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Top Mistakes and Learnings from My Startup: Postmortem Samsamia
- tonyarkles 8y agoHaven't read the article yet but my first question is: what the heck did they use to make that?! It's beautiful like LaTeX but appears to be plain ol' HTML!
- ExBritNStuff 8y agohttps://github.com/miguelgfierro/sciblog https://github.com/miguelgfierro/sciblog - Looks pretty sweet!
- tonyarkles 8y agoLook at that... right at the top. LaTeX fonts! https://github.com/miguelgfierro/sciblog/blob/master/blog/static/blog/css/paper.css https://github.com/miguelgfierro/sciblog/blob/master/blog/st...
- clusmore 8y agoOff-topic, but I find it rather baffling that with uMatrix blocking scripts from ajax.cloudflare.com, the page renders with the article content missing, despite it being included in the page source (just with style="dispay: none").
- not_a_moth 8y agoThe author opens by nobly asserting "I take all responsibility for the failure" yet then, everything that follows is how his co-founder screwed him who he is now suing. Feels kind of inauthentic overall.
- cyberferret 8y agoI put some of that down to him not writing in his native language - perhaps it is more difficult for him to translate feelings or concepts to English. But I do agree that it would have been better to hear about some of his own failings or bad decisions. Hard to imagine his co-founder would try to eject him from the company without at least some perception of an issue with his character, skills or decisions.
- dannypgh 8y agoYeah; to be honest I couldn't make it to the end of this "postmortem" because of how badly it seems to want to assign blame. I have taken part in numerous postmortems for multi-million dollar outages, and find they're valuable only when starting from the premise that we're all smart people trying to do our best, so any mistakes made by people are indicative of too much being asked of the people (lack of training/system complexity too high/lack of training/lack of automation). Besides the fact this leads to AIs that are actionable and positive for engineers to tackle, hiring is really hard. If you're just going to blame your partners or coworkers and aren't providing any insight on how to choose partners or employees better, I'm really not interested.
- nyrulez 8y agoHow is that incompatible? If you partner with a crook, can't you take a responsibility for making that mistake (of not seeing the signs) but still call the other person out for being a crook? Taking responsibility is different from saying other did no wrong.
- blazespin 8y agoIt’s my fault everyone around me is an idiot. Lol
- kokey 8y agoI have to play devil's advocate here, because we know one side of the story. Perhaps the partner is not a crook, perhaps he was just not rich enough, hence why he was the recipient of a small salary in the first year and was unable to come up with further money to put into the company since his family didn't have any to risk, and why when the company generated actual revenue gave his family members opportunities to work with him. It sounds like the company's revenue consisted of one big customer and it folded when that customer was lost, but there's very little details of why that happened.
- psergeant 8y agoI was going to simply quote: > I, not my cofounder and ex-best friend Miguel Angel Maldonado, was to blame and note: “this is not apparently something the author actually believes”!
- brazzy 8y ago> everything that follows is how his co-founder screwed him No. It's the part that takes up the most space, but there are a number of other, perfectly useful conclusions, like "you need a product and customers, not a technology", and "adapting to customer needs brings you succees".
- heliodor 8y agoReading the abstract reminded me that so many people don't understand effective communication. The academic essay style is a travesty of global proportions. Effective communication would start with the conclusion section, then the body, and leave the intro out. Make your statement quickly, and then expand upon it for whoever wants to keep reading. Saying, "in this essay I will tell you what I learned" is not going to keep me reading. Give me the high level points, then expand upon them!
- baxtr 8y agoYip yip. It’s called “top-down” communication and every good newspaper does it exactly like you describe
- thisiszilff 8y agoThat is the academic style! The academic style is effective communication, the problem is there's a lot of bad essays.
- heliodor 8y agoThe standard academic essay style in the United States is: 1) An intro starting what you want to discuss or accomplish 2) The body, or details 3) The conclusion, or summary Effective communication starts with a brief explanation of your conclusions or points, then it goes into details.
- rsp1984 8y agoIf you are trying to start a startup with a friend, think about this, do you really know this person? are you confident that under high levels of pressure this person is going to help you or is he going to break apart? I started a startup with my best friend whom I knew for several years. The startup succeeded (kind of, we got acqui-hired by BigTech) but the friendship turned into a deep alienation in the process. Startup pressure can bring out the true character of a person. The problem though is that you may not know the true character of someone until startup pressure is applied -- even if that someone is your best friend. I'd actually argue for not starting your startup with a good friend. Friendship bias works against you when your cofounder turns against you under pressure. Instead choose a co-founder that you know professionally and that you have a good gut feeling about. The problem of the story presented is not that he didn't start the company with someone he knew better, it's that apparently no agreements existed that prevented $ANTISOCIAL_COFOUNDER_BEHAVIOR from happening. I'm certainly guilty of that as well. The resources spent on setting up those agreements are always worth it. Also not a shame at all to bring in lawyers at this stage. It is super common to divide shares generously the first day of the startup, it's like marrying a girl the first day you know her. Isn't it creepy? It's common to divide 50/50, but with a vesting schedule. If co-founder shows $ANTISOCIAL_COFOUNDER_BEHAVIOR despite agreements made you may kick him/her out and will only lose shares that vested.
- mandeepj 8y ago> Startup pressure can bring out the true character of a person Not necessarily. It can bring out the worse. Let's say you are stressing a machine beyond its limit. The risks are specified in the manual but you still do it. The resulting mechanical damage can't be blamed on the manufacturer.
- abraae 8y agoSo well put. People you could have roomed with, drink with, hung out with, even been trapepd on a desert island with, all successfully, can turn into monsters under the pressure of running out of money and associated startup events. And you can find yourself echoing that behaviour.
- 8y ago
- sheeshkebab 8y agoSometimes I wonder about what’s more profitable in B2B space - product or consulting/contracting. Doing the latter I manage to pull in more in 3 months what this guy generated it sounds like in 3 years. That gives me a pause everytime I want to sink 3 months of my time into some startup idea.
- rsoto 8y agoAs someone that has done both, you might be right. Consulting is way more profitable, but the thing is that you basically are working for someone else, and you can scale it as far as you can fit it on your calendar or hiring. But with a product you can sell 1,000% of what you had yesterday, the schedules might be a little tight since B2B expects at least a few sales meetings. So it has its pros and cons. And from my experience (and other's, both friends and clients who want to create something), it's unlikely to have something sellable in 3 months.
- bigiain 8y agoAccenture and PwC et al show there's unicorns in consulting, but not many. There's also the in-between/both approach - Oracle and Salesforce are both "Here buy our shit!", followed up very quickly with "Here, you need our services department and a support contract to make that shit work".
- alfredallan1 8y ago
- cyberferret 8y agoAnyone visiting this discussion who may have suggestions about co-founder relationships etc., I would encourage you to visit Ben's site [0] to share your stories to others may learn. I think co-founder relationships are one of the least explored aspects of a startup, despite its importance. Disclaimer: Not affiliated with this site apart from the fact that I voluntarily submitted some content about my own co-founder experiences after being asked. [0] - https://healthybusinesspartnerships.com https://healthybusinesspartnerships.com
- ridruejo 8y agoEverybody starting a company for the first time should read this article and the associated book https://hbr.org/2008/02/the-founders-dilemma https://hbr.org/2008/02/the-founders-dilemma
- forkLding 8y agoMost startups fail cos the founders broke up or cant keep going on anymore, we keep pointing to lack of demand or lack of money as why a startup failed but to be honest most startups start from a situation where there is either a lack of money or a lack of demand so technically speaking most startups start from a failed situation. Theres no pass fail on a piece of paper as we're used to in school for startups, its more where you've given up and dont want to continue.
- testcase_delta 8y agoOr when you run out of cash.
- segmondy 8y agoBad partnership will kill any business. Don't partner/cofound with strangers and be ready to lose friends if you do.
- greenleafjacob 8y agoWhat was he doing from end of 2015 to middle of 2016? If I lost access to my bank accounts I’d be contacting the bank, calling emergency board meetings and filing legal motions the next day.
- digitalzombie 8y agoI would never start any business with friends or families. Anything with lots of money involve can hurt relationship. With that said there were other points in there too and pitfalls that OP did early on that are good lessons. I think another thing to consider is that he didn't have a lawyer or accountant from the inception to go over the legality of 50%-50% and administration role. It's a sad article but the ending was bright and I'm glad he's taking it as lessons learned. It'll help other people too. edit: The pivot from B2C to B2B is interesting. I never actually consider this but reading this now it's more of a "No duh" moment.
- ddtaylor 8y agoOne thing to consider is that your co-founder might not actually be your friend. It's easy to think you have a relationship with someone that you spend a lot of time coordinating with that might not truly exist. I believe most problems in any kind of relationships are based on expectations. It can be devastating to realize that someone else doesn't actually care what you think unless it serves their agenda and result in feeling used or exploited. My advice, which I have failed at many times, is keep business compartmentalized and separate.
- kolleykibber 8y agoThis is so important, it's concerning to think about how many good years of smart people have been wasted. It should be taught in school.
- JeanMarcS 8y agoI started my 21 yo company with 2 friends. One we fired after about a year (he was literaly doing nothing). Then the other one and I continued for 6-7 years before he started working on other projects with an other company. Still, we still holded 50/50 of the shares (which was not a problem due to the way small companies works here). For all this time we stayed friends. And then, 3 years ago he offered me to join him on his new company. And at the end he screwed me. Deeply. Leaving me and our first company in big troubles. So long our 25 years of friendship. The funny part (if any) is that a couple of months ago, he sold me his shares of our company. Not because he felt guilty of any kind. But because, as the company had made a really bad year in 2016, with important loss compared to the size of it, he had to sell the shares to not being a part of a loosing money company to obtain a loan from banks for buying his new house...
- confiscate 8y agohow much did he sell you his shares for, if you don't mind me asking? because it sounded like it's for the first company, not the new one
- JeanMarcS 8y agoI didn't had shares in the new one. The deal was to come and help as a contractor first, and then make a holding for the companies (other were involved). But cash wasn't flowing and I soon worked for "free" as I wanted it to rise (my other company still paying me), and the cash promise at the end was very interesting. And at the end they kicked me out. I know I made mistakes continuing doing this, but we were friends for decades so I didn't see it coming. Note that it was not in the startup world, but I told this story because of the friendship side. And about the shares of our first company, he basically give them to me, as he wanted to get rid of them very fast. In fact all the paperwork was done (and dated a month before). The reason I signed them is that I too wanted to buy them back, but was a bit scared of the amount he would ask for it. So in the end there is a positive thing.
- janOsch 8y agoIt seems that this startup was successful in finding product market fit but was killed because of co-founders mismatch. I am planning to start a business with my fiancée, we have been together for 10 years, and we complement each other nicely in terms of skills. What are your experiences with that?
- clearly 8y agoI guess you should ask yourself is business success worth the risk of your relationship failing?
- DoreenMichele 8y agoJessica Livingston and Paul Graham seem to have done okay with that route.
- iamgopal 8y agoI started with friends and end up with hurted relationship. (Advice given to me by my father years before that never start company with friends even when you both feel to be technically compatible.) Lesson learned, learn lesson when given from experience.
- pnongrata 8y agoIt's funny how he claims full responsibility in the beginning before immediately ranting about how he got screwed by others.
- kapauldo 8y agoThanks for sharing. Fashion tech is hard.
- OriPekelman 8y agoI, for one, am sending big hugs to Miguel Angel Maldonado. I can totally see how this played out. Wow this rant is obnoxious. keep strong if you ever happen on this thread.
- sidcool 8y agoWhat, why?