That's more or less what I've been doing but informally.

Making a corporate structure for something like this hard, I came up with a model a couple of years ago called 'The Modular Company' but the bookkeeping is a nightmare if you want it to be fair.

Still, I keep coming back to it and one of these days, who knows...

I'm in an odd position of trying to form something like this (focused specifically on python development in finance). 2015 is hopefully going to be a good year - I actually have sort-of backing and if I can find time it might take off (god, just reading those caveats makes me wonder)

Anyway - I would be interested in any thoughts or traps to avoid - if indeed we are talking about the same structures.

Do drop me a line (contact details in profile)

Like in coding, complexity in a business partnership might be a warning. The book Managing the Professional Service Firm by David Meister has a lot of lessons for anyone running a traditional parter/associates firm, and the last part talks about splitting the profits. My read is that a "dumb" approach (equal split or simple seniority-based) is okay, and a "judgment" approach (publish criteria, but have a committee make the final decisions) is okay, but a metrics-based approach is risky. I agree, and for small operations I think the simpler the better. Anyway, if it's something you're thinking about, the book is a solid, meaty read.

ok, I'll do that tomorrow. 1:44 am now, bedtime for me.

Yeah, maybe just consulting? I dunno. Getting paid would be nice, I usually just have an investor-type relationship.

> I usually just have an investor-type relationship.

Then in a way you do get paid (eventually, I hope...).

> Yeah, maybe just consulting?

That's one way to keep it simple.

But there has to be a better way, especially because the nicest flowers grow at the edge of the abyss.

Then necessarily that requires taking risk. Do you want shares in the companies that get to the point where they need a your help?

That really is the key question isn't it? I can see some ways out of that and some sets of companies (not many) where that would be the case but it's going to be hard to turn them around once they reach that stage. Maximum risk = maximum potential gain, it's never been any different.

Sure. But consider adverse selection? The ones that need the help are in a different part of the spectrum than the ones that don't.

I would really love to see that, along with the occasional writeup from your adventures. (And don't forget to invite rachelbythebay, her troubleshooting posts are some of my favorite HN content.)

If you haven't read it yet this is the book you might enjoy: The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win.

Hmm, the book description makes it sound more like Yet Another Process Management book (e.g. "Lean ", "Waterfall ", "Six Sigma *", etc.) rather than a collection of nuts-and-bolts war stories. Is that not accurate?

I leave the process management stuff up to other folks, they're better salespeople than I am. They get paid to beat other people into submission; I get paid to beat servers into submission. :-) (Though not in Jacques' or Rachel's league.)

That would be awesome. I've occasionally done rescues and it can be really fun. So often people aren't willing to listen about organizational problems. But once you have solved some ugly, expensive technical problem, they are suddenly much more willing to consider changes that will prevent them from having the same problem in the future.

Perhaps some sort of league would solve some of the problems in doing that sort of work. E.g., the burstiness, the sudden need for specialized skills, the pipeline issues.

What is DD short for? My google powers are not strong enough...

Due Diligence?

It's also the hull class designation for a destroyer.

Due dilligence.

Old unix tool . See also ddrecue, a (couple of) nifty variation(s) on the theme.