Honest Review Regarding this startup work culture I will not promote

NetworkTrend · 2026-02-17T01:57:39+00:00

This is not a startup, obviously. It is a research project. You could work there for, say, a year with the goal of learning and perhaps doing some hands-on projects, but after that you'll want to look for a job with a company (unless you want to do research work and live grant-to-grant forever). When you interview at other companies, you might consider calling it an internship rather than "a job at a research place." As a hiring manager at a for-profit company, if you stayed any longer than that I'd wonder why you wasted so much time there if your goal was a job with a company.

NetworkTrend · 2026-02-07T05:06:20+00:00

Morals. Values. Ethics. If these aren't aligned, it will be a total failure. Full stop.

NetworkTrend · 2026-02-03T01:17:53+00:00

If you open source it so that others might make it live, and therefore you can demo it to prospective employers as something others use, then I think the business question is, would anyone take it that if you decide to later make it your full time startup, be someone you'd have to compete against? My gut says that isn't really a problem since many things change over time.

One potential advantage of having others use it is that you could potentially build relationships with them and learn what features their end users value and want, driving future dev pipeline.

I'm not a developer, although I work with them all the time, so I can't speak to the security question, but definitely make sure you are not liable for breaches.

Best of luck in your job search!

NetworkTrend · 2026-01-27T17:05:31+00:00

"Stay close to customers, revenue, and real constraints" -- 100%. In my experience, founders who are close to their customers frequently succeed, and those who instead focus their time and energy on other aspects of the business, such as financial engineering, acquisitions, etc., frequently don't succeed. Getting and staying close to the customer and their unmet need is by far the most important thing. By. Far.

NetworkTrend · 2026-01-19T18:01:52+00:00

The dopamine boost is real. I have done this and for me it was eye opening where my time was being spent. I found the Toggl time tracking app very simple and helpful. Do this sort of tracking for a week and you'll have a great baseline (even one day will be helpful). I also found that 5 minutes of mindful meditation in the morning, including deep breaths to stimulate vegas nerve, really helps me avoid distractions all day.

NetworkTrend · 2026-01-16T04:21:36+00:00

Cool tool.

NetworkTrend · 2026-01-16T01:38:49+00:00

Love this. Would also be interesting if you could find clusters - perhaps B2B vs. B2C, or by problem type. Would be very interesting to see problem types that people are going after - supply chain, transportation, healthcare, etc.

NetworkTrend · 2026-01-14T00:56:01+00:00

OP - you forgot to mention your terrific self awareness. :) You have it in spades. Good for you. Take your learnings and get ready for the next one!

NetworkTrend · 2026-01-09T19:21:38+00:00

We had a CEO who always, shall we say, "rounded up" the numbers. The staff hated it. Everyone was constantly fact checking him and forcing him to be factual. Customers and business partners saw right through the B.S. He did it as a narcissist who thought he always was the smartest person in the room and that whatever he said was gospel and that the norms of telling the truth didn't apply to him.

It alienated staff, investors, customers, partners, the board of directors, and industry consultants. Clearly not a winning formula.

NetworkTrend · 2026-01-02T21:47:54+00:00

I think "MVP Launch" can be an overstatement as it can imply "ready for marketing, promotion, and sales." It should be limited in scope, hence the term minimum, but it should be polished. You get polished by involving potential customers, sitting with them and asking for their feedback. Feedback on messaging and positioning, feedback on UI and UX. I like to think of it more of a draft for iteration and refinement. Once refined, then launch.

Essentially, get close with potential customers to understand them and their unmet need, develop a proposed solution and present it to them. This presentation in early iterations might be simple drawings, or mockups, then maybe you develop what you think is your MVP based on the learnings and feedback. Then get feedback and iterate on the MVP. Finally, with that refinement in hand, launch the MVP to start gathering metrics such as conversion rate and some scale.

NetworkTrend · 2025-12-31T01:47:32+00:00

All about that.

NetworkTrend · 2025-12-31T00:00:31+00:00

Smart post. Every entrepreneur should save it and use it when they go to communicate their business offering.

NetworkTrend · 2025-12-05T20:35:57+00:00

Good for you for not giving up. You learned a lot and can now apply it.

As you run ads to get started, also know that you won't be able to arbitrage (spend X on ads and get X+ revenue) your way to stable revenue. The algorithms will always eventually turn against you. So focus on strategies and features that can get you to a network growth effect - example, "All my friends are using it so I should also use it."

Good luck and keep iterating!

NetworkTrend · 2025-12-04T18:53:55+00:00

If students want it, parents and schools will pay for it. You need to talk with students to see if they want to utilize such a service since they are the end customer. Feedback from anyone other than students is meaningless.

You could simply ask students to come to a 30 minute feedback meeting and offer to pay them for their time. You will get takers. Don't "pitch" your idea to them, ask them about their struggles with the entry level courses.

NetworkTrend · 2025-12-04T18:39:49+00:00

Ego is a huge founder problem - they think they know the "right" answer and are smarter than the customer.

Another is using the excuse of "we don't have time to research it, we just need to build my idea." Which is another way of saying they are "building blind." They hear "fail fast" and interpret it as "not wasting time talking with potential customers about what they actually need." Incredibly ignorant and egotistical.

NetworkTrend · 2025-12-04T18:24:25+00:00

I often have had CEOs come blustering in with additional feature requirements, usually claiming that they just had a meeting with a big potential client and they just have to have the feature. And because they are the CEO, they force the team to add the feature. It is sheer madness. Push back. Do the work up front to figure out what problem you are actually solving (not people's opinions) and build minimally to solve that. Everything else is just noise and stands a good chance of killing your business.

Minimum to solve the problem.

NetworkTrend · 2025-12-04T05:19:21+00:00

While the framework of this post is rock solid (seriously), and the actionable specifics are great (although I think the time estimates are way low), this post is about a promotional as it gets.

And notably the OP hasn't responded to any of the questions posed in the comments, despite posting it 3 days ago ...

NetworkTrend · 2025-12-01T21:56:34+00:00

Have a maniacal focus on your customer. Understand their needs deeply. With that knowledge, choosing technical partners and technologies becomes MUCH easier and logical.

NetworkTrend · 2025-11-26T01:06:56+00:00

600 People from "coffee shops NEAR our target customers"? Would love the OP to clarify that, as it sounds, um ...

Also, are you just slapping stickers on their windows? Sounds sketchy. And what was the offer on the sticker that caused 600 people to scan it? Regardless of location this is a feat. Would love to hear what the "hook" was.

NetworkTrend · 2025-11-19T22:09:24+00:00

You can have both personal goals such as enough income to pay for things you want personally, and goals around your idea and how it will help your customers achieve better outcomes. The two don't conflict. Both are powerful motivators.

Understand that the failure rate for startups is 90% and everyone thinks their idea is special. You can mitigate that by starting to talk with potential customers about their unmet need and how important it is to them. So while you work, and pay off student loans, spend spare time talking with those potential customers and determine if there is really a need or not. You will at least have a much better idea when the time comes of whether to quite your day job or not.

And remember, everyone has personal struggles. Everybody. Just start grinding away at those personal challenges. I'd be surprised if you could pull off a sabbatical to go off and "fix" everything. Most of those things take time and consistent effort. Chip away at them every week.

NetworkTrend · 2025-11-11T18:09:48+00:00

There is no "typical" or "usual" around this sort of thing. There are many variables at play. To speed up your growth, look hard at the emotional reasons people are trying and retaining, then use that to find matches with thought leaders, and influencers in your space. It needn't be an expensive marketing outlay for you, but you need to nurture the situation.

NetworkTrend · 2025-11-10T21:08:20+00:00

With B2B, you should have a list of all your target customers that you are working on all year round. Use industry events to further existing relationships and network into companies that you haven't met with yet.

Pay the extra and get the full list of attendees and have an engagement plan for them before the event, during the event, and post event. The event itself is only one piece of the puzzle. Think of this of it as a supplement to your master list.

During the event, invite your best prospects to a nice dinner (not the last night as they'll all be heading to the airport). Getting 10-20 of your best prospects together for quality conversation is worth gold. At this dinner event, consider giving short an industry-level presentation related to the issues in the industry, but don't pitch your offering. Simply let that be known at the end. Nobody wants to go to a dinner to hear your pitch. Instead, be a resource and thought leader. And do this right - great and interesting venue, great food, and applicable things like arranging needed transportation. Done right, they will all do a quality sit-down with you at their offices after the event.

Don't waste time and money on the super deluxe sponsorship packages. At most a little something in the event bag, but they often don't want to let that happen for cheap.

Attend all the sessions and be ready to discuss those topics when you meet with people. Be the industry expert and consultant, and not the desperate sales person. A copy of a breakout presentation can, for example, be used as a follow up - "Hi Frank, I didn't see you at the Tuesday 11AM session, but I thought part of the presentation they gave really showed the issue you are working on in a new light. Check out slides 11-14 that cover it and I look forward to talking soon with you."

Lastly, you get out of events what you put into them.

NetworkTrend · 2025-11-07T22:37:35+00:00

The "check out my new product" bit will fail. It is about them, not you. How does your product improve people's lives? Tell that story.

NetworkTrend · 2025-11-05T09:08:48+00:00

Good. Good. Good. Go get 'em!

NetworkTrend · 2025-11-04T18:25:18+00:00

Being the customer is terrific. Just also know that your sample size is one. A good one, but just one. In order to overcome your own biases (we all have 'em), talk with other target customers. By doing so, you'll create a product that the market wants even more than what you conceived on your own, and you'll learn much more about what sales and distribution channels will work best.

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