4 ms·

Exactly. In fact as a team I believe they have the power to vote him off the team. Since he registered the name and domain they can simply come up with a new na

Exactly. In fact as a team I believe they have the power to vote him off the team. Since he registered the name and domain they can simply come up with a new name, move the code to their new domain and continue working on the startup. Billy has zero rights to the code and as such should not be allowed to make any use of it. This pretty much leaves Billy in the same spot he's been for the last 18 months.

crucialfelix 11y ago
If they could bang the thing out in a weekend then he can get somebody else to rebuild it. He is the only one among them that can or will sell it to restaurants. He's the only one with any emotional attachment to pushing this very little idea forward. I think programmers here are assuming "execution" means coding. It really means sales, pitching, customer development. Also product development - refining the features over time. Billy will screw that up for sure.
- SwellJoe 11y ago
  "If they could bang the thing out in a weekend then he can get somebody else to rebuild it." Can he? He incorporated 18 months before Startup Weekend, and had literally nothing to show for that time, except a business plan. Evidence strongly indicates he could not (easily) "get somebody else to rebuild it". Which is why he came to Startup Weekend and defrauded 8 developers out of their time and skill. He clearly couldn't (or wouldn't) pay market rates to get it done, or he would have done so in the 18 months preceding this.
- nmrm2 11y ago
  TL;DR: I think everyone is massively underestimating how much Billy has to lose here. The developers signed away a weekend of work for a 0.4% stake. Billy signed away some undefinable chunk of 18 MONTHS of biz dev for a 0.4% stake! If Billy gets their code, then they compete against Billy using his client list, his price lists, etc. because those were exposed during the weekend.* And, it's not like Billy has super exclusive access to the restaurant business. They could partner with other restaurant owners in the region who are similarly turned off by people like Billy. I'm sure those people exist, given the homophobic and generally condescending comments on display here... So, Billy has: a code base he cannot easily iterate on because he's fucked over his entire potential employee base. Developers have: * A lot of Billy's biz dev work over the past 8 months. * The freedom to exploit personality conflicts in the local/regional business scene to score additional business partners. * Far lower costs. There are probably tons of bugs in a weekend code sprint product, and Billy isn't going to find any free labor to clean those up. Remember a big chunk of software dev is extending and debugging existing code... Billy ain't going nowhere with a static code base. * Worst case, the "fuck you" factor and access to free skilled labor (their own) necessary to make break-even or even loss leader pricing structures. This is a unique advantage in their negotiations with Billy. The last two together would totally screw over Billy. Imagine these developers going into a meeting and demonstrating security flaws or bad GUI glitches in Billy's product during a live meeting... the client might not go with these guys, but in the VERY BEST case for Billy, he's got to hire a freelance developer to clean up the code base. Not going to be able to exploit a hackathon for that sort of stuff, and 80% of software developer is maintenance... * Maybe Billy claims they only get access to his work done that weekend. But that's bullshit; they developers didn't teach themselves to create rather specific types of products in a weekend... to the extent that there's any contract there, if it came out during the weekend, then it counts toward the agreement.
logfromblammo 11y ago
I disagree. I think the circumstances point more clearly to Billy being an equal partner in a group of 9, who own the entire codebase collectively. Absent any pre-existing business agreement between them, the partnership decisions would have to be unanimous, rather than a majority vote. Billy could block the other 8 partners from using the code written at that weekend. But they don't need it. They would just need another weekend. Conversely, any one of the other 8 partners could block him from using it. He would still need a cooperative coder. Billy might be able to make the argument that if he used the code, and no one specifically objected, it was implicit consent from the other partners. Any one of the 8 should be able to send him a cease and desist letter, and he would be stuck.
- rhino369 11y ago
  If it is just a partnership, Billy can't compete with partnership in another company. That is a breach of his fiduciary duties to the partnership.
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    It's not the legal definition of a partnership. It's more like a nine-way joint tenancy. An actual partnership would probably have contracts and articles that make it easier to do business. Notably, many allow for ratification of business decisions by majority vote of the partners, weighted by their ownership share. There may be a conflict of interest if you try to make your partnership buy something you already own individually, but as long as you disclose your interests up front and recuse yourself appropriately from conflict decisions, that's rarely an issue.
- nmrm2 11y ago
  > I think the circumstances point more clearly to Billy being an equal partner in a group of 9 That's shitty for Billy; he just signed away 18 MONTHS of business development for a 0.4% stake. Or else he doesn't get access to the code. The sure thing is that he doesn't get it both ways...
- ryanSrich 11y ago

crucialfelix 11y ago

If they could bang the thing out in a weekend then he can get somebody else to rebuild it. He is the only one among them that can or will sell it to restaurants. He's the only one with any emotional attachment to pushing this very little idea forward. I think programmers here are assuming "execution" means coding. It really means sales, pitching, customer development. Also product development - refining the features over time. Billy will screw that up for sure.

SwellJoe 11y ago
"If they could bang the thing out in a weekend then he can get somebody else to rebuild it." Can he? He incorporated 18 months before Startup Weekend, and had literally nothing to show for that time, except a business plan. Evidence strongly indicates he could not (easily) "get somebody else to rebuild it". Which is why he came to Startup Weekend and defrauded 8 developers out of their time and skill. He clearly couldn't (or wouldn't) pay market rates to get it done, or he would have done so in the 18 months preceding this.
nmrm2 11y ago
TL;DR: I think everyone is massively underestimating how much Billy has to lose here. The developers signed away a weekend of work for a 0.4% stake. Billy signed away some undefinable chunk of 18 MONTHS of biz dev for a 0.4% stake! If Billy gets their code, then they compete against Billy using his client list, his price lists, etc. because those were exposed during the weekend.* And, it's not like Billy has super exclusive access to the restaurant business. They could partner with other restaurant owners in the region who are similarly turned off by people like Billy. I'm sure those people exist, given the homophobic and generally condescending comments on display here... So, Billy has: a code base he cannot easily iterate on because he's fucked over his entire potential employee base. Developers have: * A lot of Billy's biz dev work over the past 8 months. * The freedom to exploit personality conflicts in the local/regional business scene to score additional business partners. * Far lower costs. There are probably tons of bugs in a weekend code sprint product, and Billy isn't going to find any free labor to clean those up. Remember a big chunk of software dev is extending and debugging existing code... Billy ain't going nowhere with a static code base. * Worst case, the "fuck you" factor and access to free skilled labor (their own) necessary to make break-even or even loss leader pricing structures. This is a unique advantage in their negotiations with Billy. The last two together would totally screw over Billy. Imagine these developers going into a meeting and demonstrating security flaws or bad GUI glitches in Billy's product during a live meeting... the client might not go with these guys, but in the VERY BEST case for Billy, he's got to hire a freelance developer to clean up the code base. Not going to be able to exploit a hackathon for that sort of stuff, and 80% of software developer is maintenance... * Maybe Billy claims they only get access to his work done that weekend. But that's bullshit; they developers didn't teach themselves to create rather specific types of products in a weekend... to the extent that there's any contract there, if it came out during the weekend, then it counts toward the agreement.

logfromblammo 11y ago

I disagree. I think the circumstances point more clearly to Billy being an equal partner in a group of 9, who own the entire codebase collectively. Absent any pre-existing business agreement between them, the partnership decisions would have to be unanimous, rather than a majority vote. Billy could block the other 8 partners from using the code written at that weekend. But they don't need it. They would just need another weekend. Conversely, any one of the other 8 partners could block him from using it. He would still need a cooperative coder. Billy might be able to make the argument that if he used the code, and no one specifically objected, it was implicit consent from the other partners. Any one of the 8 should be able to send him a cease and desist letter, and he would be stuck.

rhino369 11y ago
If it is just a partnership, Billy can't compete with partnership in another company. That is a breach of his fiduciary duties to the partnership.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  It's not the legal definition of a partnership. It's more like a nine-way joint tenancy. An actual partnership would probably have contracts and articles that make it easier to do business. Notably, many allow for ratification of business decisions by majority vote of the partners, weighted by their ownership share. There may be a conflict of interest if you try to make your partnership buy something you already own individually, but as long as you disclose your interests up front and recuse yourself appropriately from conflict decisions, that's rarely an issue.
nmrm2 11y ago
> I think the circumstances point more clearly to Billy being an equal partner in a group of 9 That's shitty for Billy; he just signed away 18 MONTHS of business development for a 0.4% stake. Or else he doesn't get access to the code. The sure thing is that he doesn't get it both ways...
ryanSrich 11y ago