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Ask HN: I'm lost. Please help

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Re: Ask HN: I'm lost. Please help

#71
post #27

Never ever ever EVER take non-science/engineer as co-founders. EVER. I'm actually inclined to say not to hire either until you're profitable. Unless it's necessary by evil, like lawyers. And by non-science, also include cultural science or political science.

You're being downvoted but I can definitely see where you're coming from. In the case of the OP, those two family member seem to actually exploit him pretty heavily, or at least they're not placing any actual value on him. I think a case could be made that non-technical co-founders are often prone to this kind of behavior, while the technical founder is slaving away and being called "just our IT guy". For most online startups, tech is actually an integral part of the execution, not something tedious that needs to be tacked on by some exchangeable and exploitable programmer.

I remember when we founded our first startup, it was three guys: the programmer (me), the business guy (a friend of mine), and our "account man" (an acquaintance of ours) - all equal shareholders. Shortly after founding, there was a discussion about having company cars. The two business guys wanted BMWs, and I was to get some cheap Japanese mini car. When I asked how they came to that idea, they explained that I was only the programmer and I could get by with basically nothing, whereas they insisted they needed BMWs for their role in the company. They also said, and I kid you not, that they were from wealthy families and I was not, so it seemed reasonable to them that everybody needed to keep their rightful place. Needless to say, I shot this down and shortly afterwards, the account guy left. It was for the best. Who knows what would have happened if I had let them get away with this.

Self-entitled, hypocritical, non-technical entrepreneurs. There are probably a lot of good people with non-technical qualifications out there, but it's easy to suddenly find yourself working with the bad ones.

Re: Ask HN: I'm lost. Please help

#72

> I think my co-founders are idiots, that they fouled up their side of the deal, but I feel as though I've invested too much time and energy to bail now. You've got to let go of this attitude. If you cling to it, then you will never leave, even if your co-founders are idiots and the business is a failure. What you need to do is quit as soon as possible. Only then can you start on a better endeavor and improve your qu…

Also, listen to The Upside of Quitting on the Freakonomics podcast.

Re: Ask HN: I'm lost. Please help

#73

> I think my co-founders are idiots, that they fouled up their side of the deal, but I feel as though I've invested too much time and energy to bail now. You've got to let go of this attitude. If you cling to it, then you will never leave, even if your co-founders are idiots and the business is a failure. What you need to do is quit as soon as possible. Only then can you start on a better endeavor and improve your qu…

> I feel as though I've invested too much time and energy to bail now. Look up Sunk Cost Fallacy. Also this related episode of Freakonomics is great: http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/09/30/new-freakonomics-radi...

But if you think about it, you're probably going to need to work with them for a long while if you stay. So it's not the best idea to stay any longer if you don't respect your team.

Re: Ask HN: I'm lost. Please help

#74
I've been around these kind of situations. What started as a hackathon project, where we had 1 bizdev, 1 health tech related person (non-coder/technical) and me, the programmer. There were a few flaws in the plan, both conceptual and technical needed to actually turn the concept into viable product. It seemed like raising VC funding was the "goal" more than creating a MVP for beta-launch and customer feedback.

My best advice is to be direct, and take care of yourself personally, especially physical and mental health.

Re: Ask HN: I'm lost. Please help

#75
I've been in this situation before, also with my first startup. Bailing was the one of the best decisions I've ever made and gave me the emotional strength to evaluate who I want to keep in my circle of friends/professional network.

After I left I got a regular job with regular pay to get myself level financially and emotionally. After another year or so of that, I'm at a startup again. This time, with much more success.

I'd cut the cord and get out.

Re: Ask HN: I'm lost. Please help

#77

> I think my co-founders are idiots, that they fouled up their side of the deal, but I feel as though I've invested too much time and energy to bail now. You've got to let go of this attitude. If you cling to it, then you will never leave, even if your co-founders are idiots and the business is a failure. What you need to do is quit as soon as possible. Only then can you start on a better endeavor and improve your qu…

Two idiots and a programmer don't build great companies.

You might be able to convince them to pay you out for your share of the equity.

Re: Ask HN: I'm lost. Please help

#78

> I think my co-founders are idiots, that they fouled up their side of the deal, but I feel as though I've invested too much time and energy to bail now. You've got to let go of this attitude. If you cling to it, then you will never leave, even if your co-founders are idiots and the business is a failure. What you need to do is quit as soon as possible. Only then can you start on a better endeavor and improve your qu…

> I feel as though I've invested too much time and energy to bail now. Look up Sunk Cost Fallacy. Also this related episode of Freakonomics is great: http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/09/30/new-freakonomics-radi...

It's easy to presume that sunk costs should have no weight when considering the relative value of different options.

For many endeavours a certain amount of investment is required before returns are seen - investments in time and money in particular. For this reason there is almost always a cost to be considered switching between endeavours.

So, while I agree that throwing good money after bad is a silly thing to do, the consideration should be how much more investment is needed to make this endeavour profitable vs how much some other endeavour will take to become profitable AND how much it will cost to switch.

You shouldn't weight how much has already been spent in this consideration, however you have to understand the impact existing investment has had on the road to profitability.

Time and money already spent is a crude metric that lends itself to the Sunk Cost Fallacy, but considering the metric is not the same thing as falling victim to the fallacy.

[EDIT] The following comment explains this really well through an example:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5722032

Re: Ask HN: I'm lost. Please help

#79

This situation is actually very simple, don't let it feel overcomplicated: Tell them you need an actual salary and actual health insurance in the next 30 days. If the venture can pay you to keep at it, that's great. Otherwise you'll have to start looking around for a real job in a couple of weeks. Even the most brick-and-mortar type of businessperson will completely understand this. Stick to your schedule. It will ei…

To not comment on the rest, since it's highly dependent on your personal situation: "I feel as though I've invested too much time and energy to bail now." This is a very dangerous way to think about it. This is your life you're investing here. Perhaps to break it down to oversimplified but still valuable math: (probability of success)*(personal outcome) = expected outcome If you think they have a 10% chance of succee…

More succinctly: Learn to recognize a sunk cost.

[1]: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/how-the-sunk-...

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs

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