
Top Mistakes and Learnings from My Startup: Postmortem Samsamia - hoaphumanoid
https://miguelgfierro.com/blog/2018/top-mistakes-and-learnings-from-my-startup-postmortem-samsamia/
======
rsp1984
_If you are trying to start a startup with a friend, think about this, do you
really know this person? are you confident that under high levels of pressure
this person is going to help you or is he going to break apart?_

I started a startup with my best friend whom I knew for several years. The
startup succeeded (kind of, we got acqui-hired by BigTech) but the friendship
turned into a deep alienation in the process.

Startup pressure can bring out the true character of a person. The problem
though is that you may not know the true character of someone until startup
pressure is applied -- even if that someone is your best friend.

I'd actually argue for _not_ starting your startup with a good friend.
Friendship bias works against you when your cofounder turns against you under
pressure. Instead choose a co-founder that you know professionally and that
you have a good gut feeling about.

The problem of the story presented is not that he didn't start the company
with someone he knew better, it's that apparently no agreements existed that
prevented $ANTISOCIAL_COFOUNDER_BEHAVIOR from happening. I'm certainly guilty
of that as well. The resources spent on setting up those agreements are
_always_ worth it. Also not a shame at all to bring in lawyers at this stage.

 _It is super common to divide shares generously the first day of the startup,
it 's like marrying a girl the first day you know her. Isn't it creepy?_

It's common to divide 50/50, but with a vesting schedule. If co-founder shows
$ANTISOCIAL_COFOUNDER_BEHAVIOR despite agreements made you may kick him/her
out and will only lose shares that vested.

~~~
mandeepj
> Startup pressure can bring out the true character of a person

Not necessarily. It can bring out the worse.

Let's say you are stressing a machine beyond its limit. The risks are
specified in the manual but you still do it. The resulting mechanical damage
can't be blamed on the manufacturer.

~~~
abraae
So well put. People you could have roomed with, drink with, hung out with,
even been trapepd on a desert island with, all successfully, can turn into
monsters under the pressure of running out of money and associated startup
events. And you can find yourself echoing that behaviour.

------
heliodor
Reading the abstract reminded me that so many people don't understand
effective communication. The academic essay style is a travesty of global
proportions. Effective communication would start with the conclusion section,
then the body, and leave the intro out. Make your statement quickly, and then
expand upon it for whoever wants to keep reading. Saying, "in this essay I
will tell you what I learned" is not going to keep me reading. Give me the
high level points, then expand upon them!

~~~
segmondy
Give him a break, it's obvious that English is not his first language. The
article is about mistake and learning about his startup, but you have moved
the topic to his style of writing. Seriously, you do realize HN is worldwide
right and many of us don't speak English as first languages?

~~~
probably_wrong
I don't think it's a first/second language issue, but rather a "how to present
ideas in written form" issue. The GP is not criticizing typos, but rather the
way in which the article is structured. If the post were written in Spanish it
would have the same issues - just in Spanish rather than English.

I actually think the (quite nice) blog formatting might be partially at fault:
whenever I read a paper, I expect a certain style of writing and ideas
presented in a certain way. By presenting it visually as a paper and then
using a casual blog style, my first thought is not "this blog post is okay"
but rather "this paper is bad".

------
ddtaylor
One thing to consider is that your co-founder might not actually be your
friend. It's easy to think you have a relationship with someone that you spend
a lot of time coordinating with that might not truly exist. I believe most
problems in any kind of relationships are based on expectations. It can be
devastating to realize that someone else doesn't actually care what you think
unless it serves their agenda and result in feeling used or exploited.

My advice, which I have failed at many times, is keep business
compartmentalized and separate.

~~~
kolleykibber
This is so important, it's concerning to think about how many good years of
smart people have been wasted. It should be taught in school.

------
JeanMarcS
I started my 21 yo company with 2 friends. One we fired after about a year (he
was literaly doing nothing). Then the other one and I continued for 6-7 years
before he started working on other projects with an other company. Still, we
still holded 50/50 of the shares (which was not a problem due to the way small
companies works here).

For all this time we stayed friends.

And then, 3 years ago he offered me to join him on his new company. And at the
end he screwed me. Deeply. Leaving me and our first company in big troubles.

So long our 25 years of friendship.

The funny part (if any) is that a couple of months ago, he sold me his shares
of our company.

Not because he felt guilty of any kind. But because, as the company had made a
really bad year in 2016, with important loss compared to the size of it, he
had to sell the shares to not being a part of a loosing money company to
obtain a loan from banks for buying his new house...

~~~
confiscate
how much did he sell you his shares for, if you don't mind me asking? because
it sounded like it's for the first company, not the new one

~~~
JeanMarcS
I didn't had shares in the new one. The deal was to come and help as a
contractor first, and then make a holding for the companies (other were
involved).

But cash wasn't flowing and I soon worked for "free" as I wanted it to rise
(my other company still paying me), and the cash promise at the end was very
interesting. And at the end they kicked me out.

I know I made mistakes continuing doing this, but we were friends for decades
so I didn't see it coming.

Note that it was not in the startup world, but I told this story because of
the friendship side.

And about the shares of our first company, he basically give them to me, as he
wanted to get rid of them very fast. In fact all the paperwork was done (and
dated a month before).

The reason I signed them is that I too wanted to buy them back, but was a bit
scared of the amount he would ask for it.

So in the end there is a positive thing.

------
forkLding
Most startups fail cos the founders broke up or cant keep going on anymore, we
keep pointing to lack of demand or lack of money as why a startup failed but
to be honest most startups start from a situation where there is either a lack
of money or a lack of demand so technically speaking most startups start from
a failed situation.

Theres no pass fail on a piece of paper as we're used to in school for
startups, its more where you've given up and dont want to continue.

~~~
testcase_delta
Or when you run out of cash.

------
ridruejo
Everybody starting a company for the first time should read this article and
the associated book [https://hbr.org/2008/02/the-founders-
dilemma](https://hbr.org/2008/02/the-founders-dilemma)

------
greenleafjacob
What was he doing from end of 2015 to middle of 2016? If I lost access to my
bank accounts I’d be contacting the bank, calling emergency board meetings and
filing legal motions the next day.

------
not_a_moth
The author opens by nobly asserting "I take all responsibility for the
failure" yet then, everything that follows is how his co-founder screwed him
who he is now suing. Feels kind of inauthentic overall.

~~~
nyrulez
How is that incompatible? If you partner with a crook, can't you take a
responsibility for making that mistake (of not seeing the signs) but still
call the other person out for being a crook?

Taking responsibility is different from saying other did no wrong.

~~~
kokey
I have to play devil's advocate here, because we know one side of the story.
Perhaps the partner is not a crook, perhaps he was just not rich enough, hence
why he was the recipient of a small salary in the first year and was unable to
come up with further money to put into the company since his family didn't
have any to risk, and why when the company generated actual revenue gave his
family members opportunities to work with him. It sounds like the company's
revenue consisted of one big customer and it folded when that customer was
lost, but there's very little details of why that happened.

------
tonyarkles
Haven't read the article yet but my first question is: what the heck did they
use to make that?! It's beautiful like LaTeX but appears to be plain ol' HTML!

~~~
ExBritNStuff
[https://github.com/miguelgfierro/sciblog](https://github.com/miguelgfierro/sciblog)
\- Looks pretty sweet!

~~~
clusmore
Off-topic, but I find it rather baffling that with uMatrix blocking scripts
from ajax.cloudflare.com, the page renders with the article content missing,
despite it being included in the page source (just with style="dispay: none").

------
sheeshkebab
Sometimes I wonder about what’s more profitable in B2B space - product or
consulting/contracting. Doing the latter I manage to pull in more in 3 months
what this guy generated it sounds like in 3 years.

That gives me a pause everytime I want to sink 3 months of my time into some
startup idea.

~~~
rsoto
As someone that has done both, you might be right. Consulting is way more
profitable, but the thing is that you basically are working for someone else,
and you can scale it as far as you can fit it on your calendar or hiring.

But with a product you can sell 1,000% of what you had yesterday, the
schedules might be a little tight since B2B expects at least a few sales
meetings.

So it has its pros and cons. And from my experience (and other's, both friends
and clients who want to create something), it's unlikely to have something
sellable in 3 months.

~~~
dozzie
> As someone that has done both, you might be right.

I don't think he has done both. He wouldn't have asked in such a case.

~~~
durovo
It seems from the sentence that he himself has done both, he is not claiming
that the original comment's author has done both.

------
digitalzombie
I would never start any business with friends or families.

Anything with lots of money involve can hurt relationship.

With that said there were other points in there too and pitfalls that OP did
early on that are good lessons. I think another thing to consider is that he
didn't have a lawyer or accountant from the inception to go over the legality
of 50%-50% and administration role.

It's a sad article but the ending was bright and I'm glad he's taking it as
lessons learned. It'll help other people too.

edit:

The pivot from B2C to B2B is interesting. I never actually consider this but
reading this now it's more of a "No duh" moment.

------
janOsch
It seems that this startup was successful in finding product market fit but
was killed because of co-founders mismatch.

I am planning to start a business with my fiancée, we have been together for
10 years, and we complement each other nicely in terms of skills. What are
your experiences with that?

~~~
clearly
I guess you should ask yourself is business success worth the risk of your
relationship failing?

------
cyberferret
Anyone visiting this discussion who may have suggestions about co-founder
relationships etc., I would encourage you to visit Ben's site [0] to share
your stories to others may learn.

I think co-founder relationships are one of the least explored aspects of a
startup, despite its importance.

Disclaimer: Not affiliated with this site apart from the fact that I
voluntarily submitted some content about my own co-founder experiences after
being asked.

[0] -
[https://healthybusinesspartnerships.com](https://healthybusinesspartnerships.com)

------
iamgopal
I started with friends and end up with hurted relationship. (Advice given to
me by my father years before that never start company with friends even when
you both feel to be technically compatible.) Lesson learned, learn lesson when
given from experience.

------
segmondy
Bad partnership will kill any business. Don't partner/cofound with strangers
and be ready to lose friends if you do.

------
OriPekelman
I, for one, am sending big hugs to Miguel Angel Maldonado. I can totally see
how this played out. Wow this rant is obnoxious. keep strong if you ever
happen on this thread.

~~~
sidcool
What, why?

------
pnongrata
It's funny how he claims full responsibility in the beginning before
immediately ranting about how he got screwed by others.

