Too little to offer for bootstrapped start-up?
We're a super early bootstrapped start-up with 2 founders (husband and wife) trying to build a community online marketplace. We're also very new to HN and loving the lost hours of reading.
We live on Maui and while we're cash poor we're "location rich" and started thinking we have the perfect 'incubator' to work on the project. Our daughter left for college and we converted her room into a guest room. Our son lives in the 'ohana' (in-law) downstairs where my office is along with kitchenette and bathroom.
We work at home and suddenly thought... "aha! what if we offer to move a pair of talented hackers into the ohana to work with us until launching an MVP and/or acquiring seed capital?" (airfare, room, meals, small per-diem and equity in the company)
The question is, does an offer like this seem totally slave-labor lame and offensive, or does it sound like a unique opportunity to work on a project that we plan to take national and then global from a groovy location? We think the latter, but then we live here, so we wake up on Maui every day regardless.
Frustrated by a lack of skills (I'm a designer and wife is a writer; we've both 'dabbled' in tech for years), we're just trying to find unique ways to solve our lack-o-hack problem.
Aloha for your replies, we're grown-ups so we can take a flame or two :)
Published in 2011, this chronicle by @c52Andy details the mechanics of building a profitable, self-funded business without venture backing.
The community focused on B2B customer acquisition channels, cold email vs SEO distribution, and balancing full-time employment with side-project development.
Heres my take. No way.
Well, 23 year old me says sweet, older me says no way. But at 23 I wasn't near equipped to build a product from scratch.
What you really need is a CTO that gets founder equity. But you already have a CTO and it sounds like they don't bring much to the table besides you being comfortable with them. Which is important no doubt about it.
So you've got all the founders you need, but still don't have a means to build the product. Building a product from the ground up for non-founder equity and room and board is ridiculous. If you are competing for people with the skills to build a product from zero to MVP and beyond on a global scale, you must realize these same people have the opportunity to do the same thing somewhere else but for an equity share matching their contribution.
I see you have a few options:
* Pay your hackers market salary minus local COL. (2 month contract I'm guessing would be about 20k per head)
* Outsource the job (Guessing somewhere around 50k)
* Replace your CTO with someone who can commit and build the product. (Free)
* Roll the dice with some go getter looking for an adventure.
To answer your question, while it's not an offer I'd likely take up, I don't think it's slave-labor lame or offensive, so long as you make things clear as to the exact terms of the arrangement. Nobody is forcing anything to do anything, so IMO the only time you'd be in the wrong was if you misled anybody.
However, I'd like to encourage you to "shop local". While it doesn't appear to be the case, there are a lot of talented devs available locally. I'm part of a fledgling makerspace on O'ahu, and in the past few months I've met a ton of developers that came out of the woodwork. Did you know we had a startup weekend here? Our makerspace also had two teams participate in node knockout.
I can't speak for Maui, but I'm sure the situation is the same (and you guys have a more mature makerspace, why not join up and start networking?).
If you need any help networking (I can get you in touch with alohastartups.com), or are open to an alternate proposal, feel free to contact me (contact@freelancedreams.com)
It is not offensive, as long as you offer meaningful amounts of equity (it sounds like you are at the idea stage and are basically looking for cofounders, and you should probably offer cofounder-size stakes and use the same care you would take in selecting a cofounder.)
Good people have an enormous number of opportunities right now. The risk you run is that you'll attract only people that aren't very good, and not realize it, since it doesn't sound like you have a strong enough tech background to put them through a solid tech interview. So my advice is to find a friend of a friend who has been through the full cycle of hiring engineers and shipping a successful project, and have them vet your choices.
Actually I think this is a fabulous idea. Obviously hackers would need to believe in what you two are doing, but I am under the impression many hackers just like some freedom. They like to live in exotic and beautiful places (ahem..Maui), they are comfortable with living expenses paid (ahem..airfare, room, food) and a bit of cash for the rainy day fund.
There are a lot of freelance hackers and a lot of people who would jump at the idea. Naturally, it depends what your idea is and how big the pay and equity are, but this is cool and creative.
I have been to Hawaii and if I new how to properly program I'd be on board! Good luck
The question is, does an offer like this seem totally slave-labor lame and offensive, or does it sound like a unique opportunity to work on a project that we plan to take national and then global from a groovy location?
Heh, I am already an underpaid slave. And in perennially-grimdark Sweden to boot. I get no vitamin D outside of pills and the main high point of the week is paying out your ass for overpriced alcoholic painkillers on Saturday night.
Maybe to overpaid snotty Americans your offer sounds bad, to me it sound totally bad ass :)
After posting this last night, I've been positively (literally) overwhelmed by the feedback both on and off HN. Discretion on some 'harsher' emails definitely appreciated :)
I wanted to revisit and expand on the original topic. I'd posted literally to ask the question hypothetically (no ulterior) of whether the scenario sounded equitable - not to actually try and source talent or 'fish.' That's one reason I was being vague on description... didn't see the need to go into it.
I now see the error of my ways. This is a community for hackers and while we are "idea people" on one level (not hackers), we're not just that... we're also (perhaps) misguided enthusiastic idiots who've also grown a couple profitable businesses along the way... "lifehackers" if you will (problem: earn money, feed family. solution: whatever it takes).
Since there's been a recurring "what's it about" thread I'll expand on this. Firstly, we have someone on board to start protoyping based on my designs; he plans to do so in Rails using an existing framework he's built. He's not in our basement. We're planning to pay him for that service, and are working with him on another job (not the start-up). In other words the post wasn't a 'hacker wanted' plea, but more of a "would it seem out of line" as we consider the prospects of how we could move from payment toward a push (on limited cash) to get something released in exchange for some kind of equity. A potential perk to building a team on limited resources.
One reason we need to consider it is that this guy, like every talented hacker on this board, has other irons in the fire and a career of his own to manage. So start-up may not be his bag, baby.
Who's bag might it be? Tough to say, but a lot of the feedback has been 'get personal already'. So, my name is Andy Johnson, and my wife is Michelle Blaine and we have a start-up company called Chef 52, Inc. Here's a bit about it from the late YC application we submitted if you're interested. It ought to give you the basic overview of the business, name our potential partners (disclaimer: nothing signed in blood yet) and give you a view of both our living room, and 'us' as people.
http://chef52.posterous.com/chef-52-described-for-ycombinator
Don't let the bad hair and casual dress fool you. We bring a lot more to the table than an idea. We have 8 kids (yes, 8) that are alive, healthy and prospering in this world. Food was a critical component to that equation, and we're both passionate 'foodies'. Michelle is a stellar cook and has spent years working in the food industry; initially to support her habit spending years working in the film/TV industry - which she did so very successfully. She's also worked in music licensing and managed to build real value and equity for clients. She's a shrewd business woman, and a loving mother (more of the latter seen on video).
I was a touring musician 'in a past life' and have been passionate about food and cooking since I was a teenager. First because my Dad was an excellent cook so I grew up thinking a man's place WAS in the kitchen. Then in my early 20s as a necessity because my health went down the tubes... rock'n'roll lifestyle perhaps or luck of the draw. But either way, I used food and nutrition as the singular means to regain my health and well-being. Successfully! It was a total trip and changed my lifestyle forever. As a result I've been a vege/pescetarian coming up on about 19 years now.
About 11 years ago, having taught myself several 'creative' software apps and blagged my way into some print-production gigs, I took a job at one of the largest branding agencies in the world, Landor Associates. I spent 4 years forming the foundation to become an expert in digital production as it pertains to brand... This mostly meant font management and consultation, building logo suites for global brands based on initial designs, extending design into brand guidelines and stationery/presentation 'packages' including print mechanicals and digital equivalents (Word/PPT templates), creating interactive PDFs, and very rarely getting to do a little hand coding on HTML 'comps' for clients.
Since leaving Landor I've managed a freelance career as a designer/producer, continued to tour as a musician, wrote a few short film scores, had another baby, moved our family back to Maui (we've been in/out of the islands all our lives), skirted death in a motorcycle accident (and 'mostly' walked away), and hacked together a number of websites with Michelle as a passionate pursuit - sometimes for money... maybe even more than we should've been paid (see "shrewd business woman").
Since leaving film/TV and music licensing, Michelle has continued to raise our family, helped me grow my freelance business into what has become Johnson Beesley (we're a branding agency compiled of free-agents working cooperatively), built a mom-blog following and become a writer for food-buzz (which incidentally came on the heels of her deciding to write about food exclusively). She's also developed a modest following on twitter (@mControl); far more than I have (@johnsonbeesley).
We're friendly, astute, and staunchly creative people. We follow our hearts wherever they take us and let our brains catch up. We love people that surprise us with their kindness and intelligence and often loathe people that fail to surprise us by reaffirming our occasional desire to join what Bill Hicks coined as the "people who hate people club."
Our project, Chef 52, aims to be a culmination of our collective life experience. It represents something we know a lot about - people, friends, family, food, health and self employment.
The latter two are critical to our vision. We believe there's a behavioral change opportunity in this idea that would help people get 'out of the drive thru and back to the table.' We've watched childhood and adult obesity, diabetes, heart disease and all sorts of other nutritional fails claim people's lives. Some who were loved ones. So, we now have an idea that if effectively produced could put a dent in our declining eating habits as a culture (yes, we're doing market research on that too). The self-employment part is obvious. We've been 'without boss' and also location-independent as a result for close to 8 years now. We appreciate the freedom while never forgetting that we've actually been at that "oh crap we've got $7 to our name" point - with kids to feed, clothe and house. But we choose that lifestyle because we believe it's the best path in this single life we have.
"Single life we have" - we're not religious people, but to call us 'spiritually motivated' would be fair. Not 'crunchy' but a bit hard around the edges. You could call me an enthusiastic aethiest and I'd say that's pretty close to accurate.
So, that's us in a nutshell, and I felt like it was fair to post this given the personal feedback and time people have taken to express an interest in what started as hypothesis.
Now for some hacker comedy entertainment... Here's a collection of sites that Michelle and I have designed and/or built over the past several years... no 'web applications' but you'll get a sense of both our strengths and shortcomings in this domain. We're not clueless - but certainly not as thorough or knowledgeable as the people we'd like to help us execute the platform to deliver our vision and business:
www.johnsonbeesley.com (WP, not updated in ages) www.halblaine.com (WP with Thesis) www.mommysalad.com (WP with Thesis) www.everkaeo.com (WP with Thesis) www.laurapickering.com (flash, so no iPad ;) www.9fishsurf.com (flash)
We cobbled together a few sites in Joomla for a while around 2007 - but I think they've all gone the way of expired domains. It's safe to say they were crap (more so than what you may think of the above) but were a learning adventure nonetheless.
Thanks for reading, and if any of this makes you think "damn, I might want to work with these people" you can drop a line at ajohnson at johnsonbeesley and mblaine at johnsonbeesley.
Aloha~