softwarefounder

There are many pieces of advice that can be said, but what I would say is this:

Don't bottle all of this in; it'll only build resentment.

Be humble, speak your mind appropriately and professionally, and after you've done so, lean on the tech lead and manager for direction.

My first startup was founded with a non-technical co-founder; they had no vast experience in what we were founding, but was a good salesman.

In the end, they were useless, and I walked away from the company.

Make sure everything is in writing, and if you're a technical co-founder, make sure your co-founder is someone you can respect.

Thank you for the clarification/reasoning.

Some honest feedback. That's a pretty low salary, not made-up for by the lack of equity.

Yes to those last couple of lines.

I started to pursue a Masters of Divinity, but quickly dropped out as I came to terms that my motivation was primarily to "have the upper-hand" in conversations. (Not to mention I can't set aside 6 years of my life for school right now).

Do you value money more, or "kudos" from the internet more?

Somewhere there lies your answer.

Be transparent with the company.

Tell them what you expected vs. what you got and work it out.

Also understand that if the company comes under heat, the VP has "protected" him/herself by trying to reconcile it.

Would recommend LLC for a sole-founder, beginning startup. (LLC will _help_ protect your personal liability and being sued directly as an individual).

Corporations are needed/good when/if you get investors, and need board members, and stock options, etc.

(Not legal advice, take with a grain of salt).

Sounds like a nightmare if you ever have to go under SOC2.

As a startup with 2 engineers, yes, we use Auth0 and love that it handles everything for us at the moment.

Especially since we have to handle b2b clients who have their own SSO, etc.

"While money corrupts on an individual level, it purifies on an institutional level."

Well said.

Yes. We're undergoing this now, and it's a very involved process that should not be undermined.

We've looked into companies that help with this stuff, and usually it's around 50k to get setup, and a minimum of 20-30k annually to get "re-certified" with a SOC2 report.

There's a newer SaaS company that claims to help with this sort of stuff called Vanta. Haven't looked into them, but I've been meaning to. https://www.vanta.com/

Please understand that it's almost irrelevant on if your cloud provider has a SOC2 report. SOC2 reports are centered around your internal processes, your organizational procedures, how you store and protect data, etc.

Yes. I believe you shouldn't delete tests.

After all, one of the best reasons for tests is to be able to refactor code confidently.

Yep - the hilarious thing is even the most Agile/Sprint heavy consulting companies usually have to succumb to some Waterfall concept in order to provide an estimate or meet a fixed bid.

Look at their track record, or lack thereof.

Easy for non-technical co-founders especially to talk big. Also, talk to users or co-founders that worked with them, and under them.

Being 1099 and sub-contracting

- JIRA

- Figma

- GSuite (Business)

- SendGrid

- JetBrains

- Jamf (*Free)

- Bitbucket

- AWS (hosting infra)

Why do you need a co-founder?

I've found that it's actually not too uncommon to share pool and percentage details with individuals who are not high up at the startup.

By Series B, they should the budget on head counts figured out enough, so I'd consider pushing back on that base salary a bit.

Would love to read this - is there no way aside from paying for the content? (Can only read the abstract)

Anecdotally, will say age doesn't matter, but at least 7+ years of experience across different projects and languages.

Your 100% right.

Especially in mid to large B2B plays.

> The reason I hate ads is because it's a legitimized way of abuse, of hurting other people...

Everyone on this thread hates ads, but that's a stretch there bud.

Some of this too is learning how to say no, especially regarding time frames.

This of course works best when you "can" say no (i.e. multiple clients and other sources of revenue)

I have clients right now that I won't be able to attend to for a few weeks or so. If that doesn't work for them, I'll help transition them to a situation that works for them. But likely they'll stay around since good help can be hard to find.

Anyone can be replaced.

Even if it takes two or three people, they can be replaced.

Unless you're communicating all of this with your managers/supervisor/team, this is a fool's errand.

Pragmatism and consistency over ideology.