Comment by throwaway1182 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway1182 | Hacker News Reader

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Interesting data point. However, we're happily chugging along with 6 co-founders, bootstrapped to currently 30 mln us$ valuation and we've only just begun.

Then again, your point about "visionaries" (with which you probably mean high-ego people needing a lot of approval) rings true to me. We're all pretty low-key hard-working people with a lot of self-reflection and humility - also it helps it's not the usual failing friends, family or uni buddies combo but we're really more of a casting band with a team mixed and matched from industry professionals by our main founder.

In this very setup, it's actually very enjoyable with a lot of pros: Scaling is much faster and easier with invested veterans at the helm, all important departments are headed by founders, also having same-level people in the same company helps enormously with the more difficult decisions and just professional exchange, growing as leaders and 1-1 mentoring. If - and only if - the base of trust is there and continuously honed through communication, this is an amazing way to work and learn.

10/10 would do it again.

Almost all people overestimate their knowledge of human nature.

I only know a few people who are truly able to judge people right. Most people with good relations are simply lucky.

As someone who actively works researching personality psychology, I can fully attest to this.

There actually seems to be somewhat of a Dunning-Kruger like effect when it comes to people evaluation skills. Generally, those who appear the most confident about their people judgements, also seem to be those who are wildly speculative and inaccurate about what other people are thinking.

'Not knowing what someone else is thinking' - is completely different from 'knowing human nature'.

For example, people tend to be a little lazy, or tend towards 'doing less'. If one could get 100K for sitting on one's butt - most people would take the offer. Some people would rather work, or do something more creative.

This is different from being able to 'read' people.

Yes, but unfortunately people tend to make a lot of critical decisions based around what they interpret other people's motives to be; leaving out that bit of human behavior from the equation can be a big deal.

One ceo may may look at a worker exhibiting stereotypical output of a "lazy" person and decide this person must not care about their work and thus should be fired. Meanwhile another may see this as a symptom of burnout from caring about their work too much and decide the worker should get some time off to relax. Regardless of who's interpretation is correct, it is a decision than can have a big impact on a person.

The behavioural economics approach is definitely worth keeping in mind regardless of people-reading ability, but we should be weary of interpreting such things as being too 'directly applicable' in anything other than very generalized circumstances. Unfortunately, I've seen my fair share of cases like the example I stated above, so it is worth remembering that there is no such thing as "the average person". Not to say there aren't definite patterns of behavior of course, but that's a whole other conversation.

Yeah, I am weary of the slobby fat guy with bad manners being perceived as 'lazy' - those guys can be just as much the opposite of that as any other.

I agree with most of what you say, but I disagree that there isn't such a thing as the 'average person', or rather, we are animals, somewhat predictable, not that unique.

> we are animals, somewhat predictable, not that unique.

Oh I agree completely, didn't mean to give the impression I advocate the "special snowflake" view of the world either. My apologies! My entire field of research is practically based around our predictability ;)

What I meant to say rather, was that while there are definite behavioural patterns, they tend to cluster into discrete groupings, rather than being broad and generally applicable traits that can be used on everyone across the board in aggregate (i.e. a singular "average person"). There are certainly many 'trivial' human traits we all share in common of course, but I've found those to be less helpful in personal decision making situations than more specific correlated traits. But then again, I might be a bit bias given that's my area of expertise :)

You admit you have a main founder. Does this main founder have sorta ultimate authority? Or does he hold the singular original vision from which everyone else's vision/mission/purpose comes from?

What's the equity split like among the 6 of you?

What created that base of trust you describe? Was it everyone agreeing to follow the "main founders" vision, and him being respectful and not ego driven (so that the vision became shared?)

> Was it everyone agreeing to follow the "main founders" vision, and him being respectful and not ego driven (so that the vision became shared?)

Pretty much exactly that plus providing the seed round. In practice, this also definitely had a lot to do with things working out well to have a center piece that's stable, predictable and a little detached, quite the opposite of a show-off. Buying into a main vision and then transferring it into a vision for tech, marketing, sales, product and operations was much easier that way.

Equity split was 50:others by the way.

Now you might argue this isn't a "real" as in "more equal" cofounder dynamic, but giving away 50% of your company before even starting and then treating those people as equals made a lot of difference, including an enormous buy-in at all key builders of the company. After having experienced how well it played out, I'd do it the same way.

What's the salary dispersion among the founders? It sounds like you've solved one of the main issues that prevents good people from leaving their stable jobs to found startups, which is providing actually meaningful equity to a base of qualified and capable people instead of hoarding it between 1-2 founders and investors, leaving only fractions of a percent for the earliest employees.

I'm curious if you also cleared the other huge hurdle: giving up 70% of individual earning power for what is essentially a lottery ticket.

Personally, I think the buck has to stop somewhere, and it's more important to be united in a vision than to be right, or to be struggling for what's right. At the same time, it doesn't work when the person with whome the buck stops is authoritarian. I respect someone who is wrong who at least has a reason for being wrong based on their perspective of the situation. But I can't abide someone who is wrong and who forces the startup to do the wrong thing because they have the authority of position. I find those people are not going to be predictable in the mistakes they make, and more importantly the will not recover from them.

I asked the questions because I think you might be onto something, a way to split things up and have genuine founders without the "everyone gets 1/n of the equity" equality that leads to strife.

Him putting in the seed round and other contributions necessary to give him the weight that makes it a valuable deal for everyone also seems to be a key element in your situation.

Thanks for sharing!

> If - and only if - the base of trust is there and continuously honed through communication, this is an amazing way to work and learn.

This is the key, and something narcissist don't do. It's against their nature. They thrive at hugging communication and controlling the flow of information.

How did the team come together, how well did you know each other when the company began?

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