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Ask HN: Any desperate things you did just to keep your startup alive?

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Re: Ask HN: Any desperate things you did just to keep your startup alive?

#41

Post by nailer »

jacquesm wrote: post #38
nailer wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I paid per milestone, which were set by the developer according to his own estimation of delivery, with a thousand dollar plus bonus to meeting his own schedule. there was never any dispute, just the occasional 'I'm sorry this has taken so long, something came up' until after getting paid for near completing the first three milestones, he disappeared. I was in another continent, so after all communication failed, dec…

Wow, what a bad experience. Good to see you get over it without holding a grudge. That said I hope the person has learned their lesson and did not see your decision to walk away from it as an encouragement for a repeat performance.

Thanks man :^).

Re: Ask HN: Any desperate things you did just to keep your startup alive?

#42

Post by Udo »

That was about ten years ago. For a while there, we did pretty good: hovering stable at around 10 employees, mostly custom web projects for advertising agencies. One day we took on a very nice-sounding project for a local manufacturing company. One company-year flowed into the project, we did almost nothing else. At the end, the project was canceled and they wanted their money back because they were on the brink of bankruptcy (a move that despite our contract was OK'ed by German courts).

It all went downhill from there, but I still hung on for a few months. Didn't want to fire anyone. I took out crazy loans to keep this lead balloon afloat, but there was really no turning around. And it pretty much ruined my life.

It's a cautionary tale, really. I should have allowed this company to fail at a time when I still could have walked away without some serious damage. The company was done. It had no product, burned-out employees and no prospects. I wouldn't make that mistake again today. The lesson here being that desperation is never a good sign. When you're doing a startup, what you want is hunger and euphoria. Not desperation.

Re: Ask HN: Any desperate things you did just to keep your startup alive?

#43

Post by joshbert »

jscore wrote: post #32
joshbert wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever decide to come to Mexico and need a safe place to stay give me a buzz as well. I'll hook you up.

Where in Mexico?

Mexico City. Forgot to be a little more specific, my bad :)

Re: Ask HN: Any desperate things you did just to keep your startup alive?

#44

Post by gabrielmazzotti »

volare wrote: post #8
benologist wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nicaragua, but all of Central America's a great place to live ridiculously cheap and hack away. Plus they're beautiful countries and latinas are so hot. The internet's not fantastic (a crappy 1 megabit, and outages happen at least once a week), half of the TV is in Spanish, and you have to be careful sometimes since white guys are usually cashed up tourists and ripe for a mugging. But when push comes to shove it beat…

Thanks for the details. This is getting a bit off-topic, but can you describe how a foreigner should go about finding a place to live in Central America? Did you just fly there and look for "For Rent" signs or did you line something up beforehand?

If you are instrested in coming to a country in Latin America im from Uruguay (little country between Argentina and Brazil) and I can help you to accommodate you here. We are one of the safest countries of the continente, we are a loooooot cheaper than US or Europe and the main advantage of Uruguay compared to the rest of LA is that most people speak English and you will find a lot of engineers, computer developers, desingers and more usefull people to hire to set up your new start up (the computer-related careers are very popular here)

Re: Ask HN: Any desperate things you did just to keep your startup alive?

#45

Post by daystar »

old-gregg wrote: post #11

Ha, we didn't consider selling cereal since we're not good at it. :-) So, when we needed money we decided to stick to what we knew best and started another service-oriented, and therefore instantly profitable, startup: http://buildasandcastle.com

did it work?? how long before you got your first check from buildansandcastle?

Re: Ask HN: Any desperate things you did just to keep your startup alive?

#46

Post by Andrew_Quentin »

bl4k wrote: post #4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_DeLorean#Entrapment (If you are not familiar with the story, in a last-ditched effort to save his car company, De Lorean attempted to traffic a large amount of cocaine. Turned out the seller was a federal agent. That is dedication)

That is not dedication, that is criminal, that is, following the first easy thing you can think of, regardless of the consequences. If he has the dedication, a firm no to the above suggestion, and a further five minutes thinking, would have probably brought up a much honourable means, even in times of desperate need, to get what he wanted.

Re: Ask HN: Any desperate things you did just to keep your startup alive?

#47

Post by cheesey »

Andrew_Quentin wrote: post #46
bl4k wrote: post #4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_DeLorean#Entrapment (If you are not familiar with the story, in a last-ditched effort to save his car company, De Lorean attempted to traffic a large amount of cocaine. Turned out the seller was a federal agent. That is dedication)

That is not dedication, that is criminal, that is, following the first easy thing you can think of, regardless of the consequences. If he has the dedication, a firm no to the above suggestion, and a further five minutes thinking, would have probably brought up a much honourable means, even in times of desperate need, to get what he wanted.

He managed to avoid prosecution, as he was found not guilty due to entrapment. Entrapment is when the alleged criminal was:

1. given the idea for the crime by the government agents

2. persuaded or talked into committing the crime by government agents

3. not ready and willing to commit the crime before the government agents spoke with him.

So no, it wasn't "the first easy thing you[he] can [could] think of".

EDIT: Formatting.

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