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This is adorable. Telling phrases: 1) "But I didn’t want to be constantly worrying about financing, loans or diluting my shares by raising funding to stay afl
by blindhippo 14y ago
This is adorable.
Telling phrases:
1) "But I didn’t want to be constantly worrying about financing, loans or diluting my shares by raising funding to stay afloat. "
That's nice, if you can't have 100% of everything it's not worth it. Tell that to every other small business owner. jackass.
2) "Finding the right talent in Canada wasn’t difficult. That’s right, it was easy to find. Talent was plentiful. There were extremely intelligent and capable developers. But the price tag that came along with their talents made me wonder how I would even stay in business."
Huh, so you don't want to take in seed money, but you can't afford talent (that you were able to source without much work).
3) "Our first projects involved building on new technologies: mobile and Facebook apps. At the time, there were only a handful of us in Canada that could do this kind of work."
You built "mobile" and facebook apps and thought you were special and unique? Bullshit.
I worked for a guy like this - it was the worst 5 months of my career. I asked for $55k, he talked me down to $49k suggesting my experience was weak. Was out performing every other developer in the shop (including the CTO) within a month. Asked for a raise and got laughed at. Left that company shortly thereafter and landed a "low paying" job at a local startup - this move ended up giving me a $10,000 raise + stock options. Meanwhile the asshat I worked for before has had his company collapse as he tried off shoring to bargin bin shops in India and Mexico. I would be sympathetic if the guy wasn't such a sales oriented jerkoff.
- CanSpice 14y agoThere's another thing that doesn't really jive with me about this guy's story. Take 2) and 3) together. He says that "there were only a handful of us in Canada who could do this kind of work", then "talent was plentiful". So which is it?
- seivan 14y agoMe to. I've work for people like them. Abused, weekends, night, all nighters. I was young and stupid. I thought they were doing me a favour. Gah. I want those nights back.
- blindhippo 14y agoIt was this experience that revealed to me that I should never be working for the guy in marketing. The marketing guy should be working for me.
- seivan 14y agoI learned never hire non-software engineers. Marketing, and etc it's child work compared to what talented hackers can do.
- blindhippo 14y agoYes and no. While I disparage the whole "marketing" side of things, I don't necessarily discount it. A good marketer or sales person can add immense value to a business and can source and provide connections that prove to be make or break. Just the same as that rare engineer who is capable of solving that one critical technical puzzle that makes the business work. I just happen to think that the popular model of some business graduate having an "idea" and finding developers to build it for him is lame - that shouldn't be the norm. Developers are the builders, they just need help coming up with the business framework to make a living around what they build.
- MetaCosm 14y agoYou nailed him sounding like a sales oriented jerkoff... but he also takes all the fiscal risk, all the upfront risk. He is the one who goes bankrupt if it fails, he owes those debts.
- seivan 14y agoBullshit, everyone has a stake, even the workers.