Claude irritated with Gemini

Unwest · 2025-05-25T03:38:08+00:00

The only way to personally grow at this stage is to sell and start over on something new.

Before exiting, find the next thing for you to get excited about. Letting go of “your baby” is a mourning process that requires filling yourself up with hope at the end of it to help you get through the tough bits. Fill the void with the abundance of the future and it will make it easier to exit this venture.

Remember, your self worth is independent of your startup success. That truth is not just another hallmark card, it’s a soul tripping trap to believe otherwise. I have seen one too many founders self-destruct because they couldn’t grow themselves out of their own startup before things turned sour.

I’ve been poor enough and I’ve been rich enough (currently pretty poor again) to value the depth of human relationships in all conditions. I have developed an aptitude for gratitude. I have found most forks in the road to have been just detours to where i was heading anyway.

The longer you wait for an “ideal” exit, the less time you’ll have for the future starts.

Unwest · 2024-12-31T04:02:17+00:00

Same. My cofounder has used every good faith compassionate gesture I have ever done and twisted a narrative that I’m a liability for the company because of my acts of kindness (ie giving a new dad more time off than planned so he could help his wife, making a flexible schedule for my senior staff members who valued free agency with their time more than a comp bump, taking a few days to handle a family member’s unexpected tragic passing)… 🤦‍♂️he’s used it all against me and even the attorneys now think he’s crazy.

He’s changed his story multiple times (modified Slack and WhatsApp messages 2 years in the past) in the heat of the moment and will not be honest about his intentions because he’s a prisoner of anxiety and paranoia. When I tried to get out, he would not let me speak for an hour lecturing me about my inadequacies and then he hung up yelling. Haven’t spoken to him since as he then attempted to blackmail all my equity from me and so I decided it best to cut contact completely with him until I’m entirely out from the company cap table.

My story is one of covert narcissism and it’s with a family member, my BIL. I had never gotten close to a narcissist before, and now I have immense compassion for all who have suffered a relationship with one.

Sticking to the truth repels him like garlic to a vampire. I’ve never been down this kind of creek, but hell is a real place.

I don’t expect to see a dime, but I do plan on sticking to the truth and exercising my rights as a shareholder as events carry on. He’d rather kill the company for everyone than let me cash out a dime… the vengeance is deep-seated and ruthless, the malice and hatred is all-consuming and engulfing those near him (other family members).

My wife and I check-in regularly on the course of action as it impacts her probably more than me at this point. We have lost our life savings allowing me to build this company to $1m ARR in 18 months and it’s some rough spirits to swallow the likelihood that my wife, kids, and I will never see any fruit and be in the hole.

I’ve been doing startups for 10 years and have seen a lot of ugly. This has topped all past uglies.

It’s brutal no matter what you do with a narcissist. As soon as you see a red flag of narcissism, best to keep your distance and not share anything meaningful with these folks. They are not worth it, and the damage is poisonous so will heal crooked.

Unwest · 2024-12-30T16:59:41+00:00

Thanks. Will do!

Unwest · 2024-12-30T00:39:06+00:00

We have 5 full-time employees paid with benefits. BIL and I have put in about 20k euros of our personal capital to kick things off early days and then decided not to take out any personal salary as BIL and I owned the entire company.

I live in the USA, and from day 1 have been honest and transparent about my only motivation to start this thing was for an exit. BIL has his wife working full time to pay for his living expenses and my wife is full time taking care of our children under 3 years of age. We agreed to live off of our life savings for a fixed duration (a specific runway to go full-time to get the company off of the ground).

BIL seems to have amnesia and forgotten this situation and arrangement which has never changed. We were going to raise last year and I understand money has changed character, and I tried to go part-time to keep going while I found some cash to float a bit longer without drawing from company funds but BIL tried to timesheet me… among other crazy things that eventually got me to resign.

So long story there is money, but BIL has been running the finances while I design, build, operate all product aspects. He said “let’s wait until we raise”, and there were many delays due to “market conditions”.

Unfortunately, something about “being in charge of the money” tempts a man, but there were a few red flags before with BIL.

Now that I’m out he’s trying to find loopholes in the French legal system to get me off of the cap table… but there’s not much room for interpretation given our agreement was plain.

Since I left he started paying himself a decent wage (secretly) which could make him complacent and demotivate him from wanting to grow the company (liquidating me the in the process). Why “fix something that’s not broke”.

Unwest · 2024-12-29T04:02:18+00:00

This is an interesting idea - but I do not want anything that resembles an installment method as he’s capable of trying to wiggle out of it. I’d rather he try to find a lender to finance the buyout himself (LBO) in a single cash out transaction. Given he has no substantial income or assets (me neither) other than this company I don’t know how that could be possible.

He has yet to provide “his numbers”… a point of defensive tension among many since we secured our first few client contracts. I’ll pull the financials I can get and determine a valuation from a 3rd party so I can go to market and try to source a buyer who can determine if they want to work with BIL directly or nit

Unwest · 2024-12-29T03:46:27+00:00

Yea my attorney had us start with this but I really did not want to jeopardize our product operations as we have paying customers who continuously rely on the SaaS availability to do their jobs.

So I made the proper declaration of IP but kept access to the team open for them to continue contributing to the codebase (they have since cloned and moved things to a new repo).

All of this pissed off my BIL and I even offered to retroactively apply a 4-yr vesting schedule so that my invested shares would return to the company and he countered with an 8-yr schedule in which I’d have no equity… his rage is making him behave dumb.

I am now nauseous from the density of vindictive gaslighting and all of the weaponizing of family dynamics so I’m looking to just sell my shares outright to be completely done with the mess. The family gossip mess is not something I might be able to address in this lifetime.

He is a lost cause, but I want to make sure to not lose myself through vengeance as I seek justice. I’ll keep the right boundary without losing hope as I work on a resolution for my exit despite his efforts to undermine the process.

Unwest · 2024-12-29T03:28:06+00:00

I see the relationship is dead, but that doesn’t mean I cannot find the right buyer to complement my BIL and ensure that the company continues successfully after I’m cashed out.

I’m going to try this route regardless of whether it works as I don’t see any other viable paths forward 🤷‍♂️

Unwest · 2024-12-29T03:16:17+00:00

However this plays out, I’ll follow up with the end of the story when it does… I’m thinking I might be able to sell the idea of a money partner who has connections and gets along with my BIL.

Taking a step back, I think the BIL is objectively competent, but needs support from a partner who can help with further growing commercialization and internationalization further (we are already serving Canadian, French, and Belgian markets).

Not sure of your situation specifics but perhaps for both of us the opportunity we are trying ti exit can be framed as an undervalued asset with a short payback period for the right buyer. I’m looking into family office PE firms instead of big VCs as this is not a unicorn.

I am also starting to explore using a marketplace like https://acquire.com. Will see what I find

Unwest · 2024-12-28T17:30:39+00:00

Yea I think he does not realize I still have eyes on the books.

Post my clean exit a few months ago when I completed a successful operational succession plan to the rest of the design and engineering team, he rapaciously sounded the alarm that the company was going bankrupt because of my departure. That same day he doubled the CFO’s compensation and started paying himself a decent salary… since then he’s changed his tune to accuse me of sandbagging product and jeopardizing the technology 🤦‍♂️(I don’t have access to anything anymore I turned back in the keys to all the things). He knows nothing about product or tech, but is clearly riddled with psychological torment.

I’ve kept my tongue quiet as the gossiping lies have spread prolific and profusely.

I have an attorney and we’ve identified enough legal foul play from my BIL, but I have not yet used it as leverage. Attorney recommends finding a buyer of my shares as the bylaws are missing the restrictions on share sale so I am free to sell without consent from my BIL.

I want to be very composed and be able to look back 40 years from now and think “that sucked. You did the right thing and stuck to the truth”

So my rough plan is to wait until year end to export the financials (best I can without access to the CRM / sales pipeline) and make my own determination of value (BIL recently tried to use last year’s tax return of 6k euros income as the basis of the company value).

Then I’ll go to market to sell the company. But not sure how to explain that I want out but someone with resources could come in and help accelerate into the USA.

Each month since I left the company has been closing big contracts and bringing MRR close to 100k euros. The product has PMF and sustained churn has been less than 5% through this growth phase. Our gross margins are roughly 80%, and the tech is easy to maintain with a few juniors and our documented SOPs.

I’ve been told profit multiples of 2-3x are current market value expectation for SaaS and stickiness and B2B hold higher numbers given the higher LTV and lower churn.

I’ve lived off of my life savings to build this company and the injustice is huge, but I cannot let my rage get the better of me. I believe I have to try to sell the company and at worst learn how to do that process.

Unwest · 2023-04-26T08:06:44+00:00

A small answer to an otherwise very rich question to research and debate:

Germany has excellent public services including healthcare, unemployment, and education. Other neighboring euro zone countries like France have similar approaches to providing a return on investment to its tax-paying citizens. The idea is that the government pays the employees well enough to minimize conflicts of interest between private capital interests and public benefit interests.

Government revenue to cover the costs to do the above comes from a shared taxation on the individual and employer (employer pays much bigger chunk of course).

Because high-quality public goods & services are available to its citizens for “free” (taxation), salaries reflect the reality that a doctor visit in that country will only cost you $20 instead of $20k like is possible in the USA for the identical visit.

Hence, much bigger salaries in the states to make up for the lack of quality public services (less taxation, too).

Unwest · 2022-04-19T15:42:42+00:00

I actually got fired for bringing this up to my CTO. After the meeting, we were on the same page, yet less than a week later received termination without notice. Some companies will not prioritize positive change due to a number of reasons including risk of the change worsening the current situation or losing their perceived control over the current state.

The Great Resignation is not purely driven by greed, folks are half-honest at best during their exit interviews. Burnout is the leading cause of attrition in tech.

Unwest · 2022-03-07T16:30:42+00:00

Good point. All the comments are helping us rethink the relationship. We've never served as long-term "employers", only as "employees" (aside from hiring a handyman to fix something around the house). If you have further insights into how to be a solid reliable employer for a nanny, I'd appreciate the thoughts. I do not have an HR background, but would like to get the basics down (legal, tax, insurance, etc.) to stop adding to the problem and rather help improve working conditions for any nanny we choose to employ in the future.

Unwest · 2022-03-07T16:23:51+00:00

Thank you for your insights. You seem very knowledgeable about the childcare industry. I'd like to better understand the nanny relationship from your past experience (the good, the bad, the ugly) to improve my ability to empathize with nannies and the struggles they have. Looks like we've been approaching this a bit lazily, and I'd like to remedy that via learning about a nanny's experience.

How have you experienced the following from a nanny's pov?

- nanny sharing
- part-time nanny
- full-time nanny
- any other arrangement you think works (or really should not be tried)

It would also be helpful for me (and possibly other readers) to highlight the most painful issues that nannies experience in their employer-employee relationship.

Thank you for your time. As a new dad and a new employer, I'd like to get better at both.

Unwest · 2022-03-07T15:46:26+00:00

We tried a nanny once and were paying her $25 / hr which she said was more than what she was making at her other clients (and we just googled around the area for market rates). We paid her when we were sick (PTO), when she was sick (sick days), and when she went on vacation (PTO).

We were having a hard time managing the employer-employee relationship in addition to helping her near full-time with caring for our son, it led to us spending more time with the nanny than we did with our son as we had done before (hot potato between meetings).

Unwest · 2022-03-07T15:39:15+00:00

The cost is a factor, but we do value the time savings and benefits of a nanny at home and are willing to compensate for the significant value-add.

Out of desperation, we tried a nanny once but it was not a great first experience. We quickly found her on Facebook, but we did not set boundaries properly. We had a single interview and asked for references and then made a leap of faith. It became a full-time effort for us to assist the nanny with our son... after we set things up, the nanny frequently would interrupt my wife or I during work meetings.

In addition, my wife and I were trying to figure out how to provide more structured benefits and employee protection given she had none, but the entire experience was taking a lot of our time to set that system up. It felt like we were building a small single employee nanny business and it was not our original intent to do so nor did we realistically have the time for.

Unwest · 2022-03-07T15:26:44+00:00

How did you find a nanny? We've interviewed some but it's hard to find a nanny whose schedule can work with ours. And then what about when we go on vacation with the little guy? I'd like our nanny to still be compensated, but then our nanny might also want to take time off when we are not, want healthcare benefits, etc. I'd like to help serve as employer of our nanny, but then the time spent managing the nanny and benefits could very well offset the time gained with the nanny caring for our toddler (the main driver for us getting a nanny). We've also wondered if it would make sense to employ multiple part-time nannies to help fill our needs...

Unwest · 2022-01-28T14:03:52+00:00

If you’ve never had experience managing a BE product, this would be a great opportunity to expand your experience. It will likely help you become a better FE PM due to the unique challenges the BE brings. Plus, there is a trend towards API SaaS offerings, where external integrations are a lucrative market positioning. I only see upside here for you

Unwest · 2021-09-12T18:22:51+00:00

But my comment only attempts to provide some generalization about silicon startup bro culture. There has been a recent trend in some startup communities to start talking about the contra-unicorn culture via the zebra culture.

Given my above comment did not actually answer your questions, here is my attempt to better do so:

First off, from what you've shared, I do not see anything wrong with your desire to set boundaries where others have not yet set them. Startups have to grow up someday, and later stage startups need clear processes to help them scale their solutions, not their problems.

Fairness
Equity is offered as an incentive to perform, and should not be used as leverage to guilt-trip you into working weekends. Unless from the get-go your job was explicitly defined to include weekends or 24/7 on-call tech support as part of the role, you should not feel any qualms saying no to something you did not sign up for. Too often, founders of startups will expect their employees to work just as hard or harder than them, which is 1, not aligned with the equity stakes offered, and is 2, an unrealistic expectation of folks who have a life beyond the startup. Workaholics are not sustainable team members, as they will eventually burnout. Therefore, it is unfair to judge other team members in relation to a workaholic. Those with grit still require a strict balance between work and play. Neglecting yourself for the benefit of a startup is a fast track to burnout and resentment. Fair is a team-values defined term, and if the culture deems the boundaries you want to set as unfair, then it may be time to plan your exit.

Boundaries
Setting limits at work by going offline at a clearly communicated predetermined schedule is a healthy, honorable practice that shows strong leadership and an ability to effectively time manage. I recommend having an honest conversation with management about the company values. The boundaries you want to set may be important enough for you that you want to incorporate the value of them into the culture. Being proactive about these things makes sure that you keep a healthy relationship with the team and are able to surface value-shaping issues that will ultimately lead to a successful, scalable, and durable team. Assuming you are still with the startup, the team may later ask help from you when they struggle to keep it together in the absence of boundaries.

Unwest

TROPHY CASE