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I'm working on a start-up now with a buddy (an ex-investment banker that's done enough bizdev and has enough reliable connections to make me comfortable) and we've dumped in about $10k of our money for a formal focus group to help us with branding and product direction. Our target market is basically unexplored at this point and technologically the space has been more or less unexciting... but I've got a set of technologies written out and implemented that's patentable. So, pretty loving high risk, but what's life without risk, right? Greatest hurdles for us so far have been just getting the loving site up and running because most of us have primary jobs making a good bit of money and have other obligations keeping us from focusing on this 100%. It's tough to find people that are willing to put in time for a start-up that isn't theirs in their free time. This isn't the first start-up I've been one of the initial members though, and last time that failed because I got sick during a critical stage and 100% burned out from a year of working two jobs and barely sleeping. I've learned my lessons from last time thankfully, but I can't help but feel that I should just take a vacation week or something and crank out a bunch of crap without giving a drat about how it looks. We really can't get VC funding at this point given that there's nothing that's properly branded or presentable (I've built a site that's got programmer design waiting to be skinned basically) so I'm just focusing on building something on the backend in the absence of our frontend guys delivering. I've been a part of only successful start-ups that weren't mine though is the funny thing, so maybe I've learned enough from them to make it work this time on my own though.
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Oct 10, 2011 18:21
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 23:33 |
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Wow, some of you guys got seriously screwed by your start-ups' execs. Being bulllied into selling back your shares to get a severance when the founders are making serious bank off selling the company (although it's possible the VCs kept 98% of the proceeds anyway) isn't an unfamiliar story but I didn't know it happened often enough to mention as more than a horror story. I suppose part of why my cofounders didn't screw us was because they wanted to keep hiring the technical guys again and again and again for their next start-ups.mintskoal posted:However, I have a feeling that they're more interested in buying my company outright and then having me wedge my app into their new product, which I wouldn't want to do. I would sell the company and its IP and offer a consulting rate that's somewhat comparable to your salary now where they pay for lots of stuff basically. A lot of companies are desperate to hire the people as well because they can't hold onto decent developers. Don't ever let yourself be hired into such a company without some sort of fallback network.
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May 10, 2012 21:53
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Almost every early stage consulting-oriented startup (that's taken off) in my second hand experience has been by former consultants that have a working relationship with a good, long list of clients from the past. If you don't have these relationships, you'll need to look at getting into something like government contracting which can force people in charge of megabux to afford consultant rates to put your company into consideration regardless of your size and/or pre-existing business network. There's a good reason why all the business guys are constantly out meeting people instead of sitting at home writing papers and proposals (the introvert version of a business guy I guess).
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Jun 27, 2012 15:43
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