321–330 of 453 posts
I built an app for kids that created a family currency where kids would pick the chores they wanted to do each day, earn points based upon the difficulty of the chores, and then those points could be redeemed for real-life rewards that they also chose - hosting friends for a sleep-over, a fishing trip with Dad, learn a new card game with Mom, screen time, etc. The problem came with the marketing. When I did my due di…
On my first startup right after university, we were doing an IoT device (hardware + software), our MVP was good enough to make a couple of sales amounting to 550 consumers. At that point the board decided the best way to grow was to bring in “adult supervision” aka a seasoned CEO to run the company. Even though I did all the software, I had only around an 8% stake in the company at the time. The person in question de…
CEO would disappear for months at a time, with the promise of returning with capital. We never really knew where he went, and he wouldn’t let anyone else talk to investors (including me, who was CTO). Eventually he stopped paying us, but promised that the money was just tied up in the parent company set up in the caymans. After 2 months of not paying myself or any other employees, the COO and I drainked the remainder…
> What I learned is that a title doesn’t grant you any control Is this just for anything other than CEO? Or are they always held to the board/investors.
The bigger problem I had with lack of control was when things started to go south. The CEO was never around, so I was the "boss" in the office every day, being the technical and cultural leader of the dev team, who came to be close friends. Once the money stopped coming in, it was really hard emotionally to be the person who needed to convey that to the rest of the company, but without having any real control needed to get them money or real answers.
The CEO came from a very wealthy family, and never had to worry about money. Myself, and most of the employees weren't so lucky, and were pretty new out of college, so didn't have a pile of savings to fall back on. I am not even that upset about never seeing that pay I was owed, it was more just emotionally draining to be seen as an authority figure, but to have absolutely no ability to exact change or get answers when they mattered most.
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AR: Accounts Receivable (money owed to you) AP: Accounts Payable (money you owe) APR: Annual percentage rate (usually converted from a different timeframe so you have a consistent timeframe to compare with other metrics) Retainer: A fee that you pay to get priority from a consultant, which may or may not come with services included.
There's another overarching term that needs put in here: Cash Flow: the balancing of AP and AR so that you can stay afloat. Say your startup needs $10k a week to meet payroll. You have $20k in the bank and Accounts Receivable of $100k. "On paper" you have $120k. Cash flow wise you have 2 weeks of money left on hand. This situation is in constant tension as: - Large companies stall regularly on paying or require terms…
Great article on this topic by Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Capital: http://tomtunguz.com/timing-sales-cashflows/
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> 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.
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I get where your questions are coming from but the real problem was that we were first a family then business people. In my culture, there is a alot of respect accorded to the elderly. We brought up not to question people older than us. So much so I struggled at work to call people older than me by their first name. It is fraud. Some of the family members wanted us to get the others arrested but this isn't so easy wh…
> Some of the family members wanted us to get the others arrested but this isn't so easy when you are family. It literally ends up with you getting your cousin's dad arrested, the same cousin you grew up playing soccer with I grew up in the Southeastern US. Here, getting your cousin's dad arrested is a Tuesday. ;) In all seriousness, sorry you had to go through this, and glad you took away good lessons. On the other…
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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.
This reminds me of a takeaway from my failed startup - it's really not realistic to place 100% trust in someone to look after your interests if you are remote. You need to be there in person to keep an eye on everything, or possibly complain to government relgulators / go to court if need be. If it's all remote and it's not practical to do this stuff in person, you are asking to be taken advantage of.
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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...
It turns out, there's a name for this (which I learned in a HN comment): resource curse. One theory being that, essentially, legal controls and enforcement are expanded with economic activity. But a sudden surge in resources (e.g. discovery or exploitation) exceeds the existing system's ability to control corruption, and it's very hard to steer a cash-rich system back to good governance after this happens. https://th…
There is an argument against aid to developing countries for similar reasons.