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by 0x0aff374668 2385 days ago
> This reminds me of first time founders who can't wait to get "CEO" business cards.

I worked for such a CEO. In the first year we had four week-long retreats to: an island in WA state, Palm springs, Austin, and Banff (that's where the stats team was). TONS of swag. Aeron chairs. New MBPros. Oh, and champagne fridays. Needless to say it burned through it's good will seed round in 1 year, and the CEO begged for another year's worth of money from friends before shuttering. But hey, hype sells in the software world.
2 comments
bitexploder 2385 days ago
Chairs and laptops are fine. Even nice ones. They aren’t what brings down a tech startup. These purchases can speak to the mentality of the founders, but they are also nice all around for quality of life. We spend a lot of time on laptops, sitting in those chairs. The chairs last a long time and hold their value well. Worth every penny. The Trips are kind of telling, though. We are a small consulting firm and have nice laptops, chairs, desks, and keyboards. Those things aren’t the problem :)
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sjburt 2385 days ago
Yeah, the red flag in a startup is a founding team who can't explain in a sentence what their product is or why it's different. So far I've read 3 blogs and 4 websites and all I can tell is that they have a garage and also maybe an office.
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ssully 2385 days ago
Their homepage is pretty clear - they are trying to make cloud technologies more accessible in on premises solutions.

I am not an expert in the field, but I work at a place that is very resistant to cloud solutions for certain applications, and getting the same stuff working on prem can be difficult and pricey.

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ivl 2385 days ago
Got to agree here. The idea of a company not providing decent hardware and chairs says a lot. It's a couple thousand per employee at most, for an easy gain in employee satisfaction.

Trips are pretty silly though.

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icelancer 2385 days ago
God, I couldn't wait to give up the CEO title. When I brought on a partner I immediately ceded it to him when we discussed roles. He was shocked and thought he would start as the COO for years.

It's such a thankless job and one that has a specific skillset that is fairly rare. You can be the Founder but not the CEO; something people seem to forget in this business.

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