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Ask HN: I'm lost. Please help

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

#131

Post by Cogito »

pyre wrote: post #118
Cogito wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

| For many endeavours a certain amount of | investment is required before returns are seen Compulsive gamblers tell themselves the same things. What is really needed is a objective view of the situation.

Are you disagreeing that investment is often needed in order to gain profit?

I definitely did not advocate gambling money away, but rather that "an objective view of the situation" requires you "to understand the impact existing investment has had on the road to profitability."

In a follow up to another comment in this thread, I specifically call out the difference between gambling, where (usually) any investment so far has no impact on future earnings; and investing (in particular investing in startups), where the time and money invested so far can have an impact on future earnings.

To be concrete, the next spin of the roulette table has no correlation to the amount of money you won or lost on the previous spin, but your chance of selling an app on the app store in the next month is directly correlated to how much of the app has been written already.

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

#132

Post by jakejake »

marshray wrote: post #24

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…

The bottom line is that we all have bills to pay. Get a consulting or contract job and continue with the venture in your spare time until either the founders raise enough investment money to pay your salary or you decide they won't be able to pull it off.

Be open and honest - just tell them that you need a salary. Going a year and a half with no salary is not something anybody has a right to expect from you unless you're already wealthy.

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

#133

Post by AdamN »

pud wrote: post #81
marshray wrote: post #24

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…

Disagree. If you've truly lost faith in the founders and business -- which you have -- you should leave now & cut your losses. It's not going to work out, regardless of salary. As for how to make money after you leave -- get a job or find consulting work. Then jump back into starting a business when you're ready again.

Don't leave until you've clarified your equity stake and dotted all your Is and crossed all of your Ts. However, you should then cut your losses and get out of there. Half of a job is with whom you work and you've learned a great lesson with 'idiot' detection. I've worked with assholes recently, and they can actually be amazing assets at a company, but about 10 years ago I stopped working with idiots and I haven't looked back.

I'm starting a cloud company in Nairobi if you want to do something totally crazy ....

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

#136

Post by ArekDymalski »

Cyclone_ wrote: post #8
enoptix wrote: post #5

Is this anonymous copy-and-paste medium how people start to deal with their problems now? What happened to just talking to people or making tough decisions? I've seen more of these posts in the last year than I have in my entire time on HN. I'm sorry you are having a tough time but you need to either 1) have a hard talk with your co-founders about your business model. present facts. make your case. they will listen.…

I would agree, talking with the co-founders is the best route to go. Come up with good examples and/or comparisons for why you think the business model won't be a success but also propose a solution to what route you think the business should go.

Exactly. That's something you didn't mention in your story, and it is a crucial thing to do if you really believe that the product solves real problems. Don't let the unavoidable obstacles destroy your relationships. All of you are still learning (the brick&mortar business experience isn't that easy to transfer to tech startup) and that requires mistakes and dead-ends. You can treat your adventures so far as a lessons in Lean Startup fashion and check together if there's anything you all can improve.

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

#137

Post by lotsofcows »

AdamN wrote: post #133
pud wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. If you've truly lost faith in the founders and business -- which you have -- you should leave now & cut your losses. It's not going to work out, regardless of salary. As for how to make money after you leave -- get a job or find consulting work. Then jump back into starting a business when you're ready again.

Don't leave until you've clarified your equity stake and dotted all your Is and crossed all of your Ts. However, you should then cut your losses and get out of there. Half of a job is with whom you work and you've learned a great lesson with 'idiot' detection. I've worked with assholes recently, and they can actually be amazing assets at a company, but about 10 years ago I stopped working with idiots and I haven't lo…

Sod the legals, walk away, write it up to experience, re-tailor your CV and suck up a "proper" job (try looking for smaller companies through friends) for a year.

Talk to the people you meet and a new startup will come your way before that year's out.

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

#138

Post by zimbatm »

Everyone here can only judge your situation through your description of the situation and all the bias that comes from it.

From what I read, the rejection of a single VC meeting seems to have put you down. This is normal. Meeting 10-20 VCs before getting an investment is not unusual.

People here have nothing to loose so just take your time before shutting everything down.

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

#139

Post by psionski »

AdamN wrote: post #133
pud wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. If you've truly lost faith in the founders and business -- which you have -- you should leave now & cut your losses. It's not going to work out, regardless of salary. As for how to make money after you leave -- get a job or find consulting work. Then jump back into starting a business when you're ready again.

Don't leave until you've clarified your equity stake and dotted all your Is and crossed all of your Ts. However, you should then cut your losses and get out of there. Half of a job is with whom you work and you've learned a great lesson with 'idiot' detection. I've worked with assholes recently, and they can actually be amazing assets at a company, but about 10 years ago I stopped working with idiots and I haven't lo…

How are you going to make people pay for the clouds? Is this government-sponsored? Otherwise it sounds really cool, I've seen such climate improvement projects before, but I thought they require a huge scale (entire or several countries), can a single company really make a significant impact?

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

#140

Post by nnq »

> with two very non-technical [!] family members [!] (blue-collar "businessy guys")

There are two big warning sign that things will go wrong in the first paragraph: if you end up doing business with family members, only do so if: (1) you really value their technical skills or (2) if they have real objectively proven business skills and proven ability to raise money or finance from their pockets or (3) if you've done business with them before and it worked out well for you.

...if neither (1), (2) or (3) is the case, stay tf away from any business with family members because, when shit hits the fan (and in the OP's case it has!), you will not be able to do what you have to do in order to save either the business or your professional life. But again, even if one of the three points is valid for you, don't start an IT businesses with family members - a corner-shop restaurant, a local racketeering mob... maybe... but not in this field unless they also have good technical skill (you already have enough tension between technical and non-technical cofounders in a regular startup, you don't want to put a potential propane tank on the campfire too).

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