Re:Ask YC: Startup crisis. Out of money and tech co-founder ...
by tptacek on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @02:31PM
(#183668)
Four possibilities spring to mind:
* Maybe you really did do a majority stake's worth of work, and she was just inexperienced.
* Maybe you didn't really do a majority stake's worth of work, and she felt like she had gotten shafted. You did start her at 6%.
* Maybe she was just a bad employee and a crap dev and wanted the paycheck. You weren't experienced enough to notice and fire her.
* Maybe through no fault of her own the project became untenable (for instance, maybe the spec changed a bunch of times, or you couldn't hammer out a reasonable set of features to launch on --- this has happened to us lots). You ran out of money, and she couldn't stay, good faith or not.
* Maybe you really did do a majority stake's worth of work, and she was just inexperienced.
* Maybe you didn't really do a majority stake's worth of work, and she felt like she had gotten shafted. You did start her at 6%.
* Maybe she was just a bad employee and a crap dev and wanted the paycheck. You weren't experienced enough to notice and fire her.
* Maybe through no fault of her own the project became untenable (for instance, maybe the spec changed a bunch of times, or you couldn't hammer out a reasonable set of features to launch on --- this has happened to us lots). You ran out of money, and she couldn't stay, good faith or not.
What are you going to do different next time?