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Ask YC: Startup crisis. Out of money and tech co-founder has bailed.

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Re: Ask YC: Startup crisis. Out of money and tech co-founder has bailed.

#181

Post by mpc »

pchristensen wrote: post #102

Holy crap - you're paying her $83K, plus gave her equity, in TULSA ?!?!? That's not exactly a high cost area. If you have $190K and you've paid close to $100K to her (14 months) just to get a proof of concept, I'd say you're in trouble. If she's drawing a handsome salary, won't put any of her own money in, and won't take a pay cut, she can't be that confident in the value of the equity. Sounds like you got milked. I…

83k in tulsa is like making 130k in boston http://www.bestplaces.net/col/?salary=83000&city1=46140&...

That salary is crazy for someone that early, before revenue or major vc capital. By drawing that huge salary, she is avoiding all the risk and therefore deserved less equity. I think the 6% you gave her was generous.

Re: Ask YC: Startup crisis. Out of money and tech co-founder has bailed.

#182

Post by jamongkad »

jules wrote: post #140
nostrademons wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the project was doomed with this particular developer from the start, because it sounds like she doesn't really know how to program. 12 months for a Django website with nothing to show for it is insane . My comments are mostly intended for bystander-readers who're thinking of doing the same thing - paying a technical developer a full salary + 1-5% equity to develop a product from scratch. There're a lot…

Python & Django might not be too hard to learn, but learning Python, Django, HTML, CSS and probably Javascript will slow you down a lot.

Agreed Javascript in itself is a whole different beast together. I would have considered encouraging Drinko to learn jQuery first but then if you don't know how to hack to begin with then that advice doesn't really count.

Re: Ask YC: Startup crisis. Out of money and tech co-founder has bailed.

#183

Post by jamongkad »

nostrademons wrote: post #133
drinko wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nostrademons I paid the 35% equity 8 months ago, only to have her quit when the going got tough.

I think that the project was doomed with this particular developer from the start, because it sounds like she doesn't really know how to program. 12 months for a Django website with nothing to show for it is insane . My comments are mostly intended for bystander-readers who're thinking of doing the same thing - paying a technical developer a full salary + 1-5% equity to develop a product from scratch. There're a lot…

Agreed 12 months for a demoable web app is bad IMHO, unless you're writing avionics software(even that is a stretch) web apps aren't exactly rocket science to begin with. So you can chalk it up to developer inexperience OR she was doing work on the side. Which would probably explain why it took her 12 months to begin with.

Re: Ask YC: Startup crisis. Out of money and tech co-founder has bailed.

#185

Post by sarosh »

A wholly contrarian approach: take everything you have now and open source it. Consider the test case of MySQL. Odds are, if the underlying technology or even the approach is interesting, you will certainly find technical help. While this has certain and definite risks, there may be huge benefits, especially for a non-technical individual in your position. From the comments in this thread alone you are likely to get immediate help.

What is the sustainable strategic advantage of your application? Why does keeping the code closed further that?

Just something to consider...

Re: Ask YC: Startup crisis. Out of money and tech co-founder has bailed.

#186

Post by ChaitanyaSai »

As others have mentioned here, you definitely should add a visible email address in your profile.

You are understandably hesitant about starting django from scratch. There's nothing to fear and you can pick it up.

Most importantly, outsourcing it to India isn't necessary. You want good coders who can be hired on the cheap, especially during summer time? Try undergraduate and graduate students. I don't have the faintest clue as to what your idea is, but if one person working normal hours got you to this stage in 12 months, you can definitely pay two guys 15,000 for 4 months and get something great. Picking the right people might be a challenge given that you may not be able to judge their hacking skills well. That is something you can crowdsource here perhaps (or Topcoder; has/can anyone used it for that purpose)? You can email me if you'd like to pursue the idea.

Re: Ask YC: Startup crisis. Out of money and tech co-founder has bailed.

#189

Post by wanorris »

andreyf wrote: post #67
mixmax wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can counter that with a real world example. I've done a startup that succeeded and got a pretty neat product out (which btw. included FPGA programming, hardware, mobile technology, and web technology - not exactly easy stuff..) and we had contractors do everything. No hackers aboard. And it worked. So it can be done.

More data points: I've had experiences with only two startups which outsourced their initial code - and both regretted it deeply (ended up in complete rewrites).

Yet another data point that agrees with you.

I and a couple of friends of mine did the technical work for a startup on a contract basis 2-3 years ago. We were working in our spare time, and it seemed like a fun project, and a good occasion to learn Rails.

Of course, little did we realize that they were planning to pay us with money they hadn't actually raised yet.

We did end up completing the working demo for them, but basically left after that because they weren't paying us. They had the demo they needed to keep pitching it to investors, but it took a lot longer than they had expected. A year or so later, they had apparently raised more capital, because they launched a beta from a different technical team that had apparently rewritten the site from scratch in PHP. They have since unlaunched, though the site still offers to let you know when they launch.

If you can perform technical work yourself, you have the ability to keep working on delivering the product you want to deliver without draining your cash reserves. You can take a day job, live in your parents basement, or whatever works for you that allows you to keep building your company.

If you can't perform technical work yourself, then the minute you run out of money, you lose the ability to work on your product. That gives your project a much higher risk of failure.

Re: Ask YC: Startup crisis. Out of money and tech co-founder has bailed.

#190

Post by aswanson »

mixmax wrote: post #59
pg wrote: post #36

I realize this won't sound encouraging, but it seems to me that you were doomed from the start. Whoever writes the code in a web startup has to be a full cofounder-- which means a friend, not just a stranger you recruited for this project. You've inadvertantly shown why this custom exists. Trying to outsource the development would just be repeating the same mistake. Your best bets would be either to learn to hack, or…

I can counter that with a real world example. I've done a startup that succeeded and got a pretty neat product out (which btw. included FPGA programming, hardware, mobile technology, and web technology - not exactly easy stuff..) and we had contractors do everything. No hackers aboard. And it worked. So it can be done.

got a pretty neat product out (which btw. included FPGA programming, hardware, mobile technology, and web technology

What was it? Sounds fun.

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