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StartupsAnonymous is a place for startup founders, employees and investors to candidly share their stories, ask/answer questions and vent. We don't know your identity and neither will anyone else. Speak your mind or learn from others.

There is only one simple rule: Don't be a troll.

Most discussed posts

  1. We're Shutting Down and I'm Scared
  2. I have a full-time job, but spend nearly 100% of company-time working on my startup. My startup was covered by Ad Age, which my boss receives. He was in a meeting when the article hit, so I went into his email and deleted it.
  3. Hiring girls is difficult (because very few work in the space)
  4. I'm a software engineer at a startup, and I'm clueless about how to get a date. What should I do?
  5. I am a sole non-technical female founder. I could be shitting rainbows and unicorns out my ass (which I do, daily) and investors still won't touch me with a stick. I know for a fact if I were two dudes I'd be fully funded by now.
  6. I am a woman CEO and hooked up with a guy the first night we met- he wants to join my company but I just can't get over the way we met.
  7. How horrific is it to realize the tech accelerator manager who sexually assaulted a founder might be the one from your program?
  8. How to deal with the impostor syndrome?
  9. Startup ran out of funding before the launch; had to go on the road, couch surfing for two months
  10. Co-founders wife getting in the way.

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All » Questions

Sometimes although I know I have a lot to do, I just procrastinate. What about you?

My company is doing fine, we had a nice growth compared to last year and everything is fine in my personal life. It’s just I get these “fed up” moments that last sometimes weeks. I just feel I can’t even deal with anything anymore and do only the most mandatory tasks some kind of repulsion…

September 23, 2019

3 Answers

What Direction Should I Take My Startup?

I run a very successful law practice.  I have a ton of clients and I am successful with a solid reputation.  I got very inspired and motivated to start a career site and job-matching platform for attorneys.  We have had many viral articles and the site works seamlessly (mobile-friendly, uses the top AI tech to…

September 11, 2019

2 Answers

Scaling back just after launch?

We’ve just launched our company and the offering is really broad. I’m finding that my co-founder is very much taking it in a direction that I don’t agree with. It’s coming up on six months now – I’m tempted to scale back and not close the company but just re-group for fear that we’re going…

July 20, 2019

2 Answers

How much should early employees receive in a acqui-hires?

I understand money is paid back to the investors – but how much money are early employees supposed to get in the pool that is left over – say they owned 2-4% of the company

June 24, 2019

2 Answers

What to do about co-founders?

I have two senior managers in my company. (Hesitant to say co-founders as I started the business and have since brought them onboard). One who is a great project manager (our business) but turns out isn’t right for a strategic role in the buiness (being a partner, strategy, overall mgmt etc). We initially agreed on…

June 24, 2019

1 Answer

How to calculate pre-revenue partner buy-in and impact from unequal partner cash investment?

I have a start-up with 2 partners.  One year in.  All 3 of us have been full-time on development.  Pre-revenue.  One more person has planned to join us since initial planning began with the plan to be 25% equal split.  The three existing partners put in $20k each, no salaries paid.  Q1: What would be…

May 21, 2019

6 Answers

How do you become an entrepreneur if you’re older, have family, loans, etc?

My wife and I are thinking of starting the entrepreneurship journey.  We have a great idea (SaaS in LegalTech), we’ve done market research, we’ve talked to potential clients, and we’re about to hire a developer to create an MVP.  Currently, we both have full-time jobs.  We live in a very high-cost city, have over $3k…

May 20, 2019

5 Answers

Should my investor be paid wages from day one of his investment?

The investment he has put in to the company has gone in to his directors loan to be paid back to him through the company but he also requested he was paid the same wages as me and my business partner from his first day of investment. Is this normal? He’s basically getting 30% of…

May 9, 2019

5 Answers

How do I (the CTO) Find Alignment with the CEO?

Not sure how to phrase things (or maybe I’m asking the wrong questions), but I’ll ask it anyway to at least get the conversation started. On Feb 2, I joined as the CTO of a 2yr old startup that had very limited tech capabilities. On April 2, the CEO called me into his office and…

April 29, 2019

No Answers

Why would a programmer in SV start a startup these days?

So I just noticed the insane amount of “total compensation” of programmers these days. From 200K for fresh grads to 500K at Facebook for Sr Software Engineers. At that rate you’d easily clear 1M in over 4 years which is the median time it takes for any company to be successful. If you were a…

April 29, 2019

1 Answer

How do you handle a multi-year employment gap as a developer?

This question is for software devs who have had multi-year employment gap  & returned back to employment after the gap.  I am wondering if you had to pad your resume with fake experience or what approach did you take to get employed again after a multi-year gap? After more than 5 years working as a…

April 15, 2019

4 Answers

How do I get hired at a startup as an older person?

I have an extensive background in Sales / Sales Mgmt / Management / Bus. Dev. / Operations and want to work for a startup. I’m not a 20-something, but want to be part of a company ready to grow.  How do I position myself to be looked at as a viable contributor rather than someone…

April 15, 2019

3 Answers

How do I get my business partner to get on board?

In the process of launching a retail business. So far, I have done all the paperwork, research, marketing, accounting, social media/account setup and paid for all the inventory and supplies. My co-founder seemed to really want this business until we actually got started. She’s on the LLC with me, but now the state is saying…

April 15, 2019

2 Answers

How to develop brand & business skills as a CTO?

We’re 2 years old with a team of 10(3 co-founders and the rest 7 engineers). Being a CTO, the majority of my time goes into dealing with tech projects and their timelines, directing the team to align with the product vision and execute it- I am good at this and have been delivering projects mostly…

February 18, 2019

1 Answer

What do you do when a business that is very interested in partnering with your startup ghosts you?

I had five businesses that were very interested in partnering with my startup they just needed to see more on pricing … I sent them it and then no response. I let it go for two weeks and then emailed with a follow-up and still no response. How do you get people to just respond…

February 18, 2019

2 Answers

Wife of Startup Founder: Do Startups need to have timelines, projections and financial plans?

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…

February 14, 2019

4 Answers

How can I raise money to launch?

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?

February 14, 2019

1 Answer

Can one startup provide management service contract to a close-ish competitor?

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…

January 7, 2019

No Answers

What is an ex-cofounder entitled 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…

December 26, 2018

1 Answer

How to Handle Partners Afraid of Leveling Up?

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…

December 26, 2018

1 Answer

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