Ask HN: How to show business co-founders that I'm actually working hard

11 points by stuckFounder 10 years ago | 16 comments

I'm the tech lead on a startup and I have co-founders who know essentially zero about tech or web businesses. Our CEO sold real estate before this. We are a SAAS for students and companies that connects them for jobs via our website. I'm the CTO and have worked extremely hard for this company for 6+ months, 80-100/week, and am still having to address concerns about being "all in" as a co-founder.

My commute is roughly 2 hours and I have a young child at home and am much more productive coding when we aren't all together. I seriously think they think I work 10 hours a week when in fact I work 100. I'm happy to attend however many meetings they want to have. Ironically, I've been the one to suggest 2/3 of the weekly meetings we do have. How can I convince them short of sitting right next to them in the office from 9-5 every day that I'm actually delivering a lot of value to the company?

Salient details: We don't have much funding, less than 100K, and I'm a very experienced engineer, so its highly unlikely I can be replaced in a reasonable amount of time. We have had listings for $40K salary/2-3% equity for both developers and designers on many sites for months with no takers. Before I arrived, another developer cost them ~$50K and took 4 months to build a website which was unusable according to their standards and generated no sales. I built our website in 2 months and this has lead to $40K in sales and the expectation to hit 6 figures imminently.

mathattack 10 years ago |

IMHO....

You are not being treated and trusted as a co-founder, you're being treated and trusted as a hired CTO. You can choose to accept this, or not.

If you're going to accept it, you have to be the one to close the gap. In situation like this, you have to make the time to show plans that demonstrate what you're doing, and the time required for each. It doesn't need to be a fancy planning tool - just a Google sheet listing the item, the estimated work effort, the deadline, and any dependencies. The blocks of time should be less than 40 hours each - even below 8 if you can get them there. Then be fully transparent about your progress. When new work gets added, ask what drops. If you have ad-hoc support tasks, add them to the log. This may add 30 minutes to each day, but it will save you more than than in aggravation.

If you choose not to accept it, the market is still good for solid engineers. You can find a job that pays more and allows you to see your kid. (Are you crazy working 100 hours when you have a baby? The divorce will take away all your equity! And besides, you'll have to work more on-site if this thing actually grows.)

stuckFounder 10 years ago | |

We have alot of tools to show off my progress (I've mentioned elsewhere in the thread), none of it seems to resonate. Basically facts don't resonate, and this seems like a "soft" skill issue.

Because of our baby, i'm often up at crazy hours, the guys joke regularly about my 4am Slack comments on the business and that I must not sleep at all. This makes it even more baffling that my commitment is being questioned.

mathattack 10 years ago | | |

Why stay?

al2o3cr 10 years ago |

As stated elsewhere in this thread, your co-founders seem decidedly immune to the sort of data that would typically demonstrate "all-in". So here's my advice: stop guessing what those yoyos want. Get them into a meeting and ask them flat-out: "what would satisfy you on this point?" If they can't come up with anything or give you a bullshit answer, QUIT ON THE SPOT.

A month later, if you've provided whatever they said would satisfy them and they're STILL whining - see previous action.

You shouldn't put up with "I'm mad and I'm not going to tell you why" in business relationships any more than you should in personal relationships.

Also, keep in mind that you may walk out of that initial meeting without a job. The sort of nasty assclowns that your co-founders sound like don't typically appreciate being directly challenged.

enzoavigo 10 years ago |

If the problem is that their time can be measurable in term of ROI (i.e. sales) then you should definitely try to do the same with your tasks. Implementing a A/B test ? --> Show lead improvment On-Page optimization ? --> Show CRO evolution Changing design, implementing new feature ? --> show impact on activation, retention. And so on. If you work very hard you can also share a road map to share all the things you tick each week. In your case it seems you also have more of a human issue. I think to this point you need to prove them how much money you can bring to the company. I wouldnt go for a discussion "just to have a discussion" with them. Its far better if you can prove your added value. good luck !

linkregister 10 years ago |

Based off of your telling of the facts, it appears that if the other founders were reasonable, they would be able to tell the difference in value between the previous developer's work and your own.

I don't know you, but I would suggest being more aggressive with asking them what their contribution is. Objectively, they would have $0 of sales without your work. Conversely, you may have had $0 of sales without their personal network. I think this would be a good topic for conversation to set the bar for establishing the value of each founder's contributions.

stuckFounder 10 years ago | |

They say their contribution is making sales. It's a similar issue where, do I know at, say 2:37pm on a Wednesday, they are talking to a customer? I don't, but I trust that they are. My issue is getting them to trust that I'm doing the same.

No amount Slack comment content/timestamps, github commits content/timestamps, website features that get added seem to be able to clue them in to level of effort.

chrisbennet 10 years ago |

This seems like a problem that won't get better as time goes forward and needs to be fixed before you invest more of your life in it.

I would have a face to face with your partners and ask them if they are actually dissatisfied with your progress or is it just a general frustration with business progress that is reflected in a sort of "are there yet?" behavior.

Then again, they may just want you around until they can find someone who they think can do what they want.

edoceo 10 years ago |

I use Harvest to track time, use this to demonstrate time taken for tasks.

Q: "Why isn't it faster" A: "Quality code takes time" Q: "I think it shouldn't take that long, these fixes are easy" A: "Then code it yourself"

bensons 10 years ago |

Speak out loud what you are doing, regardless if its a failure or success.

zepolen 10 years ago |

I think you should be asking them what they are doing.

stuckFounder 10 years ago | |

They are making sales, on the phone, emailing. Its hard to argue about because of the few measurables (10 total sales in 3 months). Just like me, they claim they are pulling their own weight. The problem is I believe them and they don't believe me.

I can point out involvement on Slack, where I am super engaged to everyone who posts and in contrast, they respond haphazardly if at all, but this gets petty.

tmbeihl 10 years ago |

git commits?

stuckFounder 10 years ago | |

tried that, told them LOCs too. Doesn't get through to them.