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Pre-weekend: >I’ll be honest: I thought it was a huge longshot and wasn’t that concerned. All advice I read in the startup arena advises to be ready to sacrifi

Pre-weekend: >I’ll be honest: I thought it was a huge longshot and wasn’t that concerned. All advice I read in the startup arena advises to be ready to sacrifice the next 5+ years of your life in the pursuit, and most tech startups have abysmal failure rates. Still, if John thought this was worth going after, sure, umbrella me under your ask: 0.4% each for our efforts over the weekend. That says it all. "Sure, umbrella me under your ask." This coder agreed to that, he even was kind enough not to whitewash history in his write-up to us so that we know he agreed to that. After it's taken off suddenly Bobby feels like he is entitled to something more. That's not the way agreements work :) Bobby is the one in the wrong in this article, he spells it out in black and white. There is no gray area here - absolutely crystal-clear. If he didn't like the terms, he should have joined one of the losing teams instead. If he thought the terms weren't valid, he should have mentioned this instead of agreeing to them. Here's a hint if you want to run the world, Bobby: your word - or handshake agreements - actually mean something, and you stick by it.

_zachs 11y ago
Exactly
jdbernard 11y ago
I think you miss the main point: Bobby was expecting to have 0.4% in the company that was created that weekend. The event was explicitly not for pre-existing companies. So the idea is that after the weekend he can choose to stay with the team they formed and pursue the idea forward together as a new startup, or he could walk away and leave them his contributions, retaining 0.4% ownership in the new startup. Billy already had a company. He wasn't looking for people to team up with to make a new one, he was looking for free labor and options on hiring people he had already seen work together. Billy's business is his business, but what was created over the weekend belongs to the team, not Billy's business. Bobby's ask was to the team as a whole, not Billy's business.
- logicallee 11y ago
  But the developers did walk away, Billy was the only one who kept with it initially... And Billy didn't really have a "company" as we understand it; he came with an idea. It had nothing. A legal incorporation is a shell, nothing more. I'm not the only one who was rooting for Billy while reading this post. Nobody did anything bully-like - it's a complete distraction and red herring, nothing quoted by Billy is "bully-like" - the closest thing in the post is when Bobby suggested ousting Billy from his own idea and leadership, just because Bobby helped write two days of code. "Thanks for coming up with the best business at this event - I think you should be demoted to soemthing like business development, so someone else can run it." Ridiculous suggestion, in my opinion, especially given the negotiation that went into the event beforehand.
  - invisible 11y ago
    The developers were bullied out of the team by Billy. He neglected to talk to the team (on slack and Facebook). When he finally did talk he took leadership and assumed CEO roles without the team agreeing. If there could be any fair way of doing this it would involve votes by the team (which is what Bobby basically was pushing for, albeit in an opinionated way). The 0.4% didn't imply anyone else owned the remaining percent. It implied that if a company were agreed upon and formed by members of the team, everyone would get at least 0.4%.
nico_h 11y ago
Reading comprehension 101: Identify the characters of a story and what happens to them: - Protagonist, narrator : Bobby, Dev. knows John and 2 other devs, they meet before the week end. Part of team 1. - Narrator's friend: John. Propose they draw up a contract with whoever they end up teaming with so that everybody that work on the week end project ends up with the 0.4% of the company if the project ends up being a company. - Antagonist: Billy, Business / Idea guy. Pitch the idea to the team, then decline to agree to the 0.4% agreement. Propose a "Handshake Deal", unspecified terms, without shaking hands. Starts an LLC based on the StartupWeekend efforts with "JP", a friend and other business guy, who was not present at the startup weekend. Together, Billy and JP own 100% of the LLC. Says devs might join the LLC, described as being hostile to sharing equity in the company, but might be an option. What happens in the story: At the beginning of the story, Bobby and John listen to Billy's pitch. They approach him and say they are interested in his idea.Billy propose they join with another team (Brad's, another 4 dev team). They do. Billy declines to agree to a 0.4% equity sharing. Offers the "Handshake agreement", terms unspecified, without shaking hands. All 9 work on the idea over the week end. Billy end up presenting the idea onstage with his picture on every slide. The project ends up winning the "startup weekend" presentation. ... etc ... --- Did you read the story?
- logicallee 11y ago
  you're right, I did read quickly. In your reading under the agreement they came to who would own the vast majority of the company? (i.e. all of it ex 0.4% * devs)? This is what the text says: >Billy brought along four other developer/designers he was already chatting with: Josh, Clay, Hayden, and another John. >Our John, Team Paladin John, then went on to introduce ourselves and his idea for us to take 0.4% after helping launch the startup this weekend. That way should anyone go forward with the work product and it become a big success, at least there’s some kickback if this thing goes nuclear unicorn. Also the way I read >John explained that he’d spoken with Startup Weekend organizers and was told that contracts aren’t allowed from the event, so he asked for a handshake deal. Billy said he was happy with a handshake deal, and quickly moved the conversation forward without any handshaking actually taking place. is that this is what everyone implicitly agreed to. I don't find it credible that "I'm happy with a handshake deal" and everyone moving forward isn't evidence of a mutual understanding of what would happen after. The actors acted as if everyone agreed that people would get 0.4% just for participating in the weekend, the terms that were brought to Billy, and that Billy was happy to agree to this. The fact that these 0.4% terms came from Paladin's camp rather than Billy makes it even more clear that the author is in the wrong. It sounds to me like you're saying 0.4% has nothing to do with this story whatsoever. It sounds to me like it was agreed on.

_zachs 11y ago

Exactly

jdbernard 11y ago

I think you miss the main point: Bobby was expecting to have 0.4% in the company that was created that weekend. The event was explicitly not for pre-existing companies. So the idea is that after the weekend he can choose to stay with the team they formed and pursue the idea forward together as a new startup, or he could walk away and leave them his contributions, retaining 0.4% ownership in the new startup. Billy already had a company. He wasn't looking for people to team up with to make a new one, he was looking for free labor and options on hiring people he had already seen work together. Billy's business is his business, but what was created over the weekend belongs to the team, not Billy's business. Bobby's ask was to the team as a whole, not Billy's business.

logicallee 11y ago
But the developers did walk away, Billy was the only one who kept with it initially... And Billy didn't really have a "company" as we understand it; he came with an idea. It had nothing. A legal incorporation is a shell, nothing more. I'm not the only one who was rooting for Billy while reading this post. Nobody did anything bully-like - it's a complete distraction and red herring, nothing quoted by Billy is "bully-like" - the closest thing in the post is when Bobby suggested ousting Billy from his own idea and leadership, just because Bobby helped write two days of code. "Thanks for coming up with the best business at this event - I think you should be demoted to soemthing like business development, so someone else can run it." Ridiculous suggestion, in my opinion, especially given the negotiation that went into the event beforehand.
- invisible 11y ago
  The developers were bullied out of the team by Billy. He neglected to talk to the team (on slack and Facebook). When he finally did talk he took leadership and assumed CEO roles without the team agreeing. If there could be any fair way of doing this it would involve votes by the team (which is what Bobby basically was pushing for, albeit in an opinionated way). The 0.4% didn't imply anyone else owned the remaining percent. It implied that if a company were agreed upon and formed by members of the team, everyone would get at least 0.4%.

nico_h 11y ago

Reading comprehension 101: Identify the characters of a story and what happens to them: - Protagonist, narrator : Bobby, Dev. knows John and 2 other devs, they meet before the week end. Part of team 1. - Narrator's friend: John. Propose they draw up a contract with whoever they end up teaming with so that everybody that work on the week end project ends up with the 0.4% of the company if the project ends up being a company. - Antagonist: Billy, Business / Idea guy. Pitch the idea to the team, then decline to agree to the 0.4% agreement. Propose a "Handshake Deal", unspecified terms, without shaking hands. Starts an LLC based on the StartupWeekend efforts with "JP", a friend and other business guy, who was not present at the startup weekend. Together, Billy and JP own 100% of the LLC. Says devs might join the LLC, described as being hostile to sharing equity in the company, but might be an option. What happens in the story: At the beginning of the story, Bobby and John listen to Billy's pitch. They approach him and say they are interested in his idea.Billy propose they join with another team (Brad's, another 4 dev team). They do. Billy declines to agree to a 0.4% equity sharing. Offers the "Handshake agreement", terms unspecified, without shaking hands. All 9 work on the idea over the week end. Billy end up presenting the idea onstage with his picture on every slide. The project ends up winning the "startup weekend" presentation. ... etc ... --- Did you read the story?

logicallee 11y ago
you're right, I did read quickly. In your reading under the agreement they came to who would own the vast majority of the company? (i.e. all of it ex 0.4% * devs)? This is what the text says: >Billy brought along four other developer/designers he was already chatting with: Josh, Clay, Hayden, and another John. >Our John, Team Paladin John, then went on to introduce ourselves and his idea for us to take 0.4% after helping launch the startup this weekend. That way should anyone go forward with the work product and it become a big success, at least there’s some kickback if this thing goes nuclear unicorn. Also the way I read >John explained that he’d spoken with Startup Weekend organizers and was told that contracts aren’t allowed from the event, so he asked for a handshake deal. Billy said he was happy with a handshake deal, and quickly moved the conversation forward without any handshaking actually taking place. is that this is what everyone implicitly agreed to. I don't find it credible that "I'm happy with a handshake deal" and everyone moving forward isn't evidence of a mutual understanding of what would happen after. The actors acted as if everyone agreed that people would get 0.4% just for participating in the weekend, the terms that were brought to Billy, and that Billy was happy to agree to this. The fact that these 0.4% terms came from Paladin's camp rather than Billy makes it even more clear that the author is in the wrong. It sounds to me like you're saying 0.4% has nothing to do with this story whatsoever. It sounds to me like it was agreed on.