5. Capital market conditions is corporate speak for 'It was the SVB and the Credit Suisse implosions and the never-ending interest rates rises that killed, literally 'free money'.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not having a go at startups and their funding structures or models of chasing market share at any cost and hoping like hell they can grab enough of it before incumbents respond or they can IPO. Rather I am pointing out that hiding clear facts behind, quite frankly, pathetic corporate speak doesn't serve anyone: the startup community, the now unemployed MilkRun employees, investors or the market.

Just own it. Tell it like it is.

It was a punt that a COVID baby could leverage this moment in time, over time.

One thing is for sure, your website is right when it says (and yes it's still up)

"This ain't your grandfather's milk run."

For one thing, back when my grandfather was alive it was more often his wife, daughter or grandkids (me) that went to the local 'dairy' to get the milk - woman's work you know. And this was only in between milk deliveries from the Milk Man to our front gate (I well remember the foil tops on the milk and, sometimes taking a sip of the cream on the top).