The Problems With My Startup

[joe]

I typed this up in order to collect my thoughts, in hopes of eventually showing them to my coworkers. I am totally open to questions, comments, and suggestions, especially from YC readers.

[staunch]

I think the solution is to get the idea guy down in the details of each idea. Bring him along for the ride and let him come up with lots of micro-ideas. It can be very useful to have two people thinking about the minute details, especially if they balance each other. Involve him in the thousand tiny decisions you have to make while implementing an idea.

Get him to stop looking at competitors. It's nerve wracking, demoralizing, and distracting. You guys probably have more than enough ideas by now, if you'd just focus on the most promising ones your competitors might start looking at you.

[joe]

Good comments. I think I had some of those thoughts early on (specifically referring to your first paragraph), I must have just gotten disillusioned with them. I will attempt them again.

As far as getting him to stop looking at competitors, 100% agreed.

[nostrademons]

Stories like this, from startups that are still struggling, are very helpful. Are you full-time, or do you still have a day job? How about the others on your team?

[joe]

I have a day job, for which I "telecommute", and sadly that's not working out too well. My day job folks just asked me if I would be willing to relocate, and I've been considering it. It would mean much more work from them, which would mean easier payment of bills, etc. I would be living near the job that pays me, not the other way around.

[choward93]

This here shows that you have huge doubts about the startup, if you are willing to leave it for a less risky decision. It saddens me to see your operation come down to you deciding to leave it for a job. To keep it business running, I would try to get another coder, tell the marketing guy to focus on current products, not future side projects. Take control of the company...basically what everyone else has been saying.

[bootload]

This guys comments (first comments in the blog) ring true ~ http://tjic.com/?p=7265

[mickt]

Hmmm, 4 people in the startup and only one writing code. Sounds like a top heavy organisation to me.

Reminds me of a project a collegue was involved in at work (which is at a big established firm). This had; 1 programmer, 1 manger (who requested more technical staff cause he knew 1 programmer wasn't enough but was turned down), and 2 project managers. As the project was running furhter behind schedule (due to agressive scheduling and vague requirements and mainly because lone programmer was in status meetings ever day), various high-level management were thrown at the problem.

Eventually, the programmer spent about 1/2 his day in meetings about the project, with his manager, 2 project managers, 1 VP, 2 senior VP's. Project was never finished ...

[joe]

I typed this up in order to collect my thoughts, in hopes of eventually showing them to my coworkers. I am totally open to questions, comments, and suggestions, especially from YC readers.

[Jd]

Although I am very interested to read your comments, I feel that it is disingenuous to put your name on a 'secret' blog. If you want to have a secret blog, make it secret. If you want to be open and honest with your co-workers, be open and honest w/ them. Half way in between strikes me as more likely to hurt than heal.

Unless what you are trying to do is get at your co-workers, in which case I think you will succeed.

[joe]

Your point is well taken. It wasn't my "secret" blog, really, until I typed this particular post. I had not revealed its existence to any of my coworkers, but as you will notice, none of the other posts are particularly charged as regards business or business politics.

I do want to be open and honest with my coworkers, and I've already had one (one of the designers) have a look at what I wrote. I am going to present the ideas contained therein, to the group, ASAP--it's a matter of finding time to meet and talk about "serious stuff". I was hoping to get some feedback from YC readers because I trust their opinion and ability to perceive when someone has gone off the deep end as regards ideas, reasoning, etc. In other words, I'm hoping that if I'm smoking crack, or if all startups are this way, someone will tell me before I unveil it to my coworkers at large.

I am certainly not trying to get at my coworkers. The stuff at the top is in case it's discovered by a certain coworker who i would rather heard it from me, not the blog. He's been known to read YC news once in a while, thus the precaution.

[greendestiny]

I appreciate the frank dissection of your startup part way through. Just a quick question, you had some guy do several months work for you and you didn't pay him anything?

[joe]

I should probably have been more clear about this--no one has ever received any type of salary. Our media production side of things has generated some money (unrelated to the startup) and that has allowed for us to be paid a little (i.e. $500 a month) here and there.

Thus my beef about venture capital.

[greendestiny]

But its your company, this guy you brought in got nothing. That kind of shit is very bad karma indeed.

[joe]

Agreed. In our defense, he was (is) a friend and got the same deal we all did when we agreed to work on it.

[icey]

In your article you mentioned he got no pay and no equity... Is that the deal that you guys got?

[nanijoe]

If you are the idea guy and you are not bringing in new ideas then what are you contributing to the startup? I think it is a bad idea to have a designated idea guy.

[joe]

We are all idea guys in one sense. The reason I've been referring to one guy as the "idea guy" is that he's not a coder and if I were to gauge the number of ideas each of us has put forth, he would easily take the highest percentage. So because he mostly talks to clients on the phone, does other PR-related things, and brainstorms ideas, I find it easy to refer to him as the "idea guy".

[samwise]

I would take the new job and use the money to hire a coder, along with any coding you can do on your own. You have to be willing to risk everything, if you really want to make it work. No risk no reward. If it was easy everybody would be doing it.

[edw519]

I commend your efforts. It's not easy to go through this. And it's smart of you to share and ask for help. Very smart.

You asked. I won't be bashful. Take my feedback however you want (or tell me to go to h*ll).

You do not have a startup. You have a hobby. A startup is full time. Greater than full time.

Like you, I'm a hacker. I simply cannot imagine giving up equity to a designer or an "idea man" (whatever that is). Design is grossly overrated (see Google). Ideas are everywhere. Only a fool pays for them. People should be paying you to give you ideas (more about that below).

I understand that these are your friends and that you love working with them. Nothing wrong with that. What's more important to you, the quality time you spend together or the outcome? I think you have a tough decision to make because, frankly, I don't see you having both. You don't need these guys.

I would seriously consider taking your employer's offer to relocate. This would give you a graceful exit from your current endeavor and preserve your friendships. Then I would bank every dollar I could in order to go back to my start-up full-time. You should be able to work full-time for at least 6 months, preferably a year. I would also try to pick up side jobs somewhat related to my start-up. Pick up a few extra bucks and get your ideas FROM THOSE WHO ARE PAYING YOU. These are real ideas coming from the field, not from some ivory tower. So the logic is reversed: you can pay for untested ideas, or get paid for real ones.

You don't mention whether your employment is related to your start-up in any way. If it's not, all the more reason to pick up side work.

I would also try to make connections with other hackers; maybe you can find more suitable co-founders.

(By the way, the comment about open and honest communication is spot on. Talk to your partners!)

You've got quite a few things to think about and a lot of good feedback from both places. Please - keep us posted. You never know where this may lead...

[joe]

Thanks for the blunt comment. It's what I was looking for, and much appreciated.

I will attempt to let you all know how this pans out.

[DanielBMarkham]

In my late twenties I was brought in as the superstar on a startup. The "idea guy" was a former professor of software engineering and a former VP for a large electronics firm. Hey -- he was a teacher! And a VP for quality! What could go wrong?

I staffed a very small team and we took off. Every day my idea guy would wonder around the office, (his basement) coming up with some kind of new thing or two that was cool. It was distracting as heck.

I finally took him aside and told him that we could do a certain amount of work each time-box (which I believe was 3 weeks) but we couldn't work in an environment where we didn't know from day-to-day what we were doing. Interestingly, the other main programmer said that I was being too anal. So the idea guy and I had words and I left.

The company never did pan out. Being agile is what it is all about, but you have to actually _do_ something for that truism to work. This is like the guys who sit in the stands at major sporting events. It's easy to have some master plan that changes whenever the mood strikes when you don't have any skin in the game to make something happen. This is why it's better to have geeks who are also idea guys -- they realize the cost associated with the ideas. Just because you can say it easily doesn't mean you can create it easily.

Dude -- I'm sure these guys are your friends and you've been through a lot. But there's lots of serious, focused work involved with making a startup happen. It sounds like what you've got is more of a painful group hobby. I think it might be time to consider a better format for being productive.

[joe]

> It sounds like what you've got is more of a painful group hobby. I think it might be time to consider a better format for being productive.

I think you're right, at least for my part. One problem is that the idea guy IS my friend, but I don't think he shares my point of view about this. I wrote up the blog post in order to collect my thoughts to relate them to him.

[DanielBMarkham]

The business side of this is cold and harsh, as it always is.

But as far as keeping a friend? He's a teacher, right? Why don't you sell him on the idea about learning how other startups succeed? I'll never forget reading "A Good Hard Kick in the Ass" several years ago. It completely changed the way I understood how startups work. Perhaps you could sell him on the idea that you're feeling a little frustrated, and perhaps other teams out there have learned something that might be useful to you guys.

I also liked "Founders at Work" which I read a while ago. I wouldn't bury the guy in material -- after all, if you give him too much he'll just blow it off. But I'd find some text that made the case and _was presented by another person who is an authority_. That way, it's not a you vs. him deal, it's just a couple of friends discovering how things work.

Good luck. If he's smart and your friend I'm sure he'll see the value of a structured approach to creativity. The trick is to be non-confrontational. Let the ideas battle it out, and not the people.

[ph0rque]

let us know how your talk with co-founders goes.

[joe]

Will do.