201–210 of 253 posts
Though I had to roll my eyes at the “inventing AGI” part.
Also it’s Steve Glass not Steve Grass and when a word ends in an s sound you don’t have to add another s after the ‘ when making it possessive. So it would be “Steve Glass’ idea” instead of “Steve Glass’s idea”
I recently walked away from a potential startup because my non-technical partner (MBA ideas guy) wanted an 80/20 equity split in his favor. I was the first to broach the discussion and proposed 50/50. It was a severe misalignment in expectations, and this was after 3 months of meeting regularly to refine the idea and build out prototypes (read: I was building the prototypes). My advice is to have this conversation wi…
Good you walked away. In my experience, the heavy lifting in a tech start up is, by definition, the tech. The "idea guys" rarely understand that it's the execution that makes an idea valuable. Sales are important, but are a bit of a crapshoot. You can't consistently sell trash, no matter how good a salesperson you are. The guy was happy to roll the dice, while using your mental energy. Great deal for him, but not so…
One thing I've wondered about for awhile: How do you find a business co-founder you can trust? For one example, the article says that some of the best value that a business co-founder can contribute is disproportionately building the relationships. But those relationships can be more connected to the business cofounder themself, than to the company. It's a bit different for the technical co-founder, since your percep…
If you get a list of all the startups that got acquired or IPO in the last 10 years, you will find it's extremely rare the technical co-founder is still around. The staying rate for CEO is like 99% while the staying rate for CTO is more like 50% (making up numbers here but this is directionally right).
With enough scale, a great CTO can be hired for the right salary. The way I answer this for myself is two-fold:
1. I've vowed I will never be the second chair guy because I don't wanna get pushed out.
2. It's important to up-skill yourself so you can contribute more value than a glorified engineering manager by driving vision, being a headhunter of superstar engineers, among others high-value skills
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is that so crazy? 85% margin gives $27k a month or $326k a year before taxes. Was he going to work on this full time? How does he replace a reasonable salary otherwise? Of course, I would expect this to be over time (say, linearly over 3 years) and subject to hitting growth targets.
It's crazy if you know how startups work, and you're not valuing it at all how investors value startups.
I'm going to assume that either A) there is no growth without this partnership, so the startup is maybe worth up to 1M, in which case getting up to 40% over 4 years with work and targets makes sense, or B) the original founder is expecting significant growth even without the partnership, in which case he needs an employee and not a partner (and he should pay him as such).
I recently walked away from a potential startup because my non-technical partner (MBA ideas guy) wanted an 80/20 equity split in his favor. I was the first to broach the discussion and proposed 50/50. It was a severe misalignment in expectations, and this was after 3 months of meeting regularly to refine the idea and build out prototypes (read: I was building the prototypes). My advice is to have this conversation wi…
I guarantee you this was his rationale.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But a valuable business co-founder brings extensive domain expertise, a network of people, sales skills, management skills, and fund-raising talent. A valuable technical cofounder brings the skills to literally create what you're trying to sell. Otherwise, have fun selling dust. Or networking to sell nothing. The "0 to 1" here isn't "no management to management" it's "not having a product built to having a product…
There's no point having the skills to build a product if you can't fundraise to build a team, market, sell, refine to find product-market fit, etc. etc.
You’re saying that there’s no point in having the skills to actually do something (building a product), unless you have someone derivative skills as well (all the business things you state).
That really comes off as trying to justify the business cofounder. I can build independently. You can’t build a team (which I can do), market (which I can do), sell (which I can do), or refine (which I can do) independently.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
MBA doesn't mean that much by itself.
MBA is a red flag.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no point having the skills to build a product if you can't fundraise to build a team, market, sell, refine to find product-market fit, etc. etc.
I’m not sure if this is a joke. You’re saying that there’s no point in having the skills to actually do something (building a product), unless you have someone derivative skills as well (all the business things you state). That really comes off as trying to justify the business cofounder. I can build independently. You can’t build a team (which I can do), market (which I can do), sell (which I can do), or refine (whi…
>> You’re saying that there’s no point in having the skills to actually do something (building a product), unless you have someone derivative skills as well (all the business things you state).
yes, with the proviso that the "someone" might include yourself.
>> You can’t build a team (which I can do), market (which I can do), sell (which I can do), or refine (which I can do) independently.
If you can do those things, then great, you have the "someone" you need.
But, it's fair to say that most techies do not have those necessary skills. As evidence see the endless stream of question in the "Ask" section of HN trying to get advice on those activities after the product is built.
So the point is not "There's no need for a business founder". The point is that to have a business all the bases must be covered, and you need as many people as you need to cover those bases. Sometimes it's 1. Sometimes it's 2. Sometimes it's 5.
The most common successes have 2 or 3 founders, but that don't make the other numbers impossible, it's just a trend. Which makes sense - the more hats you wear, then less time you have to devote to each of them.