A place for startups to share stories and ask questions anonymously
Six years ago I started a new company to provide services locally. I had started with a partner but he died 3 months after we started and I was left as a solopreneur. Fortunately, after 4 years it was at a really good state and I was comfortable with it. Since my partner died, I…
So in order to produce some valuable data, I (a developer) partnered up with a data science guy at my local university. This guy has all the academic credentials you can wish for. He spent his entire career so far (early 30s) in academia and is attributed in a decent amount of publications relevant to…
My husband started an AI tech startup a year ago and over this period I’ve had little visibility into how it’s all going. He has been building an app during this time and has been telling me that I’m trying to take over his business (although I have absolutely no knowledge of AI) because I…
I have a great product but I don’t have to financial ability to launch or run a pilot project. I don’t know whether to approach investors because I feel they would want to see some traction at least, which I don’t have. Is there anyway to convince them without having launched?
Recounting the story of a management and equity dispute I had with a cofounder. Me: Tech founder who is a developer who went to full time work on the startup. Works up to 80 hour weeks on the startup. Sometimes more. Bob: Senior business guy with international and investment experience who I partnered with pursue…
I’m the CEO of a startup and have been approached by a near competitor, also a startup, to join their team. The competitor seems to need my skills and those of my team, but my startup is too far along for me to agree simply to bring our team over. Is there a way to…
First of all, my organization is really informal and there are no legal material or formal agreements and no one has money invested in it. It probably doesn’t qualify as a startup, at least not yet. All 4 founders are full-time students with no idea what we’re doing. We hold an annual show for young…
I’m CTO of a small fintech startup. We raised a decent amount of seed funding, enough runway for most of next year, and the product launches next month. We have enough financial runway to break even and start building positive cashflow, in theory. I feel like we should be talking to follow on investors and…
I am a single founder (non-tech). We have a great product, that clients are lining up to buy and everyone except engineers seem to understand and are passionate about it. We are profitable already but for 4 years I’ve been fighting with the engineers over features, processes etc. We had engineers that lied to me, tried…
I live in Spain, and there are no private accelerators. The local government is in deals with some international accelerators to install them in a building to operate and connect startups with an international network. I think that should be done by someone local who better knows the entrepreneurs, angels … networks, etc. I feel…
A new manager asked for an external assessment of our software for scalability and sustainability for next investment round.. I’m the technical co-founder (very few equities though), we are only 3 developers and I’m still very involved in programming. I’m probably more like the lead engineer than a CTO. We are in the 5th year,…
We’ve been building this startup for the past two years. We’re bootstrapped and everything was built with our own money and re-invested profits. Life was difficult and for the better half of this year we’ve had many arguments and differences of opinion, but ultimately always moved forward. Now they’re offering a share buyout and bonus…
On one side, one of my friends wants to invest some money in my start-up, and on the other side we have started discussions with a business angel. Both amounts are obviously not the same and I do not believe their equity share should be the same “mathematical” formula. Any tip on how to treat…
We started the company almost 2 years ago. I’m the technical founder, he’s the business guy. The best analogy of our business is a job marketplace. We are doing pretty good for user growth for the “job seeker” user base but we haven’t signed up a single company to pay to post their job in…
I guess I’m the ADHD-preneur kind. Since I was 18, I have always been involved with multiple gigs at once. Some successful, some not. But always along with a business partner. The way I see it, having a business partner allows me to have the peer pressure I need to keep deadlines on track. Having responsibilities…
I founded an open source focused IT Consulting startup 7 years ago without any business knowledge and had to learn by doing over the years. But during all this time I was never able to really understand if I’m on the right path or if I should just stop investing my time since I don’t…
I’ve run my own fitness and health business for 17 years, and tried my hand at several ventures. I’ve employed, on and off, 14 freelance Trainers. The strong passion I once had for my business and industry has faded, and now at 45 I’m lost as to what to do, moving forward. As a personal…
Need some pointers here: I have bootstrapped a company (pre-rev) with some IP (patents) already issued a long time ago. My current employer (remember I am bootstrapping) found out about this company. While I did not use any company resources, they are on a witch hunt to prove otherwise. Can they claim anything? I didn’t…
Hello y’all, It’s difficult for me to write these words, but here we go: I’ve dated my ex-boyfriend, a brilliant Full-Stack Dev with the charisma of an Alpha-Male. He eventually cheated on me and when I found out / confronted him, he broke up with me. We founded a startup that’s really successful (we started…
