Startups Planning to leave my 3-month-old startup because of a toxic co-founder and environment. |
- Planning to leave my 3-month-old startup because of a toxic co-founder and environment.
- How do Lifetime Deals (LTD's) help SaaS startups in the beginning?
- What would be a fair deal for a co-founder for a stage 2 start up ?
- Should I be entitled to equity?
- Any way of getting a bunch of movies legally for startup?
- How to find the next challenge, motivation and passion after a certain business success?
- Bringing in people for equity pre-funding who aren't necessary for MVP
- Transitioning our digital agency into a service platform
- Suggestions for document tracking/onboarding processes
- Effectiveness of Campus Ambassador Programs
- I just started working at a startup after being an entrepreneur - I have some questions
- Going to the market to find your idea?
- Hey, what's wrong?
- Need advice about PC renting business!
- Project sponsors as the way to bootstrap?
- I’m the CEO of a new internet startup with a good programmer. I need someone to handle the day to day administration of the startup as school has robbed me of all my time. Should I hire a COO, Product Manger or a Business Development Manager? Also who handles marketing and social media?
- How good must the UI / UX be at alpha launch?
- In a single round of funding, does the valuation of company change as more number of investors come in?
| Planning to leave my 3-month-old startup because of a toxic co-founder and environment. Posted: 11 Jun 2021 05:06 PM PDT As the title says, I'm a co-founder of a very early startup. We've been a team for around 4 months and have been operating for about 3. Our sales and revenue at this point are decent I would say, and I think the business has potential, given the right effort and teamwork. That's where the problem comes in, my co-founder hasn't been the best to work with and at this point has pushed me to want to leave. He's the CEO, but I don't feel like he's a very good leader. I've pointed out to him things he has to work on multiple times (things that have negatively affected our team, causing a really good member to even quit). An example of this is that he brought on his ex (that he works very well with) to be a co-founder of our startup without really telling me. She was first introduced as an early employee along with 3 other people, but 2 weeks in, he offered her a co-founder title. This blind-sided me and the rest of the team. I'll admit, his ex is very effective and does a lot of good work, but their dynamic is very exclusive and does not create a very healthy work environment for the rest of the team, making anyone else in the team feel left out or even unheard at times. My team members and I have pointed it out to them numerous times in the last 3 months but nothing has changed. It's starting to become their own show at this point. Earlier this week also he even brought up the idea that I should lower my equity from being equal with him (35/35), to be equal with our 3rd co-founder (his ex, where she increases equity), at (20/20). When he mentioned this I personally felt very disrespected and wondered why he even wanted to co-found this with me in the first place. I guess it's because he sees more value in his ex as a co-founder as he works well with her. I also find it very toxic to work with him because it feels like I'm not trusted to do my work. I always do what I say I'm going to do, and do them well, but he's the only one that keeps asking me for non-stop updates, to the point where it is crossing boundaries and sometimes he even decides to take over my work or redo it with his ex. He does this with other team members too. This issue of lack of respect for personal boundaries manifests also by how he messages at hours of the day that I've clearly mentioned are non-working hours for me, expecting me to reply and produce what he's looking for on the spot. He even sets up the conversation to sound like me not delivering exactly when he wants it to be my fault and shortcoming-- does this with other members too. So yeah, this is just an overview of the many things that he does to make my work life very toxic. And despite my interest in the business, I am deciding to leave. I don't think he's capable as a leader, and after pointing these out to him multiple times, it doesn't seem worth it to try anymore. Since he is also a friend I've known for a while, my current plan is, to be honest with him about the issues I've had, telling him how these have been affecting me, then telling him I want to leave. Given this, I was wondering if you guys here have any suggestions on how I go about telling him. Any specific things I should say or things that would make the conversation better? Other issues I should mention? Should I sell my shares to them with a buy-out? Should I give a week's notice or leave once I've finished my remaining responsibilities? I want out but I hope not to entirely burn down this bridge. Another thing to note is that we haven't incorporated yet. Thanks in advance! [link] [comments]  |
| How do Lifetime Deals (LTD's) help SaaS startups in the beginning? Posted: 11 Jun 2021 05:47 PM PDT I was helping out in a small start up incubator yesterday. -I help teams craft and deliver their pitch, I am more of a communications/speaker coach and am not particularly knowledgeable about the details of creating and launching a start up. But the thing is, I only know LTD's from the consumer side. I have bought several over the past couple of years some great, some not so good. I don't want to give these guys bad information. I don't know the benefits or risks for offering LTD's and was hoping you could point out some of the reasons you would or wouldn't go down this track. Thanks [link] [comments]  |
| What would be a fair deal for a co-founder for a stage 2 start up ? Posted: 12 Jun 2021 02:00 AM PDT I started a project with an idea I had couple of years ago, did market research, found a potential customer that was interested in my future product with whom I iterated over. Built the mvp, validated my product and I'm currently building v2 with 65 users. I applied to an incubator where they are helping me getting the ready for scaling and investment etc. They told me that investors are extremely reluctant with solo-founded startups. I already knew this from the "throw under the bus" recurring question. To be honest I'm fine with having a co-founder jump up and help me scale. There are plenty of things to get done (marketing, sales, growth, etc). But let say I find someone whom I believe could do a great job. What would be a fair deal? Are there any examples ? I did all the work until now and it would be difficult for me to measure how much input he is to the future of the company in relation to my input. I would have a hard time joining a company as a co-founder at this stage, I would have liked to have some input in the idea and be part of the process. [link] [comments]  |
| Should I be entitled to equity? Posted: 11 Jun 2021 02:30 AM PDT I"m the fourth employee (joining 3 founders) of a fast growing SaaS start up. Currently have 15 employees. I've been here two years on a fairly low salary, currently ~£38,000. (tech salaries are lower in Europe it should be said) Salary has increased a number of times since I started. I head up the customer support and training team and do a bit of product management. I have a good relationship with the founders and they do seem to value my contribution. I have been enquiring about equity for months now, initially they seemed open to it but now it seems that the current shareholders don't want to give up any percentage. Would this be typical? basically, I'm wondering should I start looking for another job. I'd love do something in product management anyway more so than support, but I don't have a very technical background. Wondering what other startups are like for equity/compensation! EDIT: I feel like I should add I think I do as much work as the founders, a lot of hours. Some meetings at 5am, 6am or 10pm 11pm due to time zones. [link] [comments]  |
| Any way of getting a bunch of movies legally for startup? Posted: 12 Jun 2021 04:10 AM PDT Looking for a cheap way of getting a ton of movies for a startup legally. I would need full length versions of these movies but the usage of these movies would come under the fair use policy. Obviously piracy wouldn't be an option as it is illegal to pirate movies but is there a way of getting a ton of movies for cheap/free? The options I have thought of would possibly be
Any suggestions? [link] [comments]  |
| How to find the next challenge, motivation and passion after a certain business success? Posted: 11 Jun 2021 10:06 AM PDT Hi guys. Long time lurker here. Need some help / ideas from community. Quick background info: I've established and grew a digital products business for the last 5 years. I've really enjoyed in the process, especially in the beginning. Due to the digital nature of products, I've automated most of the things and it is mostly passive income (besides customer support and such). It earns quite nice (6 figures), I am quite proud of it but I stumbleupon this "so, what's next?" feeling quite often. I sometimes lose my motivation and looking for the ways to overcome this feeling. For the last 2 years, I've tried:
What are my options:
I don't want to sound like a bighead but it is the problem which keeps coming back as long as I try to ignore it. I really appreciate if one can recommend any reads, similar threads, forums, links etc. [link] [comments]  |
| Bringing in people for equity pre-funding who aren't necessary for MVP Posted: 11 Jun 2021 06:48 PM PDT I'm the technical cofounder in a two-person startup. The other guy brings domain knowledge and the idea. We are in an early stage-- no funding yet, just workshopping the idea and building an MVP. I think we are pretty close to having something we can pitch. My cofounder has several people who he wants to be part of the company. He wants to offer them equity. These people cannot contribute to building the MVP, but should be able to help down the road once the product is at a stage where they are needed. They work in areas like data analytics and UX design. He really wants to bring them on now because they are people he knows in their early careers and he thinks we can get them for cheap now, before they get nice jobs and become big successes and will cost more. My contention is that we should only bring people on at this stage if they can contribute to getting funding, i.e. by building the MVP or pitching to investors. My rationale is that equity is more valuable than cash, especially investor cash, so because these people are not needed yet, we should wait and bring on them on later for a salary. I also think that VCs would look poorly on us slinging out significant percentages here and there to people who don't yet serve a purpose. It would make us look amateurish. Why would they trust us with their money if they see us being profligate with equity? On the other hand, I hear that having a team assembled is an important factor in whether to fund someone, so in that sense bringing on impressive sounding people, whether they are doing anything or not, might be a good thing. That's my best counterargument to my own point. Are there errors in my line of thinking? How would this viewed by VCs? Any general thoughts? [link] [comments]  |
| Transitioning our digital agency into a service platform Posted: 11 Jun 2021 04:47 PM PDT I currently run a moderately successful digital agency that offers site builds, ecommerce, services, branding, marketing and cloud consulting. We work mainly with smaller businesses but also have some larger clients on board. We're looking to grow and I have outlined a plan to transition our business to more of a marketplace business combined with an agency. Here's how it would work: First, instead of developing myself or keeping staff in house we'd have a bank of around 40 vetted freelancers who are self employed and experienced in what they do. Potential clients come to us and submit their project/task required online. There's no project minimums and tasks can range from smaller one of tweaks to a full site build. Once their project has been submitted and they agree to the price, we then work to put a team of freelancers together alongside a project manager if required. This could be one or more freelancers depending on the size of the project/task submitted. They'd be chosen based on their skill set. We would have an app which manages all project communication, billing and allows the client to track deadlines and the status of their task/project as well as manage revisions. This has advantages over other marketplace sites such as Fiverr and Storetasker as there's many services available and it's not just restricted to one niche. There's also no vetting of freelancers and quality is ensured by us. Compared to an agency we'd also have a larger skill base and can scale. Thoughts on the idea? [link] [comments]  |
| Suggestions for document tracking/onboarding processes Posted: 11 Jun 2021 10:48 AM PDT Hello! I am currently working on changing the user onboarding system at the startup I work for. After we have a sales call, we send out our onboarding documents via DocuSign, Google Forms and a Stripe link to connect their accounts. We have significant drop off after the documents are sent out, and many people will only fill out the form, and take a long time to send back the Docusign (which is the contract of participation, and we need to move forward to our next step). I am also in charge of tracking how far along each prospect is in the process, and manually reminding them to fill out the documents they are missing. I am having a hard time finding a solution for how to track the documents, and have them all in one place. I would love y'alls input if you know of any user onboarding tools that could benefit us! Thank you so much! [link] [comments]  |
| Effectiveness of Campus Ambassador Programs Posted: 11 Jun 2021 08:53 AM PDT Hi all! Doing some market research on CA programs for a startup. I've scoured the internet on the effectiveness of CA programs but haven't been able to actually find statistics past anecdotes (e.g., Spotify). How effective are these programs? Would love to hear from anyone who has experience setting up/managing a CA program as well. Cheers! [link] [comments]  |
| I just started working at a startup after being an entrepreneur - I have some questions Posted: 10 Jun 2021 04:15 PM PDT I am 25 and in early May I swallowed my pride and got a job. I've been an entrepreneur since high school and gave never had a "real job". My longtime company I started in college crashed and burned in 2019 and left me $87,000 in debt. Almost two years later I've paid off almost $25k but I'm still living with my parents. I made $30k last year just hustling but burned myself out and struggled under all the financial stress. In late March a Facebook friend in the financial marketing industry reached out to me and said she was looking to start a new company with assets (mainly mailing/customer list) of one of her other companies. She said she just needed someone to take those assets and run with the idea she had because she was too busy. Essentially basically run a big umbrella of several established companies/brands in everything from events to SaaS to Affiliate management in the same industry that all go back to one big company that they own with partners from my understanding. I jumped on it and we got to know each other over a couple calls. She asked for a proposal and what salary I wanted so I outlined how I thought I could help and what I wanted monthly. I asked for $84k a year. That was enough for me to move out of my parents house and for me to be debt free in 2 years. She came back with an offer of $48k a year to start since this new project had zero revenue and then if the company hit certain revenue benchmarks my salary would increase propositionally. The private equity company who is somehow involved with the parent company approved it. My first paycheck was May 3 for $3k and it was mentioned that I'd start at $4k a month in June. But we've gotten nowhere since. We haven't even mailed the list yet. I haven't gotten paid this month either and when I sent them an invoice (I'm a 1099 for now) she wrote me and questioned the $4k. Her and her business partner (who is a veteran in the industry and has a big reputation) brought in a friend of theirs with 20 years of experience in the industry who was supposed to help me in return for having access to mail his own offers to this list down the road. The issue is he's involved in several companies himself and is only available for an hour or two at night. I don't mind the entrepreneurial-ness of it all. I want to build something and I actually prefer it compared to a highly structured/corporate culture. But at the same time with my debt load (and the high monthly payments that go with it) I need stability income wise for now. I'm also learning how to be an employee. They keep telling me we are a team and that I shouldn't look at this as an employee (she literally told me that after a team call) but as a partner and as a member of a team. Part of it is that as an entrepreneur I was much more of a generalist operationally than a specialist. I don't have the skills to just take their ideas and run with it from start to finish when it comes to things like the tech stack. Im just left with a lot of down time in something I thought I'd be a full time employee in. I flew out to meet them in person this week for the first time. It was good to get to know them but again we had a conversation about how they could use my skills and what I am good at. They keep pivoting me to other projects that aren't related to this new company I was brought in for. They also strangely always ask me what else I'm working on (implying/assuming I have side projects) and if I have free time. I've tried repeatedly to make it clear that I want this to be a full time job and that I want to work regular hours. I was upfront from the beginning about my journey and financial/debt situation. It has me wondering if they want me to or assume I'm getting paid from other sources/projects at the same time when in reality I'm not making much from them at all. I guess I'm wondering if all of this is normal for being an employee at a startup? [link] [comments]  |
| Going to the market to find your idea? Posted: 11 Jun 2021 08:24 AM PDT Has anyone ever gone into a market tried to contact as many people in that contact and listen to their problems in order to find problems that could be solved with SaaS? I was wondering what other people's experience with this is and if you could give me your experiences, tips, tricks, or frameworks in order to do it effectively? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 11 Jun 2021 03:00 AM PDT This is /r/startups emotional support thread. There will be no problem-solving here, no judgement, no networking, no advice. We're here to be heard, be understood, and be told that it'll be okay, that whatever happens, we care. Still, be tactful and classy in how you vent your feelings and share your frustrations. Act in a mature manner. This is meant to be a safe place to support emotional and physical health and there is a zero tolerance policy in effect. Be kind. Please report any conduct that is in violation of that key tenet. Howdy there. Did you have a rough week? It's certainly been a rough year. Did you get in an argument? Have a problem? Tell me about it. What's wrong?[link] [comments]  |
| Need advice about PC renting business! Posted: 11 Jun 2021 11:21 AM PDT I overlook a gaming lounge which is going through a rough phase for past one year+. Thinking about renting the PCs. How do I secure the system? As in no one opens up the cabinet? I think people won't open up monitor, keyboard, mouse, or PS4. But since a cabinet is easily openable and parts can be easily swapped, I fear theft/swaps. Do I seal the screws with wax? Or zip tie? Do you have better suggestion? :) TIA [link] [comments]  |
| Project sponsors as the way to bootstrap? Posted: 10 Jun 2021 04:46 PM PDT I'm exploring what type of company may be interested in sponsoring an open-source software engineer search engine to help me bootstrap the project. I already have close to 1M names in my DB, but it needs a lot more work to be useful enough. An established player wouldn't be interested as they already have the reach. So maybe someone up and coming? Any ideas? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 11 Jun 2021 01:30 AM PDT To explain further, I'm the founder of an EdTech startup where people have lessons on-demand via subscription. Because of school, I have no spare time now! I need someone who would handle the day to day operations this startup and I'm willing to pay this person a monthly salary. The programming is being handled flawlessly thus this is not a challenge. But to handle the day to day operations and development of the startup, should I hire a COO, Product Manger or a Business Development Manager? My second question is, to handle a) marketing strategies and b)social media engagement, should I hire a Chief Marketing Officer to handle these 2 positions? Ideally some would argue it might be better to hire 2 different people for these roles but I'm being very careful with money as I'm self funded. Finally, any other positions you'd advice I consider hiring? Thanks so much! [link] [comments]  |
| How good must the UI / UX be at alpha launch? Posted: 10 Jun 2021 03:57 PM PDT Hi, I have been working for the past three months on a mobile app together with my brother. Last week we've finished our last feature for the MVP. Also, we've managed to acquire some letter of intents and those potentials clients are now waiting to try out the app. We're not going to charge them before we launch officially (after beta), but instead we let them use the app for couple of weeks and see how they're engaging with it and whether they make their customers use the app or not (our app is a marketing platform for small businesses). Now here is the launch strategy that my brother and I planned:
For the last couple of days I have been working a lot to make the ui design look more consistent, pick the right color theme, improve spacings, etc... However, whatever I do, I am not happy with the design. I have doubts all the time, like "is there too much space?", "should the button be in this corner?", "should I center this text?", "is the image too small?". How important would you say is a good UI/UX design at this stage? Should I hire the UI / UX Designer now already, before releasing the alpha to our potential customers? Thanks in advance [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Jun 2021 09:13 PM PDT Let's assume I'm raising seed round for my startup and I am hoping to close the round at 2M$ of funding. Most of the cases, there will be multiple investors on board so, First an angel investor decides to put in 300k $ at let's say 5M$ pre-money valuation. Now a VC wants to come onboard with 500k$ investment, so my question is will the valuation be same for VC as it was for the angel? Or because the angel was first one to take risk, the valuation increases for VC? Further, do we as founders have to disclose at what valuation did the angel invest to the VC? Obviously, there will be more investors, so as we go down further, (4th investment in round, 5th investment in the round) does rhe valuation keep on increasing? Or it stays the same irrespective of the number of investors? Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
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