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Ask HN: Why did your startup fail and what did you learn?

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Re: Ask HN: Why did your startup fail and what did you learn?

#251

Post by mmsimanga »

jhowell wrote: post #247
mmsimanga wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a really long story. I mean long. No the uncle didn't do all the work. Infact he contributed no money at all. There was a lot of legwork done by other family members hiring equipment to do prospecting, providing transport and wooing potential investors. You have bear in mind that half of the relatives were not educated. There was a lot of trust and good will because were "family". We are still are family. On a si…

> On a side note, this made me realise why there is so much conflict in some mineral rich areas in Africa. Honestly if we weren't peaceful people there could have been serious conflict. Care to elaborate?

It's my way of saying we were really mad! Mad enough to come to blows which nearly happened at our meetings or to sabotage the whole mining operation. Have a look at this story[1] about a community in diamond rich land in South Africa who are still bitterly divided to this day.

[1]https://mg.co.za/article/2014-01-30-bitter-fight-for-diamond...

Re: Ask HN: Why did your startup fail and what did you learn?

#252

Post by theelous3 »

mmsimanga wrote: post #241
mkagenius wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> owing 5% I ownwed 0.00086% of the mine Didn't you sign after reading? I dont know how it works there but generally one has to get all signatures for approval.

So this uncle was elected as the chairperson and given power of attorney to register everything on our behalf. The capital city is a good 800km away and we all had day jobs. As I said in another comment, the true problem was we (I) believed a family member wouldn't screw us like that. So it was literally a handshake agreement.

A handshake agreement is enforceable.

Re: Ask HN: Why did your startup fail and what did you learn?

#253

Post by cbnotfromthere »

t0mbstone wrote: post #90

Our startup failed because my business partner wanted to just be the "idea guy" who designed the screens, while having me code it and do all the heavy work. Initially, this was going to be a 50/50 split, but after working on it almost full time for about 6 months, I ran out of money. He had a pretty big savings account and came from a well-off family, so he agreed to front me basically just enough to cover my rent wh…

You were an employee by your own admission: - his name on papers - his name on bank accounts - he was paying you a salary.

Re: Ask HN: Why did your startup fail and what did you learn?

#254

Post by piker »

mmsimanga wrote: post #241
mkagenius wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> owing 5% I ownwed 0.00086% of the mine Didn't you sign after reading? I dont know how it works there but generally one has to get all signatures for approval.

So this uncle was elected as the chairperson and given power of attorney to register everything on our behalf. The capital city is a good 800km away and we all had day jobs. As I said in another comment, the true problem was we (I) believed a family member wouldn't screw us like that. So it was literally a handshake agreement.

If he had power of attorney, in many jurisdictions he would have had certain duties to you which may have significantly restricted his ability to do undermine your interests.

Re: Ask HN: Why did your startup fail and what did you learn?

#255

Post by DougN7 »

theelous3 wrote: post #252
mmsimanga wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this uncle was elected as the chairperson and given power of attorney to register everything on our behalf. The capital city is a good 800km away and we all had day jobs. As I said in another comment, the true problem was we (I) believed a family member wouldn't screw us like that. So it was literally a handshake agreement.

A handshake agreement is enforceable.

Do you know that’s true where OP is (in Africa), or are you just assuming?

Re: Ask HN: Why did your startup fail and what did you learn?

#257

Post by ritoune »

Started a company with a close-ish family member who also had a prestigious full time job in the sector we were in.

He promised meetings with execs and experts in the sector, and expert advice. We split equity 50/50. After three months, we had an MVP that customers loved, a contract with a large client, and several interested angels.

Unfortunately the co-founder hadn't delivered on anything (all business meetings were from cold calls, I had to learn all domain expertise on my own, my co-founder was spending no time at all on the company and kept promising to do things that he didn't end up doing).

After trying to get him to execute what he said he would do with a positive attitude for three months, he called me and told me he "didn't want me to make him feel like he wasn't doing enough". If he was a stranger I would have found a way to kick him out. But to preserve family relationships we killed the company.

TLDR: people in your family with great jobs don't make for good co-founders

Re: Ask HN: Why did your startup fail and what did you learn?

#258

Post by eps »

fybe wrote: post #221

I was part of a start-up that still exists but it seems to be stagnating. i left due to the founders having almost nothing in common except for making money. The site is like squarespace but for local shops and businesses. The founders met on an airplane and thought they can make a business. So you had the business CEO with no technical background living in X country and the ruthless CTO with his team in Y country. I…

I think the OP aimed his question at founders of failed startups. There are fewer of them than of us poor shmucks that got burned by a failed startup as a collateral damage. So their accounts of failures are far more interesting.

Re: Ask HN: Why did your startup fail and what did you learn?

#259

Post by owenmarshall »

theelous3 wrote: post #252
mmsimanga wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this uncle was elected as the chairperson and given power of attorney to register everything on our behalf. The capital city is a good 800km away and we all had day jobs. As I said in another comment, the true problem was we (I) believed a family member wouldn't screw us like that. So it was literally a handshake agreement.

A handshake agreement is enforceable.

In some cases, yes.

In the US, I cannot transfer land to you with a handshake. I can't sell you most goods valued over $500 with a handshake. I can't assume your debt to another party with a handshake.

Always ask a lawyer.

Re: Ask HN: Why did your startup fail and what did you learn?

#260

Post by stratosmacker »

haolez wrote: post #136

We wanted to create a routing app for bikes, which would take in consideration cliffs, dangerous streets and the likes. With our internal team, we’ve managed to create a killer backend that would do all the hard routing stuff without issues. It was better than Google Maps in most cases! Now, we just needed the app. We used all our money to pay a third party contractor to make the app, and they failed miserably. We ne…

Please release this, the OpenStreet Maps community could really benefit from a better routing system
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