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Comment by rkk3 | Hacker News Reader

Whats your business arrangement? Did you spin up a c corp yet? Did you sign over IP? Do you have a cliff or vesting schedule?

Not really sure what the financial situation is but it kinda sounds like they hired you as a contractor or they are just hanger-ons and not really business partners among equals. Lots of people will happily take a big cut of your business without contributing anything.

And I don't know building consumer... but you should get users/customers & get feedback back from them. Thinking you need to pitch to VC's with the perfect deck or app is a trap, what you need to do is build a product and business.

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There's no paper work, just a verbal agreement to start a company.

As for the customers, there needs to be a demo because this particular project doesn't quite work for consumers at this stage. To begin with it's a SaaS for businesses. Meaning we'll have to pitch it directly to the business at first.

I whole heartedly disagree, you can absolutely sell to businesses without a real coded app. The trick is to pitch to businesses and ask if they'd be willing to pay for a solution once it's finished being built and get them to sign paperwork stating such (maybe with a reduced price or something). If you're the technical founder, this is what your cofounders should be doing.

If your solution really solves their problem, they will do it. This happens all the time and I've seen million dollar deals happen this way.

You might be right, but we have the demo now anyway. The problem is that this shouldn't have been so painful for me in the first place. It's just a few months working on a cool product. They could throw me some cash to make sure I'm okay, and I'd be happy.

Their inability to be fair/competent is what's breaking me.

Then stop working on it and start working on something new. They can't reasonably expect you to do all the work for not enough pay while they contribute nothing.

>> There's no paper work

No written agreement & they are sending you cash! Wow.

> The problem is that this shouldn't have been so painful for me in the first place

Startups are incredibly painful, especially at the early stage. There are always exceptions, but lots of red flags to what you've described. Most importantly it doesn't sound like your team is committed... But it also seems like they lack the relevant competency in Sales, Product or Startups. You might learn a lot by going down the path you're on, but it sounds like you're going to be learning by running through walls so I would expect it to hurt.

Dude. Yeah I was dumb. Whatever, I'll live.

I'm not sure I'd call anything you did dumb or frame it that negatively.

them sending you cash without paperwork? That's more don them. The biggest risk for you is the expectation management and scope to wind it down.

And I wouldn't be hard on yourself if your first try doesn't get off the ground, most startups don't. Just learn, grow and have fun.

This. You have much cheaper ways to validate than building something without talking to people.

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