Ask HN: What do you do when too many people want to “help” your startup?

[workerdee]

Some background: I am bootstrapping a startup by working part-time at a few jobs. This isn't going as quickly as I would like, but it is what it is. (I have obligations that I'm unable to blow-off to launch it full-time.) I haven't even told that many people about it - just those that ask what I'm doing in my "free" time - and am not advertising it.

The problem is that everyone is offering their help (literally every. single. person. who finds out about it). I don't talk about it anymore, and won't until it's ready. I would actually like to keep my personal life separate from my business life as much as I can. In three different instances, I have witnessed businesses (and money) destroy lives in my own family, so this hits home. Also, and I'm not sure how to put this tactfully, even though I think the people offering to help feel like they would be doing me a favor (and this is definitely true in some regard), I am not a fan of their work ethic, among other things. They may have an inkling as to how obsessive I am, but working together would be a problem.

Has anyone else had this conflict? And if so, what did you decide and what happened? Am I being short-sighted by ignoring help?

Thanks!

[narrowrail]

Meta: Many Ask HN's annoy me to no end (like yesterday). Yours, however, does not (unlike smt88).

Personally, I don't think you will be able to build a business all by yourself, so I think it's in your best interest to think about the type of person (or people) you will need to generate a profit in your company's future.

For the people offering to help that you feel will not bring anything to the table, just say what you did here (i.e. "I'm a bit too obsessive about this project and feel it would hurt our relationship in the long-run."). Or, that your project is still too immature to add anyone at this point.

I wouldn't worry about such things at this point, just focus on launching and validating your project ASAP.

[jtfairbank]

Tell them thanks for the offer, what is your background, I'll reach out to you if we have a problem in that area? That way you're polite, but they'll stay out of your way until you need them?

[smt88]

I've always been really nice and positive to people on HN, but this tipped me over the edge for many reasons. You're whining about people offering to help you!

You will eventually need people to help you to succeed. Even if these aren't the right people, they're expressing confidence in you and interest in your product. These could be early evangelists, but at the very least, they're just nice people in your life. Shut up and stop complaining about them.

[paulhauggis]

This sounds great in theory, but in practice it's much different.

I've had 'nice' people telling me they want to 'help' me by throwing out any and every idea they could think of. I, being the nice guy, listened to their ideas.

All of their ideas were extremely generic and obvious (example: comment section on a blog, images and sound on an e-learning site). A few months down the line, they then claimed that I needed to give them a percentage of the company because I somehow 'owed' it to them. It never amounted to anything because I laughed it off and outright refused (the company never got off the ground anyway). However, I could see a lawsuit if I had ever become extremely successful.

Many people think that an idea is worth millions or a significant percentage of a company.

You do need people to make anything succeed. However, there will be people that want to grab onto your success in any way possible because they want a piece of it. Family is no exception.

I also have experience choosing people with questionable work-ethics because they were my friends to start a company. It failed every time because of the other person's work ethic.

I have found that most people just aren't willing to put the time and dedication into a company needed to succeed and are better off employees.

[mattm]

Just to add on to this, most business owners have tons of ideas they know they should be doing. They generally don't need anymore ideas. After a certain point it just becomes too much. Being able to prioritize the ideas they have becomes more important than hearing new ideas.

It's easy for people to offer ideas. They don't actually have to put in the work.

[a3n]

It's a real problem. How do you handle volunteers when you can't handle volunteers, and still retain the relationship? The essence of the post is not the complaint, it's the dilemma.

[workerdee]

Okay. Thanks for your insight.