Brutal Startup Failure • Hacker News Board

Re: Brutal Startup Failure

#31

Post by satvikpendem » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 4:38 AM UTC

theHolyTrynity wrote: post #19

bitbasher wrote: post #14

Sounds like a solid learning experience. It's also why I am incredibly hesitant to have a co-founder and it's why I went the bootstrapped approach instead of VC funding from the start.

yeah, problem is that is extremely hard to do it alone My approach for the future: - Don't raise unless you really need to scale. Bootstrap as long as you can - Co-founders are ok, but with very clear pacts and shareholders agreement to manage conflicts

Don't forget vesting agreements with a 1 year cliff, exactly for situations like this.

Re: Brutal Startup Failure

#32

Post by wpietri » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 4:57 AM UTC

theHolyTrynity wrote: post #29

wpietri wrote: post #28

If you're still reading this, could you say more about how you found your co-founder? And do you have thoughts on how next time you'd go about picking one differently?

Uni friend. We had aligned interests. But the red flags have always being there. Great question. I'll try to have a trial period on the job. Set a high bar for integrity and execution. And then legal vesting...

Thanks. Good answers.

For what it's worth, the people I've had the most success working with are people I've already spent some time working with. But yes to those other things too.

Re: Brutal Startup Failure

#33

Post by theHolyTrynity » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 9:35 AM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #31

theHolyTrynity wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, problem is that is extremely hard to do it alone My approach for the future: - Don't raise unless you really need to scale. Bootstrap as long as you can - Co-founders are ok, but with very clear pacts and shareholders agreement to manage conflicts

Don't forget vesting agreements with a 1 year cliff, exactly for situations like this.

Yes. First startup and jumped right at it, skipping the fundamentals.

I was not the only one though, the investor gave us a lot of money with a very bad shareholder agreement