What were your worst mistakes the first time you founded?

@sreekanth850 That's an interesting point. Did you find a strategy how to avoid this?

@timz_flowers this happened when i approached people to become cofounders. I stopped it an started hiring people and later if they found mingling with our culture and thoughts i will discuss about the possible association. There is no such single solution for this.

@timz_flowers @sreekanth850 wow, ur so smart

@jiebu_li ? is this meant to be a constructive comment?

@sreekanth850 what I heard, it makes sense to distribute the shares equally between the founders in order to create a stable construction, when big investments flow in and to avoid confusion at that point in time. When you want an employee to participate, normally you put some visop/esop options in place, as a founder is supposed to be someone who invests their time and money into the product. It's difficult to pay somebody as an employee, taking all the economic risk yourself, and later give them relevant shares - this would create an imbalance, except of visop, where they participate with investing their time and passion, getting less money, but stock options. then there's the tax problem. if the company created real value (eg by acquiring investments), then you can not hand over shares to the employee (except of visop) without subjecting him to immediate taxation. How will you deal with these issues?

@melissa_kwan Thank you Melissa, this is perhaps one of the most fundamental questions of all, that you are pointing to. Nothing to add.

@melissa_kwan that's such a good point!

@teodeleanu ah, so you mean complementary skill distribution between the co-founders - yes, totally agree here.

@timz_flowers right

@nafetswirth I read from a guy who was doing a successful launch here, that he recommended to have a perfectly working product in place. Would you then recommend to do a prelaunch somewhere else and then come to PH or doing the imperfect launch here?

@timz_flowers It depends on what you want to achieve, plus there is no one size fits all answer, if I have side projects I launch them here early to measure demand and to see how much time I wanna put into fleshing them out. If you have a team working on something bigger or is a space where people are very used to super polished apps then I think you should reconsider. But building out in the open is probably one of the best things you can do, might be just in a specific community or give it to some early adopters and work on it with them etc.

@nafetswirth Ok, Stefan, fair point!

@nafetswirth my team and I are fighting this fear daily. We plan to launch a beta next month but the question always remains "How much should the product evolve before existing?"

@samuel_dirksz1 Samuel, I have a question: it sounds to me like a bit of a paradox in your description - if they were real friends, would you still think legal documentation is mandatory? The question behind my question is: Did your understanding of friendship develop since then or did it vanish?

@timz_flowers the things is with setting up a business, you need a clear goals, agreements on how to get there etc. Saying this to one another is one thing, but when shit hits the fan how will your word stand against another without having this on paper? For any business with friends, family, partners, business associates need to documented for in good times and bad times. Things are clear for everyone, for evaluation and building on. Without it, you risk complications and when things aren't understood they way you intended too. And our friendship ended, shit hit the fan, 'the friend' showed his true face and commitment which lead to disappointments and eventually closing down the business after, in this case I, cleaned up the shit ;)

@samuel_dirksz1 Thank you Samuel, for sharing. I have also some experience in this field. I founded 3 companies by now and all of them with different friends and family. The first one lasted for 2 decades and times were sometimes extremely hard, in the end we separated due to various reasons, like different development of interest, but we managed to stay friends and family and are still in good contact. The newest one I founded with a very close friend and my wife. We have contracts in place, like the legal documentation of the company or a rough loan agreement for our early investments. But nothing more specific, as the future is too uncertain to pack all contingencies in detailed stipulations - so far my understanding. Which kinds of stipulations would you recommend for the company building with a friend or partner?

@timz_flowers Thanks for sharing, of course there are many exceptions however you hear a lot around success, more than failures. Luckily that attitude is changing of the taboe around it. I would recommend agreeing on a documenting the business plan, even if its an MVP and when changes are made, this is a joint decision. Same goes for the amount time one invests and what this means in return when you start makeing money. What is fair is up to a joint decision again. Also your role and responsibility that comes with it. Not in minor detail but important to have clear understanding your input and output in the company. When it comes to capital/money, this is often a relation killer, how much of your profits will go back in the company, how much will one take out. Your part depends on the agreement. If this is clear then this is no need for arguing when the company is successfull or when shits hits the fan.

@samuel_dirksz1 Ok, Samuel, thanks for sharing your insights and experiences here. We circumvented some of the questions you raised by simply sharing the decision power, so there are literally no decisions to be made without all of the 3 founders agreeing. Taking out money (a future problem hopefully) for example would be something that needs 3 signatures. We will see what happens, when overwhelming success or activity brings pressure into the system, but at the moment I follow the rules to keep it simple and to trust in our rationality and mutual empathy. I will take your recommendations into consideration as we are also planning to branch out side businesses with people from farer circles, so we have to build up a general understanding in this field. Thank you!

@andrewc3 can you elaborate a bit on what that means for you?

@timz_flowers I assume you mean the sweat equity structure? I currently use a simple 1 share per hour worked system. Timesheets are submitted and shares rewarded accordingly. Capital investment, purchases and bills are reimbursed with shares at an agreed upon rate. The good thing about a system like this, is that your team is incentivized to work more on the project, or risk being diluted out. It also accommodates for holidays, sick leave, part time contributions and so on.

@andrewc3 are you paying real money in addition?

@timz_flowers Unfortunately I have no real money rolling in yet. Hopefully that will change =D With equity payment for staff, I'll have a separate share pool for staff and pay from there. This prevents founder's equity from being diluted out, while also serving the purpose of attracting and retaining talent.

@samanthamerlivat Same same here. But this has also an advantage: by investigating your uncertainty, you dive deep into your understanding. When you start a bit later than others from there, you start from solid ground. But important: you must make the decision to make decisions, otherwise you never stop diving. The easy part in this: you only have to make one reliable decision.... and you sound like you did already. Great.

@scriptify Maximilian, how will you approach the marketing aspect of product building next time, after this experience? Will you improve your own skills on it? Or will you bring in somebody with the skills?

@timz_flowers I will definitely expand my knowledge on that topic, actually I've already read 2 books, many tutorials and articles regarding marketing and man, that was so eye opening. It was like opening Pandora's box after years of procrastinating on it. The thing is, for most of that knowledge, it felt like it always lied directly in front of me, I was just blind on my marketing eye.

@scriptify Could you give the 3 most important bullets on your insights and share the book?

@timz_flowers "Traction: how any startup can achieve explosive customer growth" is the title of the book. Main takeaways: - Marketing is not as hard as it seems, you just need to adjust your mindset and always look out for new opportunities. Most importantly, you need to be proactive about it. - Create a clear strategy with clearly defined goals, e.g. 1000 site visitors. Then try out the different channels and methods for your strategy. Stick to the strategy which moves the needle most and try out all of it's variants - Not all marketing has to be strictly online. Also consider uncommon ways of reaching your customers, e.g. paper magazine ads or crazy PR stunts I'm by no means an expert on this topic and just starting out, let's see where this journey takes me

@scriptify wow, cool man, very precious tips and the book sounds promising!! great knowledge transfer

@aaronoleary How did it come that you had too much on your hands?

@anamika_chaudhary2 welcome Anamika, I hope we learn both from people here