PSA: Synergy 2.0 is terrible!

[Synergy Team]

@Delvien Hi there, please contact us directly for help with Synergy. We're here for you and will provide one-to-one technical support. Thanks!

[cr055]

I think that it is awesome to see Nick out here answering questions and working with everyone on this forum when some are so easy to criticize. It appears Symless is working hard to make Synergy the solution you all seem to want.  To see a CEO answering tech questions to every day users is not common and I think says a lot about the company and where they are trying to head. I look forward to Synergy 2 getting out of beta and all the great features it will allow us to use in our every day lives.

[ne0hisda0ne]

To be honest, Nick.  You sound kind of condescending.  Yes, you are being polite, but at the same time it feels like you are rolling your eyes.  I've been a long time user of your product.  Used this product at several jobs.  Never have I seen the CEO so involved in answering it's users.  Which is nice, but could you please quit with the sarcasm in your responses.  For some reason it just rubs me the wrong way.

 

Also I agree, if I paid to have votes so I could push my issue to the top.  It should of been honored as it was said.  Just because it was a "lower" priority issue, it should of at least gotten recognition as part of your sprint.  At least one of them.  Not just shoved in the backlog.  That's one way to piss off your users and make dissatisfied customers that can't stand your product and refuse to come back when you do finally get around to "fixing" it.  That's basically scamming ("Here, I'll do this, if you give me money.  *throws wallet at Nick*  "Oh, thanks for the money, we won't be fixing your issue cause it's been deemed as a low priority, SORRY!").  Promising something then never delivering is really shady and distrusting.

[Synergy Team]

Hey, @ne0hisda0ne, we're super happy that you're a long time Synergy user and that you've used our app in multiple jobs. That's great! We really appreciate your patience while we the bug you've found. We'd really appreciate it if you'd contact us directly so we can get some more info. Thanks!

[ne0hisda0ne]

I was going to reply this in pm you sent me, but I'll just leave it here.

 

Honestly, if you would spend as much time on the software as you do with the limelight, then maybe we'd already have a working version of 2.  Stop accusing US as the reason of YOU losing money because YOU delivered a shitty product too soon to US.  Even though you say you're not butt hurt by it, you keep bringing it up.  You are a CEO, deal with it.  If LTT was 30% of your revenue, then it should of been filled in with something else to fill the gap, till the delivery of 2.  We aren't going to feel sorry for you losing money, so stop bringing that up.  It's called business.  We pay, you deliver.  It's like you are punishing us in sorts.  "Well it was going to take 2 years, but since you whiny bitches couldn't keep quiet and complained on an open platform and the people that own that platform that pays us money is no longer doing so because of it, it's going to take 3 years now."  No, it should still take 2 years.

 

Anyways, I'm done.  Nick, I hope you get all this sorted out.  I wish you well and good luck on your future endeavors.

[Synergy Team]

@ne0hisda0ne No problem! Thanks for the good luck. We're always here for you if you need us, remember to contact us directly if you need help with Synergy.

[grb]

Hello,  I am a longtime user of synergy1.0 across linux/windows systems, and early adopter to synergy 2.0

 

I use synergy for currently to share across 5-6 screens (sometimes a laptop is off, or not in the office thus not in the loop).

 

I am posting here after seeing the thread posted in the symless slack channel.  I am an avid viewer of the LTS YT channel, but am not a part of this forums and did not comment earlier in the thread because I had no presence on the forum.  

 

When I am gaming for 'high twitch' reaction gaming such as Nioh.  I connect my m/k to the gaming system.   When I'm doing office work, or playing 3 copies of FFXI across my systems, one character is simple bank char for my guild.  Yes I'm addicted to that game, but I'm using synergy2.0 without issues.

 

I've had some issues w/ other games that take fullscreen or read raw mouse data, in this case if you are gaming on that system why aren't your controls connected there, with wires, directly to the system for the intended input.  Latency over my switch may be 5ms and up to 100ms on wifi'd systems which is terrible I don't trust wireless m/k.

 

I would not call any of the issues I've experienced with the Synergy2.0 to be "terrible" or "unusable", maybe 'mildly uncomfortable for a short period'.   I've used it every day for the last year, with it working 98% of the time.  You can check my 4 posts on the symless forums about issues I've had the issues addressed in about 24 hours.

 

[nly]

It's a bit rich for Nick to complain about lost revenue. Looking at his public finances for financial year ending April 2017, it looks like he had a great time:

• Profit for the year: £225K
• New directors loans advanced (to Nick, presumably, as the sole director) of ~£148K
• £109K in dividends paid (to Nick, again, presumably as the sole shareholder)

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08066283/filing-history

This was before LTT juiced the v2 money-grab (the betas etc all came after April, and the launch of 2.0.0 wasn't until November last year), the bizarre timing of all the staff being laid off earlier this year and v2 development stopping (no release since June? C'mon your product wasn't ready, but it was getting better with point releases...)

Who wants to wager this years tax filing will show this guy to be even more of a con-artist? LTT was right to dump his ass.

[nly]

Oh, and he's re-registered the company on the Isle of Man now?

 

https://services.gov.im/ded/services/companiesregistry/viewcompany.iom?Id=472319

Tax dodge.

There's won't be a version 3 folks. Go ask for your money back.

[Synergy Team]

Hi there, please contact us directly if you need help with Synergy.

[nly]

2 hours ago, Nick Bolton said:

@nly Hi there, thanks for contributing and welcome to the LinusTechTips forums.

 

I have clearly upset you and I'm very sorry about that, but I feel like perhaps you're not giving people the full picture.

 

Here's the full story: https://symless.com/blog/synergy-story

 

At the start, I went for years without earning anything, and I also invested my own money to get the company going. I created jobs and invested revenue into product development. I have made many mistakes in the 1st generation of the company, especially with hiring the wrong people, I can admit that; most of the people I hired were very intelligent but did not care about the customer. I will not make the same mistake again.

 

I'm currently recruiting 8 new software developers to create the next major version of Synergy. We made a lot of mistakes with Synergy 2, especially with rushing it out the door, but also with the dependence on an Internet connection, and the lack of settings. Generally, it was just a terrible user experience, which I am truly regretful for. I am especially focusing on hiring developers who are not only intelligent but really care about the customer experience. I'm also hiring a UX Designer who will focus on the user experience.

 

For those who are interested in joining us in creating the next major version of Synergy, check out our careers page.

You haven't upset me at all. What upsets me is seeing you continue to rip people off and, indirectly, having helped you take peoples money. Your 'Synergy Story' is a travesty.

To other readers of the forum, and in the interest of full disclosure: I worked for Nick for two years, until May this year. My reasons for leaving were essentially not wanting to work as the sole remaining engineer in the company, under the shit-show that is Nicks leadership. Just before my departure, Jerry, my team mate, and dear friend, who had been at the company for five years, left for personal reasons. Our web developer left as I did, and for reasons similar to my own. We were both just exhausted and fed up with not being able to do meaningful work to the best of our ability or with any sense of autonomy.

Nick made the rest of the team, 5 people, redundant more or less straight away. Everyone. Including our office manager and book keeper, who had absolutely no hands in product.

None of your customers want to hear your sob story about building and investing in your company, and it's *extremely* rich for you to do so having burnt down a perfectly viable one, full of intelligent and passionate people, which had a product (Synergy 2) which by now, had you had the guts to see it through, would have been entering a stable phase. Do I want to do be a founder? No. Am I cut out to be a founder? No. What I *do know* is that almost every founder you'll ever read about makes huge sacrifices to get their company going. Most though, have the good sense not to try and *cash out* in the middle of a product launch when revenue is flat-lining and, literally, the entire company thinks you're wrong about product decisions, let alone business decisions. But you just wouldn't listen.

I'd go so far as to say that *everyone* in the company circa April 2018 cared FAR more about our customers, in their own way, than you did. Steve (our dev manager) cared about the quality and delivery of our software. Sarah (support) cared about helping our customers (at least, in the beginning, before the hopelessness of the company not actually being able to deliver, ground her down), and Nick (not the above Nick, our marketing manager was also called Nick) cared about being transparent and honest with our customers in our marketing material. I, myself, cared wholeheartedly about Synergy 2's design and the privacy and security of our users (The issues for which, Nick, you probably can't even enumerate, but were picked up by analysts in the wild as early as January 2018.)

I could write pages and pages and pages about how, when we raised concerns that had a direct effect on our customers, the entire team was regularly shot down by Nick Bolton. How shortcuts were made to meet an arbitrary deadline (arbitrary because we had a stable product in v1 which could sustain the company), and how he guided development of v2 down its rocky path.

Nicks idea of 'caring about the customer' is delivering 'vision', rather than value, to customers. Value means quality representative of the price you're paying. It means well-tested, well designed software delivered as alpha at best, until it's feature complete, and beta until it's ready. It means a product road map that's not essentially static for 4 years.

"Rushing it out the door, but also with the dependence on an Internet connection, and the lack of settings." ... these were all Nick Bolton directives. You told me expressly that the product ***must not work*** without our cloud service. You insisted on removing the settings screen, and me and Jerry both knew the planned November 2017 release date was a pipe dream six months out, when you started cancelling infrastructure work in favor of UX bullshit like single sign-on and dicking around with our logo in the UI. Things that can easily be rolled out in point releases.

As the product owner you need to own these decisions. Perhaps it's time to accept that, while you might still be founder and CEO material, you're a shitty product owner.

Oh, and it's nice that you're hiring a 'UX designer' when you walked out of a meeting with, and ignored all the input from, the last UI workflow design consultant you brought in. That decision left me and Jerry (the entirety of the S2 development team) wasting time thinking about different UX design considerations right up until release day... literally 6-9 months after these matters should have been settled so we could focus our energies on under-the-hood.

My assessment, having worked for Nick for 2 years as an engineer, is that he has an exceptionally poor grasp of Synergy as a software design project. I have no belief that he will deliver Synergy 3 and, if and when he does, I do not believe he will have gathered enough technical chops to actually deliver anything but another thin veneer over the bit-rotted Synergy 1.x core: something which he has been milking for profit for years now, without contributing much of significance to, from where the FOSS community left it circa 2007/8 (Except for merging QSynergy, the Synergy+ fork and Synergy itself, a handful of bug fixes, and slapping on SSL)

To prospective employees: I can *not* recommend Nick as an employer. I don't think any of the 7 of us who worked there at the beginning of this year  would.

To v1 users I say this: Go support 'Barrier', a completely FOSS continuation of Synergy v1.
For v2 users: Ask Nick for your money back, and go pay for one of the readily available alternatives like Sharemouse, which do actually deliver steady improvements to their product.

https://github.com/debauchee/barrier

[nly]

Screenshot of Nick Boltons original comments.

Isn't it grand when you're dealing with a CEO who won't face public criticism for his actions?

 

[nly]

Nick: I asked you, as the Synergy 2 product owner, to take ownership of the product decisions you made. Mistakes you called out in your own post. Deleting your posts is your response.

And of course, after not being able to face public criticism, you go back to your Slack channel and resort to ad hominem. If I wanted to be "poisonous" I would have told far worse stories. For instance, how you wrote fake reviews on Glassdoor from ex-employees. Still, that isn't relevant to LTT readers is it? So let's stick to technical matters and the story of S2.

Mark my words folks, you'll be able to "interpret" next years financials, in the context of S2 sales here on LTT, and whatever comes out as "the next major version of Synergy" for yourself.

Again I say, anyone who bought S2 should ask for their money back. Giving refunds is about the only consistently good thing Nick has ever done for his customers.

[fythz]

More proof how much LTT users and Symless employees have been ripped off: https://www.locate.im/investing/business-case-studies/nick-bolton-ceo-symless (11/13/18)

 

Quote

I realised I wanted to build something for the global market, I wanted to work with a team of developers; I just couldn’t see a way to develop at the pace I wanted to without a team of people around me. So after a few years, we evolved from the donation model to a conventional purchase model. I figured out the right pricing and the company grew from a turnover of £6,000 per annum (about enough to cover rent) to last year’s £1.6 million.

 

My advice: Ask for a refund and support Barrier instead.

[nly]

Symless financials for financial year 2017/18 (ending April 2018) have been published.

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08066283/filing-history

As predicted it reveals the truth:

• Total company worth estimated to be £1M. This includes all the money he owes the company himself though, so really it's worth shit.
• Nick borrowed £540,000 ($700,000 USD) from the company in new directors loans. Of course, he owns the company completely, so never has to pay this back. This is effectively him paying himself with every penny the company has. Now that he's re-registered in the Isle of Man he can just keep the old company in a zombie state (which is why it was recently categorised as a 'software consultancy').
• As of April 2018 he owed 'Symless Ltd' £713,000 (almost $1M) total. Roughly speaking this is how much he's profited in the last 2 years.
• As of April 2018 he owed HMRC (the UK tax man) £300,000 ($390,000 USD). That tax bill is due roughly now (January 2019). This is almost certainly the result of him having to pay corporation tax on his outstanding directors loans (after some time, the government makes you pay tax on directors loans to prevent you abusing them for dodging tax).

Neither me nor Jerry, the two primary developers of Synergy 2, were on more than £40,000....so while he's boasting on Twitter this month about potentially hiring 6 new devs remember that he had the money in the bank to potentially hire TEN developers for a year well over a year ago. Instead, at some point in 2018 he chose to give customers, who had bought Synergy 2 in good faith, the middle finger. This man does not care about the product, he only cares about his image and lining his pockets and I feel pity for the poor saps who accept job offers from his this time around.

Nick Bolton laid off his entire staff, all doing different jobs. This wasn't him just laying off a failed team. He put the company to sleep for 8 months so he could stealthily replenish the company cash pile, which he had irresponsibly depleted against advice from his own management team. He planned to do this as early as December 2017.... that's 1 MONTH after the official Synergy 2 launch. Since then, not a single release of Synergy v1 or v2 has been made. He's done jack for 8 months. Nothing. He has made no significant commits to GitHub, not in public or private repos. His GitHub profile heatmap shows his private repo activity also - see below). He just needed 8 months to rob suckers, tell them he is going to continue developing S2, so he can raise £300K to pay his tax bill.

Again, this man is a sociopath and does not care about his products, his staff or his users... when the Electron fueled Synergy 3 money grab comes along, don't give him a fucking penny.

 

 

Below: Nick bragging on Twitter and his amazing GitHub commit history.