Nightmare Startup, or Bad Comms

[kidneedsadvic]

My startup is in due diligence with a couple firms for seed. But I’m considering leaving. Why?

I am age 20.

I have three other cofounders. One is my best friend from childhood. The other two are in their 50s, industry veterans, former C-Suite. But in my opinion these two “veterans” are just grossly incompetent.

For starters. They have forced me and my younger cofounder into an employee-boss relationship. And refuse to take our product feedback. They have built an out of scope, vibe-coded nightmare, that is market misaligned. Any attempt to improve or implement my product vision is met by harsh resistance, gaslighting, belittling. We wind up circling back to my ideas once they realize I’m right (the iteration cycle is much slower than just trusting me).

Do I stick it out, and hope they raise. Can I steer things in the right direction once we have budget.

[xenospn]

There’s this saying - “if there’s a doubt, there is no doubt”. Leave.

[kidneedsadvic]

Thank you for advice. Duly noted and appreciated

[burntoutgray]

Hard to make suggestions when so much context is missing. For example, did you 2 start and then bring on the 2 C-Suite guys?

From my way too extensive experiences in interacting with C-suite folks, the only thing they are very good at is maximizing outcomes for themselves. Being in their rarified suite, they look down upon ICs as being the plebs, to be exploited.

Based on the above assumption, I would predict that things won't get better once you raise. With dilution and other investor tricks the C-suite guys will bleed you dry and then replace you with AI.

tl;dr LEAVE!

[kidneedsadvic]

Thank you for advice.