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How I feel quitting my own startup

aquiles.me

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Re: How I feel quitting my own startup

#21

Post by j45 »

aqui_c wrote: post #5
David_SQOX wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is too short to stay miserable, OP. You launched a startup that has lasted 4+ years, that in and of itself is a huge accomplishment. I've had several startups fail over 20 years and each was a it's own heavy learning experience. You've gotten much further than most ever will. Good work aqui!

Thanks! I try to stay as positive as possible, and looking forward to the new opportunities that'll appear.

There is always what’s next for people who don’t finish learning and experimenting .. and consequently peaking.

Keep moving, Inward onward and upward

Re: How I feel quitting my own startup

#22

Post by convolvatron »

neon_electro wrote: post #18
inconceivable wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the sense of frantic feature building is normal for a high growth startup. feeling constantly behind is also normal. a high growth startup is not a loving, nurturing, comfortable place. it's a mad dash for money and everyone is going to be pushing as hard as they humanly can, both in terms of work but also in terms of pushing others. you're on the right track with the detaching yourself, but that can only get you so…

this is not the culture human beings should support or tolerate at their workplace

its not even a good way to maximize output

Re: How I feel quitting my own startup

#23

Post by subarctic »

throwaway778 wrote: post #14

I’m struggling with making this decision at the moment and it was interesting to read this. I’m not a founder, but I’m the first hire and the first engineer – there since day 2. Six years in, a couple of pivots, and now we have a team of 100 people with a gigantic series A just closed and an excellent PMF. I built most of the product myself – it’s genuinely game-changing and commercial demand is through the roof. Eno…

I kind of hope you hold onto this throwaway account so you can tell us what you ultimately decide to do - from what you've said it sounds like the right course of action for you is to exercise your options to lock in your equity (assuming you have enough spare cash to do so) and move on, starting things off with a long vacation because you've been working crazy hours. Or you could start by just taking a long vacation and deciding what you want to do. Or a short vacation to work up to the long vacation - at the very least, a disconnect from the grind would probably really help.

I say this as an individual contributor though, and I imagine it must be tougher to consider walking away when you're a manager and you have a team of people who will be directly affected if you leave.

Re: How I feel quitting my own startup

#24

Post by inconceivable »

neon_electro wrote: post #18
inconceivable wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the sense of frantic feature building is normal for a high growth startup. feeling constantly behind is also normal. a high growth startup is not a loving, nurturing, comfortable place. it's a mad dash for money and everyone is going to be pushing as hard as they humanly can, both in terms of work but also in terms of pushing others. you're on the right track with the detaching yourself, but that can only get you so…

this is not the culture human beings should support or tolerate at their workplace

my comment is descriptive, not prescriptive. i doubt anyone even knows the difference anymore because of all the smarmy posturing these days.

"this rock is hard, and has sharp edges. it will cut you."

"no! that is terrible! rocks should be soft, with round edges! how dare you! nobody should accept rocks that are hard and sharp! that's dangerous! why do you support dangerous things?!"

Re: How I feel quitting my own startup

#25

Post by psyklic »

aqui_c wrote: post #2

I left the startup I co-founded 4+ years ago. The entire process was an emotional roller-coaster. My co-founders (and business partners), who are the majority shareholder, made it abundantly clear that the company was 'theirs'. They made decisions behind my back although I am the only founder working full time on the company. I felt alienated, undervalued, and frankly quite miserable for a while. At some point, when…

FWIW something similar happened to me as well, dropped out of school to go full-time as a co-founder. We put in writing several times that we held similar numbers of shares, yet nine months in discovered my business partner awarded himself nearly all of the equity. When I left due to this, the company completely lost velocity for over a year, which I suspect might happen due to your departure too.

The betrayal weighed on me for years, especially since I eventually had to involve lawyers. I think the most important thing you can do is find new opportunities to occupy your mind so you can learn from it but not dwell on it.

Re: How I feel quitting my own startup

#27

Post by two_in_one »

AHOHA wrote: post #11

Although it wasn’t as a founder, but I can relate, in one of a small startup I got hired as the first engineer, rest were a founder and sales guy and a part time HR girl, so as expected, I solely built the architecture, few fully fledged platforms, dozens of PoC, successfully delivered projects, then after 1.5y the second engineer got hired, now I’m guilty as probably you mentioned being emotionally attached to my wo…

As long as you have significant stock it probably doesn't matter much. Like for that engineer with 10% of Yahoo, or chief cook at Google. If you are ambitious, then you need an assistant to do what you are doing now. Better a small team under your leadership ;) The difficult part is to make them believe it.

Re: How I feel quitting my own startup

#28

Post by taberiand »

psyklic wrote: post #25
aqui_c wrote: post #2

I left the startup I co-founded 4+ years ago. The entire process was an emotional roller-coaster. My co-founders (and business partners), who are the majority shareholder, made it abundantly clear that the company was 'theirs'. They made decisions behind my back although I am the only founder working full time on the company. I felt alienated, undervalued, and frankly quite miserable for a while. At some point, when…

FWIW something similar happened to me as well, dropped out of school to go full-time as a co-founder. We put in writing several times that we held similar numbers of shares, yet nine months in discovered my business partner awarded himself nearly all of the equity. When I left due to this, the company completely lost velocity for over a year, which I suspect might happen due to your departure too. The betrayal weighe…

Sounds like something that should have involved lawyers right from the "put in writing" stage.

Re: How I feel quitting my own startup

#29

Post by [deleted] »

inconceivable wrote: post #24
neon_electro wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is not the culture human beings should support or tolerate at their workplace

my comment is descriptive, not prescriptive. i doubt anyone even knows the difference anymore because of all the smarmy posturing these days. "this rock is hard, and has sharp edges. it will cut you." "no! that is terrible! rocks should be soft, with round edges! how dare you! nobody should accept rocks that are hard and sharp! that's dangerous! why do you support dangerous things?!"

[deleted]

Re: How I feel quitting my own startup

#30

Post by psyklic »

taberiand wrote: post #28
psyklic wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW something similar happened to me as well, dropped out of school to go full-time as a co-founder. We put in writing several times that we held similar numbers of shares, yet nine months in discovered my business partner awarded himself nearly all of the equity. When I left due to this, the company completely lost velocity for over a year, which I suspect might happen due to your departure too. The betrayal weighe…

Sounds like something that should have involved lawyers right from the "put in writing" stage.

We had well-known lawyers from the beginning who deferred payment until we raised. The problem was that we delegated all legal to my business partner. When we traded the written equity split, he didn't disclose that he held (estimated) >80x more shares than what was listed next to his name.
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