131–140 of 241 posts
Learning Django isn't difficult at all. If anything, learning Django will be a huge benefit even if you do find a Django coder. Not only will you be able to convey your ideas more efficiently by having an understanding of code, but I'm sure your coder won't feel as much of a slave. Learn Python first: http://openbookproject.net//thinkCSpy/ and for Django: http://www.djangobook.com/ If you're really dedicated to conti…
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"This Django girl"?
It was either that or "the developer that took a royal salary and equity, then extorted more equity, then quit leaving our hero high and dry, broke, with an incomplete alpha, after taking one year to not finish developing a proof of concept." I was trying to be nice.
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You're much better off paying that 35% equity along with a full salary than giving her 6% (or worse, 1%). Think about it this way: she is building your product. She can either put in high effort or low effort. If you give her 35%, there's a good chance she'll put in high effort, you'll both succeed, and your 65% is actually worth something. If you give her 6%, there's a good chance she'll put in low effort, you'll fa…
nostrademons I paid the 35% equity 8 months ago, only to have her quit when the going got tough.
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 of people that still suggest that, and it really doesn't work, as you've found out the hard way.
I dunno what advice I'd give to you personally - it's a hard situation, as many others have pointed out. Probably cut your losses, chalk it up to an expensive learning experience, and move on, then try again some other time. As I mentioned in another comment, I think it's fairly unlikely that this developer left you usable code that someone else could pick up, so it'd be difficult to get a contract developer to push it to finish line. You could learn to hack yourself - Python and Django are not difficult - but it'd set you back at least a couple months, and then you'd still have to implement everything.
[Edit: last paragraph was on the assumption that her work was not even demoable, but rereading your post, it sounds like you've gotten to alpha but just need to incorporate the feedback in. If that's the case, a contractor might work, but be aware that it's harder to read code than to write code, and if the code quality is bad enough any contractor would just have to throw everything out and start from scratch.]
If you can find a technical cofounder, someone that you trust that you know is a good developer, I'd do that (and give the decent equity from the start!), and then they can probably write the whole site from scratch in a couple months. But it has to be someone you know well, someone whose skills you're sure about, because otherwise you run the same risk with them.
Ok, so this is what happens to startups, step two survive. The first thing you need to do is get her to either sign a non-compete, sign away the company, or make you an offer to buy out her shares. Something legal might be necessary. If she is willing to sign a non-compete, and finish the project that is what you want, else, options 2 and 3 are on the table. Next you need to finish your project. http://uservoice.com/…
"You have developed most of the idea, and now you just need to round the corners, this is a perfect job for someone that just wants a pay check." I'm not sure this is the case. It sounds like the "it's nearly done" is based on the developer's word, and there isn't actually anything demoable right now. If that's true, and given that it's taken her 12 months to finish a Django website, I think it's a good bet that all…
You know another option is for drinko to start a new company, and license the tech from this company to the new one, to avoid all of the bullshit.
Drinko, in all likelyhood, you are starting over at this point. I have seen 3 projects fail this way. Your BEST BET is to learn to code.
Google claims that an app engine account is worth about 5 million page hits a month, which should support 100k users.
I might be able to help you salvage something (at least a working prototype) pro-bono if you'd like to contact me (my username @gmail.com).
Learning Django isn't difficult at all. If anything, learning Django will be a huge benefit even if you do find a Django coder. Not only will you be able to convey your ideas more efficiently by having an understanding of code, but I'm sure your coder won't feel as much of a slave. Learn Python first: http://openbookproject.net//thinkCSpy/ and for Django: http://www.djangobook.com/ If you're really dedicated to conti…
If she were actually "all in" on the business, 35% for a developer would be perfectly acceptable, even if she wasn't taking on as much risk. But, you need a vesting schedule in these kinds of agreements. At least then, you know you get four years of labor from the person--or they lose (some or all of) their stake.
I'd suggest going back to the drawing board (and back to a real job, while you gather your wits and save up some money). If you can buy out your former partner (hopefully for a pittance, though it sounds like your former partner is far more dangerous at the negotiating table than you are), you can outsource the remainder of the work--with better contracts. Or, learn to code on nights and weekends and finish it yourself.
But, if you can't buy out her stake, you can't build a business. It's hard enough to build a profitable business when everybody is working full-time on it. It's going to be damned near impossible when 35% of your company is doing nothing for the bottom line. Raising money will be impossible. Making it profitable will be difficult (while stock holders don't have any particular right to be paid dividends, at 35% she's got voting rights that have to be dealt with...depending on where you're incorporated, you might find 35% is a dangerously high ownership stake). And any exit, unlikely as that is, will be bitter sweet.
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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).
I don't think you can blame outsourcing for that exclusively. Most startups rewrite their code multiple times, to track design changes. OTOH, if it was a rewrite motivated by code quality issues, I can see what you mean.
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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…