Built $5M. Got 1%. Got let go

[mhrnik]

Around 2018–19, a founder from California reached out to me with just an idea.

No product. No traction. Just a vision.

I shared one of my past projects, which was enough to get the work started.

Soon after, I started working with him to bring that idea to life with my teammate/friend.

We built the app from scratch. That MVP eventually scaled to process over $5M+ (something I’m still proud of).

The company raised funding. On paper, my 1% stake started to mean something. Things felt like they were working.

Then things changed.

A new CTO came in, a great guy who taught me CLI & Linux (grateful for that). But I moved from working directly with the founder to working under a new structure.

Less ownership. Less direct communication. More layers.

At the same time, the company started missing its marketing targets. Growth slowed. Burn continued.

In January 2026, I was asked to stop working. By March, even my teammate who was still supporting the mobile app with the CTO, was also asked to stop.

Eventually, the company ran out of money.

We’re still helping a bit on the marketing side now as we want this to work.

That experience taught me a few things:

- Building is only half the game, distribution decides survival

- Proximity to decision-makers matters more than you think

Still grateful I went through it.

----------- Mainly, I only post here about my product or ask something. This time I just share my x post here to share one of the learnings.

[pedrofsteim]

I'm sorry to hear that the company burned all the money. Is there any chance of still being successful? How is the traction? Can you see a path forward?

I had a similar story. I was hired as the first engineer after a mobile agency had built native (iOS/Android) mobile apps.

I built a React web app to support scaling, rewrote the mobile app in React Native to ship faster, and built a ton of features.

We went from 0 revenue to 100k+ ARR, and I got 5% of the company on paper. Then, I hired a small team, and the company scaled to 10M ARR.

I left the company because I had a disagreement with the founder. Today, it is probably doing 20M in ARR, and my 5% (which I still have on paper) has never turned a dollar for me.

[mhrnik]

Thanks for sharing your story.

Right now, it's totally dependent on how the founder takes the call. I am trying my bit, but as I'm way away from marketing right now, I have no clue.

[sph]

You probably meant to post this on LinkedIn and clicked the wrong tab.

If you didn’t, you can write like a human here.

No need to make every line a slogan.

Still I am grateful for this opportunity to spread my knowledge.

Onwards and upwards to the next comment section.

[mhrnik]

I am not active on LinkedIn, as I mentioned that I am active on X, and i just copy pasted from there.

Peace.

[byoung2]

A founder came to you with just an idea and you went on to build it? You should have been a cofounder from the beginning.

[codingdave]

I've found that contracting to just do the work to build peoples ideas, getting your paychecks, and maybe a tiny bit of equity when you can negotiate it, is a safer long-term bet than any founder/co-founder experience.

[mhrnik]

I just took the project as a consulting project so I didn't expect much. And a founder was only looking for DEV!

[notrustincloud]

It's unfortunate when self-declared founders think they just need a developer to 'embody' the product they dreamt up... it's also unfortunate when the dev who is the one capable of delivering a product lets themself be treated like a cog instead of acting as a driver.

It sounds like the CTO should have been hired as a tech trainer for the existing CTO == you.

I see it again and again in early enterprise. When a dreamholder feels underpowered at the real task of delivering product, thdy build layers of admin to lower the product delivery team, burn through CapEx and OpEx and label that 'growth' and eventually the % promise is worthless.

Production teams beware of founders who just need a dev and not a team of partners. Ego > Ability & Manipulation skill instead of leadership capability.

[mhrnik]

Here, the CTO was forced by investor.

[aminau]

wow, cant be more true: Building is only half the game, distribution decides survival Proximity to decision-makers matters more than you think

Also, How did you build for $5M+ , ARR or MRR. or worth. either ways, thats cool !! Best luck for further endeavour

[zachlatta]

AI slop. Please see the Hacker News guidelines on writing with AI.

[mhrnik]

used AI to fix my English, sir!

[notrustincloud]

I think at this point in time, imperfect but real is more acceptable to this crowd than machine translation pseudoprose.