richardjortega

alexwolfe, thank you. I don't want to leave him behind if we get funded, but i do need that passion and more compatible personality. Would you keep him on or hire back later?

I'm also worried if the system would fall apart? Can another developer relatively easy step in and learn the code...

jtchang, thanks. I appreciate your comment and honesty on why deadlines can be missed. It was also on me not defining expectations and he may feel we'll just profit off his work and pay him peanuts. I really want him as an equal founder and would love for him to want it as bad as us.

Just wanted to say brudgers, thank you so much for the "Chinese water torture" analogy. It made a ton of sense and I'll be meeting with my programmers to get things realigned from an expectation and compensation standpoint.

Were you trolling? :) - I like you coffee. Isn't the assumption that I have a marketing background an assumption too? My background is web development (mostly frontend), not application development. I don't think you gave harsh criticism - hell I think we might make good friends. You don't know me and I don't know you - I tried to sum up a year's worth of work into 3 paragraphs because I want the next step (with or without our current dev).

I'm not here to argue, I'm not trying to feel sorry for myself. I'm here to talk amongst other founders and programmers in other startups.

Have you ever had a "My boss is a dick..." and chatted with like minded individuals? Everyone has, I came here almost just to vent. I know the options but I also know the risks, but just maybe, I don't know everything...

;)

Thanks Brandon, I'd love for him to just be a bit more social and give us updates. I'd like for him to be a partner and turn this around.

Yeah, that's a good point. Time to brush up on my coding skills. Do you think you can sell and code in a startup and be great at both?

I wasn't trying to manage him, just that specific example was for a client who waited for three weeks for logins. All I need was an update (requested politely 4-6 times prior) and received no responses.

Those emails aren't the only ones, usually he is couple words per email. But you are right, dropping a "life savings bombshell" on him wasn't right either.

I think we didn't set expectations clearly with him because he was a friend and we worked together on various client work I didn't think anything of it.

Why do you think we have "HUGE egos"?

I'm trying to be open and candid. I just want to have a great startup team and that's why I chose him - yes because we were "college chums" and I thought he was one of the top backend devs I ever saw. How does trying to create a startup and dealing with growing pains and situation like this make be a bad person.

I don't want to "sell" my programmer on a vision, I want him to see what the opportunity is. I would love to give him full founder equity like stated (3-5% of the 20% fonders share - same as us!). I just want to figure out if we are a good fit or not, his work is amazing, we have difficulty working together.

I feel that I'm tied to one developer because of what stage we are at (prefunding) but we may raise capital or be in a notable accelerator. I want him with us, but I want someone I can work with too.

There are tons of posts on HN - I used "dick" just to grab attention and get responses. Did not mean any disrespect by it either. Last time I posted a thread that said something mild in title I got no responses.

I'm not referring to ALL programmers as dicks, I've just practically had it with him and he used to be a friend.

The most insightful opinion was that low hours per week = low motivation.

I'm being as honest and candid as possible. Sure there is emotion in this, this is our startup. I didn't have the money to bring him on full time and I don't think he would've worked for free either (or contribute funds needed for frontend dev).

I debated responding to you. But I will, because I'm trying to truly resolve this situation with my dev.

I don't know the first thing about you and I won't assume. I'm asking for comments on what to do next. Sorry if I called a "person" a dick, and sorry if that person happened to be a fellow "programmer".

Would you have replied to this post had I posted "I'm having difficulty with my programmer meeting deadlines"

Why assume my time estimate is wrong? I asked him for the estimate of hours. He doesn't include "research" time, I told him I'd pay for that time - he doesn't think it should be counted. In previous projects we've worked on, he has always underbilled we wanted to make sure that didn't happen this time.

I managed our frontend dev team and I personally estimated their hours (since I've managed software teams before) and got only 10-20 hours over.

I disrespect him because he started disrespecting me. Why assume the non-tech founder is always the bad guy?

One email for instance - "We have our life savings in this. This one feature update has taken over three weeks, please give us an ETA. Can another developer assist?" Answer: "Guilt doesn't work... I won't be able to see this until Friday. Sure another dev can take a whack at it, I'll add him to repo" (Email sent last Tuesday).

I love all the opinions and please, hearing from devs and founders alike is amazing. I'd like to some comments that I didn't detail:

1) Total hours dev worked so far: 100, hours likely left 50-100. 2) Partner and I invested $30k so far 3) We have experience in software team management so we had a pretty good idea of what we needed from a backend dev for phase 1. 4) He is not full-time or even part-time, more like contractual basis as per his convenience. 5) We always ask for his input/suggestions, but doesn't really show it. 6) We work on Saturdays/weeknights, because my partner and I have to get money to put into the startup (and pay our devs). 7) Not expecting free work or sympathy, just expecting fair work at a fair price. 8) Dev has stated that once we get funding he'll be "more into the project" 9) Everyone has vesting options, so he'll still get something if we part ways.

I know non-tech founders get bad reps on HN and I understand each dev likely has a horror story that has developed a bias that we ask for too much in return for too little - I can't change that about HN.

I'm merely asking for two questions: 1) What would you do in my shoes? 2) How do you add another key employee/founder if we transition? As in, you've put all this time it's hard to gives the keys to the castle to a newcomer.

I wrote the title so I could get programmers to help me understand. I used to program years ago and I respect programmers and understand they are the lifeblood to any project.

I've asked only 1-5 hours per week from this individual. I've managed our frontend dev from an outsourced team in Poland and based on my same "can't program knows how many hours it takes" effectively hit the deadline/hours budget with only about 10-20 hours over.

It's not half the work. At the end of the day I have to sell it. In order to put more features and offer more we need to sell it. We need clients, programmers don't care about that. Which I understand, why should they it's not their job.

I wanted to offer equal equity the same as my partner and I, but due to personality differences I don't believe we can. My partner and I invested $30k into the startup including paying him on a contractual basis, how do you give someone equal equity after this?

A key employee as in he is putting about 1-5 hours of coding per week but we needed a good backend dev and he was the best I knew. He's a college friend and I don't know how best to deal with the situation of him not communicating.

I came to ask this question on HN because I wanted devs opinions, I know non-tech founders get bad reps here - and I understand if you want to attach that bias to me.

I put my life savings into this project, I didn't ask for favors. He makes us feel uncomfortable in our office, and cancels everytime I ask him to come in. We only work on Saturday/weeknights, because I have to have a job to pay for this startup endeavor.

I don't assume we are worth $1 million or anything. I don't mean to take a defense stance, but I thought giving a portion of the founders equity made sense since he was taking a pay cut from normal hours. If he would've worked for free (like we are) he would've got founder's equity, but we still need a frontend dev which we had to pay for because he frankly said "I can do it, but I don't want to".

"The twinkle in their eye" I think that is exactly right and I can't expect him to share the vision.

I feel the only way I can tell he is working is that the Github repo is updated. He's an amazing programmer and back in college we were good friends (maybe associates), he has a tendency to have "short" responses which we understand.

I think I am looking for a "firing on all pistons" type of programmer.

We want him to join us in an incubator/accelerator but we're not sure about his passion or drive. Should we continue to bare with him so that after an accelerator we go our separate ways?

Yes, you have a point in how motivated would I be in his shoes... so then how much equity is fair for getting paid to work but transitioning to founder? My partner and I have not taken any salary/pay (even from paying clients), we actually put more of our money in to bootstrap. Every ounce of additional cash I have goes there, and the sense of urgency from him isn't addressed.

Or is it too late already? I'd love for him to be a founder, but I don't want to hand over equity to a person who is going to make it uncomfortable to work with in the office. We actually prefer him to work from his home office (as does he) so we don't have to be around from him.

Then he'll do random things like switch from us buying him lunch, to buying us lunch - then we're like WTF?

I feel like I'm venting - I'm sorry. I'm just at the point that I would like to see the startup move to the next step...

Thank you for your response!

Repped. Same situation here, our entire backend is setup with this setup (backbone, node, d3, mongoDB). We are looking for developers in these areas, since I'm not a programmer - do you have any good ideas that I can check?

most awsm post i've ever heard on HN