The Annoying Traits of Entrepreneurs From a Non-Entrepreneur’s Perspective | Hacker News Reader

The Annoying Traits of Entrepreneurs From a Non-Entrepreneur’s Perspective

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35 pointse27sg9 comments

Let's look at my experience at a startup.

Tenacity – a.k.a nagging people day and night

- If a feature, no matter how large, took too long, it was time to nag. Like adding google maps with those popup detail boxes, directions, and other things to three screens without knowing javascript in a weekend.

- Why am I wasting time reading documentation? (While I'm trying to learn a new web framework and language at the same time)

Pivot-ability – Be agile, iterate, feedback and push forth.

- Every wednesday for 4 months the guy would charge the design of the website so drastically it was faster to start a new website from the beginning instead of reusing code. (There was two or three exceptions to this, one of them being the meeting was canceled)

- Being responsible for the servers after the admin disappeared meant I was on call 24/7 if something broke. (Thankfully, I was only called once on a weekend to fix something. Most of the problems could be handled during office hours)

Inspiration - How exactly does one inspire their team?

- Biweekly talks questioning my enthusiasm for the project.

Perspiration – Working hard, burning the midnight oil, go without sleep for few days

- Had to be in the office at 8am every morning so it looked like I was working. I'm a morning person so it wasn't horrible for me but my coding partner was a night owl and I doubt he slept while he was around.

- Founder went on a vacation for a few days with his girlfriend. (Don't have a problem with this.) A week later I was asked to add google maps integration over the weekend after I'd been working 15 days without a break. I had put in the most I'd ever done in my life, over 50 hours in 5 days. (I have a problem with this.)

Yup... I wanted to kill someone.

All that said, I really valued my experience, however horrible it may have been at the time. I learned an incredible amount about programming, system administration, and protecting myself during freelance work. The partner I had is now, several years later, my closest friend.

Your style of writing is awful. I had no idea whether you were the developer or the boss or what until the last two sentences. Try defining the variables first, not last.

And most people need an experience like that to learn to not be a doormat.

'Awful' is a bit harsh. Setting up the story, as you mentioned, is what he/she needs to work on.

> Your style of writing is awful. I had no idea whether you were the developer or the boss or what until the last two sentences. Try defining the variables first, not last.

Sorry, I should have mentioned my position in the first paragraph.

> And most people need an experience like that to learn to not be a doormat.

I'm not sure doormat is the correct term. Naive would be a much better term. I only stuck with the company because I had signed a contract for the summer and my parents pushed me to stay.

I didn't let the guy walk over me. I implemented the google maps stuff the next week instead of that weekend. I regret my rather impolite reaction to his insistence that I do it that weekend. It's something I hope never to do again.

I successfully argued (politely) against a number of things like including storing and sending credit card data unencrypted. (I had to pull up some laws for that one.)

The whole situation wasn't helped by our communication issues, personality conflicts, and lack of maturity. (The one mature person in the group was rarely around since he had a day job.)

"over 50 hours in 5 days."

That is a lot of work, but hardly excessive for a startup. I have weeks like that in the corporate IT world.

Oh definitely. I've done more work than that in the last year. I just hadn't done it at that time.

50 hours in a 5 day work week isn't bad. 50 hours over 5 days after working for 15 days straight, as the GP claimed, is something different.

Where does referring to non-entrepreneurs as "plebians" fit in the list?

It is important for everyone, even entrepreneurs, to learn to take themselves with a grain of salt.

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