To save money running a startup, follow these tips:
1. Hire a competent but old programmer who has debt, and a wife and kids. Pay him well.
2. Hire a bunch of interns to work on your code. Pay them badly.
3. Let the interns do the unimportant stuff, under the control of the old guy.
4. When the mission critical parts of your software come, for example design or scaling issues, bring in freelance consultants to help you do this
5. Hire lit major students to write a bunch of content for you. They are cheap and good at writing.
6. Release upgrades often and publicize each release as much as you can. You don't need PR.
7. Fire anyone who believes he is a rockstar, knows the best way of doing something and insists it has to be done that way, or somehow thinks he is owed something
8. Get small offices. Make your workers work short hours, so they have time to do stuff at home, and so that they stay with your company because of the amount of freetime available
9. Make your team friendly. If there is a socially akward or shy guy who does not relate with the other members of the team, fire him
10. Get a guy whose job is to manage outsourced projects. Outsource as much as you can and hold this guy directly responsible for the results
11. Don't go to conferences, don't stay in hotels. Spend to promote your product, not to promote yourself.
12. Take the money you make and put it back in company development. Keep the teams small and unified as you grow.
13. Spend your ad money on measurable ads like adsense etc. No expensive placement ads. You can optmize then
14. Hire people on freelancer contracts. You can save on their benefits as well as the management costs for doing their taxes
15. Take the guys in the startup to strip clubs. Get them laid.
You wanted to save money, right? If you do the above, you don't need aeron chairs to keep your team happy, productive and cheap. However, it's unsexy, and some people will look down on you.
1. Hire a competent but old programmer who has debt, and a wife and kids. Pay him well.
It's actionable age discrimination, but go ahead. You gotta break some eggs if you want to make an omelette.
9. Make your team friendly. If there is a socially akward or shy guy who does not relate with the other members of the team, fire him
It's actionable discrimination and a shitty thing to do to an otherwise valuable but shy person, but he's too shy to bring this to your attention or to hire a lawyer, so it's a win-win. (Again, eggs->omelette.)
12. Take the money you make and put it back in company development. Keep the teams small and unified as you grow.
Also, breathe air, drink water, and eat food.
15. Take the guys in the startup to strip clubs. Get them laid.
Again, actionable sexual harassment, but you're a nouveau web entrepreneur and therefore not concerned about things like legal liabilities. Let IBM, Microsoft, and other old school outfits worry about things like that. Besides, you're saving so much money by doing this that you can afford the suit.
I feel like I've fallen victim to a motivational seminar version of Poe's law.
<blockquote>9. Make your team friendly. If there is a socially akward or shy guy who does not relate with the other members of the team, fire him
It's actionable discrimination and a shitty thing to do to an otherwise valuable but shy person, but he's too shy to bring this to your attention or to hire a lawyer, so it's a win-win. (Again, eggs->omelette.)</blockquote>
I don't see anything actionable here unless he's a member of a protected class and can claim that's why it was done. Being shy is not protected. For that matter, it's not a shitty thing to do: he's bringing down the team. Sucks to be him, but if he's affecting productivity, out he goes.
Not to quibble, but there are disorders like Asperger's syndrome, social anxiety disorder, clinical depression, and so on. Many of these would qualify the person as handicapped and therefore a member of a protected class. If there's even a doubt, you might have to settle out to avoid legal fees or a potential defeat in court. Besides, reasonable accommodations are, by definition, reasonable. Maybe he/she can be one of the people that works odd hours to avoid others?
he's bringing down the team. Sucks to be him, but if he's affecting productivity, out he goes.
There was no mention of a productivity hit. We have to take the OP at his word that he/she meant, "If somebody isn't suave or outgoing enough, fire that person." I think I'd rather educate my team about diversity, tolerance, and respect than fire technically competent people who happen to like to keep their doors closed. If you have a team that requires all others to be social sophisticates and can't function in the face of shyness, then this is your second biggest problem after handling the inevitable discrimination suit for firing Joe Shy. Also, if I worked with me, I'd probably want some alone time, too.
There are just so many things wrong with point (9) that it's hard to get them all out. Here goes:
1) Team managers, unless highly skilled (and sometimes even then) don't always understand the factors that make their teams function/fail.
2) The aforementioned possible legal liability of insisting on a team of suaves.
3) The inadvisability of insisting on a team of suaves.
4) The presupposition that the person who is awkward/shy is the problem. Maybe (the hypothetical) you and your team are a gang of unproductive dicks?
5) Maybe you're productive dicks but it will never scale?
6) The whiny intolerance of anyone who's not having absolutely the easiest time of things.
7) The fact that none of this has ever been an issue on any team I've ever worked on?
8) The insipid notion that it's a zero sum game or that the only thing is the productivity or that you can improve productivity with misguided social engineering.
I could go on. I think that what it really comes down to is that I'd rather be the guy who succeeds by helping others succeed. Entrepreneurship is as much about finding value where others can't as it is about creating new value. That includes finding it in employees who are less than socially perfect.
I think I'd rather educate my team about diversity, tolerance, and respect.
Sounds nice in theory, but in a startup you don't get points for being swell. The team needs to click, and if there are people that don't fit with the group dynamic socially, then that's already something working against you.
Fortunately the scene itself is pretty diverse. There are enough different sorts of founders out there that hire people like them that there's a place for shy and outgoing people to find a place to do their thing. I think the fallacy that kicked this off was that all founders are socialites. But if you've got founders that are socialites, they'll probably do better off with a team that is too.
For the record, I had one job that I didn't get because I would have slowed the rest of the team down (in that case it was because the rest of the team was German and I wasn't yet fluent in German). They were right not to hire me. They may have ended up hiring someone less qualified than me, but that made their team more cohesive.
Besides, reasonable accommodations are, by definition, reasonable
You got me here! The reality is that unless we want to be totally balls-out mercenary and only follow the exact letter of the law, we have to treat people like human beings. And quite frankly, if I'm the person doing it, I'd rather pass on the millions than have to screw over the people I work with. There is Karma and I do have to live with myself.
15. Take the guys in the startup to strip clubs. Get them laid.
Getting your team laid AT a strip club does not sound like a good way to save money. Even without the, uh, soliciting of prostitution, I shudder to think of the strip clubs where one goes to "save money."
9. Make your team friendly. If there is a socially akward or shy guy who does not relate with the other members of the team, fire him
The startups I've worked at always had quite a few shy, socially awkward types (I've worked mostly at tech startups). We usually just invited these folks out to lunch and social gatherings and made them feel a part of the team. Perhaps we weren't being very economical...
"15. Take the guys in the startup to strip clubs. Get them laid."
This was a great TicketStumbler company outing. I still think you should have good chairs (not necessarily Aeron). You're spending 1/3 of the day in them - get something nice.
1. Hire a competent but old programmer who has debt, and a wife and kids. Pay him well.
2. Hire a bunch of interns to work on your code. Pay them badly.
3. Let the interns do the unimportant stuff, under the control of the old guy.
4. When the mission critical parts of your software come, for example design or scaling issues, bring in freelance consultants to help you do this
5. Hire lit major students to write a bunch of content for you. They are cheap and good at writing.
6. Release upgrades often and publicize each release as much as you can. You don't need PR.
7. Fire anyone who believes he is a rockstar, knows the best way of doing something and insists it has to be done that way, or somehow thinks he is owed something
8. Get small offices. Make your workers work short hours, so they have time to do stuff at home, and so that they stay with your company because of the amount of freetime available
9. Make your team friendly. If there is a socially akward or shy guy who does not relate with the other members of the team, fire him
10. Get a guy whose job is to manage outsourced projects. Outsource as much as you can and hold this guy directly responsible for the results
11. Don't go to conferences, don't stay in hotels. Spend to promote your product, not to promote yourself.
12. Take the money you make and put it back in company development. Keep the teams small and unified as you grow.
13. Spend your ad money on measurable ads like adsense etc. No expensive placement ads. You can optmize then
14. Hire people on freelancer contracts. You can save on their benefits as well as the management costs for doing their taxes
15. Take the guys in the startup to strip clubs. Get them laid.
You wanted to save money, right? If you do the above, you don't need aeron chairs to keep your team happy, productive and cheap. However, it's unsexy, and some people will look down on you.