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It seems that this startup was successful in finding product market fit but was killed because of co-founders mismatch. I am planning to start a business with my fiancée, we have been together for 10 years, and we complement each other nicely in terms of skills. What are your experiences with that?
It seems that this startup was successful in finding product market fit but was killed because of co-founders mismatch. I am planning to start a business with my fiancée, we have been together for 10 years, and we complement each other nicely in terms of skills. What are your experiences with that?
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Not _super_ surprising. AWS has spawned an entire industry who provide addon services/support for it (and if I were those companies, I'd be waiting for the Bezos shoe to drop and eat the entire space's profit). The company I work for has a bunch of clients who outsource all of their AWS capability - usually in insanely expensive and inflexible ways...
I think Rackspace is now entirely on top of AWS, whereas before they used to be a competitor in the cloud space.
I know that they provide services for AWS, but they still have their own offerings just the same. There’s no real reason for Rackspace to dump its massive existing infrastructure and move to AWS. So the only new thing is a service department for AWS customers.
If you are trying to start a startup with a friend, think about this, do you really know this person? are you confident that under high levels of pressure this person is going to help you or is he going to break apart? I started a startup with my best friend whom I knew for several years. The startup succeeded (kind of, we got acqui-hired by BigTech) but the friendship turned into a deep alienation in the process. St…
I have a few theories for why it didn't work. I think it comes down to an expectation that, as a friend, normal work rules do not apply. This friend thought they could work on whatever was interesting (rather than what their job called for), and could flake or complain as a friend.
Perhaps a more domineering personality than myself could crack-the-whip and force a person into their role, but then what's the point of the person being a friend? And is that a good use of a founder's time and energy? Arguing with and controlling a friend/employee? Nope.
I have had much better luck hiring people I don't know and becoming their friend through work.
Most startups fail cos the founders broke up or cant keep going on anymore, we keep pointing to lack of demand or lack of money as why a startup failed but to be honest most startups start from a situation where there is either a lack of money or a lack of demand so technically speaking most startups start from a failed situation. Theres no pass fail on a piece of paper as we're used to in school for startups, its mo…
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The standard academic essay style in the United States is: 1) An intro starting what you want to discuss or accomplish 2) The body, or details 3) The conclusion, or summary Effective communication starts with a brief explanation of your conclusions or points, then it goes into details.
''The standard academic essay style in the United States is:'' Not everyone is in/from the USA. And not everyone cares about standards from the USA. Communication can still be effective without following made up standards by one country.
My point was that his communication would be more effective if he did not follow that standard.
Reading the abstract reminded me that so many people don't understand effective communication. The academic essay style is a travesty of global proportions. Effective communication would start with the conclusion section, then the body, and leave the intro out. Make your statement quickly, and then expand upon it for whoever wants to keep reading. Saying, "in this essay I will tell you what I learned" is not going to…
I really appreciate any post-mortem like this, so I don't want to be too critical. But the document itself helps demonstrate one of the reasons for failure: poor user focus. The faux-academic-paper style looks cool, but is a clearly worse reading experience. It's tolerable on a big screen. But on a small laptop it requires pointlessly scrolling up and down. On mobile, it's much worse. A lesson declared in the documen…
I started my 21 yo company with 2 friends. One we fired after about a year (he was literaly doing nothing). Then the other one and I continued for 6-7 years before he started working on other projects with an other company. Still, we still holded 50/50 of the shares (which was not a problem due to the way small companies works here). For all this time we stayed friends. And then, 3 years ago he offered me to join him…
how much did he sell you his shares for, if you don't mind me asking? because it sounded like it's for the first company, not the new one
But cash wasn't flowing and I soon worked for "free" as I wanted it to rise (my other company still paying me), and the cash promise at the end was very interesting. And at the end they kicked me out.
I know I made mistakes continuing doing this, but we were friends for decades so I didn't see it coming.
Note that it was not in the startup world, but I told this story because of the friendship side.
And about the shares of our first company, he basically give them to me, as he wanted to get rid of them very fast. In fact all the paperwork was done (and dated a month before).
The reason I signed them is that I too wanted to buy them back, but was a bit scared of the amount he would ask for it.
So in the end there is a positive thing.
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Can someone with historical experience starting a company with both a friend and a nonfriend comment about this? We get a lot of advice (e.g. pg) to start a company with friends, but we also get a lot of comments one way or the other, but without personal experience in both. Can someone who have been on both sides talk about it? I certainly have not been on both sides.
Contrary to the advice which is out there I believe the focus shouldn't be on friend or none-friend, but the 'person' and the 'relationship'. Being a founder is incredibly stressful, so you need to find someone who's got your back. In my case, it's my brother because I wouldn't trust anyone else with it, besides our parents.
https://www.gimletmedia.com/startup/15-married-to-your-busin...
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I think Rackspace is now entirely on top of AWS, whereas before they used to be a competitor in the cloud space.
Might I ask for a source on that? I know that they provide services for AWS, but they still have their own offerings just the same. There’s no real reason for Rackspace to dump its massive existing infrastructure and move to AWS. So the only new thing is a service department for AWS customers.