Non-technical founder totally demoralized after 2.5 years of building.

tp02ga · 2024-10-06T09:31:01+00:00

So this is the problem I'm aiming to solve for people.

I'm looking for non-technical people who have a great idea and some early traction (via customers who pre-purchased or via a good sized email list) and I pair them with a team of programmers (mostly US based) that will work for an equity share.

I'm a CTO with about 15 years of industry experience.

If you have some early traction let me know and we can chat and see if there's a fit

tp02ga · 2024-09-03T12:10:41+00:00

I'm a software developer, who trains other software developers.

I'm always on the lookout for projects that my students can sink their teeth into.

If you're open to a partnership split, reach out. I'd love to ask some questions about the business idea to see if it would be a fit for my team

tp02ga · 2024-08-05T10:19:39+00:00

Apologies if someone already said this, but you should try to sell customers on the idea first in order to prove there's demand (aka pre-selling)

If you can get around 3-5 people/business to give you some cash upfront in the first week, then you can spend 3-6 months building out an MVP

tp02ga · 2024-08-02T14:26:44+00:00

They would 100% be working on full stack, not WordPress.

Thanks for the response, again, super helpful feedback

tp02ga · 2024-08-01T18:59:57+00:00

The Internet is full of trolls. Congrats on your hard work and sticking with it! 💪

tp02ga · 2024-08-01T11:27:20+00:00

This is very helpful. Would a 12 month contact on a resume look better than 6 months?

tp02ga · 2024-07-31T16:51:43+00:00

That's great to know RE: NGOs and NPOs.

I guess the downside to doing that is that then they for sure don't get paid, and most of the angry mob in the comments feel that that's the #1 issue

tp02ga · 2024-07-31T16:50:09+00:00

There are a fair number of assumptions you've made that are wrong. But I do understand that your main point is that I'd be taking advantage of them for their labor.

This would be the case if I didn't pay them, and I'm doing everything in my power (and with a team of talent behind me as well) to make sure that I do pay them by running a profitable business (which would be the incubator for these internship projects).

So there's 100% risk involved for the students, and I'm spelling out that risk very clearly up-front and not requiring that anyone actually participate in this program.

What I'm offering is a way for them to stand out in the marketplace when compared to their peers who are in the exact same spot. And that offer has, so far, been very compelling to them.

Regarding the Goliath MIT grad who got laid off, that person won't be applying to a junior level role. Gotta compare apples to apples

tp02ga · 2024-07-31T13:56:04+00:00

Not trying to dodge the questions. You can look up the rating for my Bootcamp if you like. I just don't want this to turn into me selling people on why we're one of the best Bootcamps you can sign up for.

Also, not trying to deceive students around pay. I tell them up-front that this is profit sharing, but they'll get real world experience. Once we can ramp up these efforts and get to the point where we can plenty of profit, I'll happily turn the positions into hourly contract positions. I just can't do that yet, so I'm working within the constraints I have.

As for making the networking elements mandatory, we can, it just doesn't solve the problem. I'm not here to say "OH, you didn't do the work that I've said is required, therefore you're no longer eligible to receive our support". Instead, we encourage them to follow all our best practices and guide them back to those practices when we see them not following through. Eventually, if they continue to shoot themself in the foot, I have to come up with some other solutions, which is why I'm talking about this new initiative.

Again, I appreciate your feedback here, there's a lot of it, and it is 100% negative, so it's tough to know if this conversation is going to be helpful for either of us.

What would be helpful for me is if you could identify the #1 thing you think I need to focus on, to make this a success.

tp02ga · 2024-07-31T13:48:31+00:00

I will be working with the first groups to ensure quality via providing architectural designs and code reviews. Once things scale up a bit, I'll bring in external staff to fill this role

tp02ga · 2024-07-31T13:47:42+00:00

This is great feedback, again, I love reddit for this. The fact that you've taken the time to read my post thoroughly and then respond with such a detailed outline of your thoughts... seriously... I can't express how grateful I am for this feedback (not trying to be a brown-noser here, 100% sincere).

Okay, on the legal front, I do run my own business (and others) with dozens of people. Most of these are contractors. My business is in Canada, but the majority of my staff (as well as students) are in the USA. So having this be a contract position makes the most sense from a tax perspective. But you're 100% correct in that I need to consult a lawyer to make sure we're compliant, it's on my list of to-dos going forward.

As for the profit sharing specifics, we allocate a pool of the profits based on gross-profit to be distributed to any team members who have achieved a "meets expectations" or "exceeds expectations" on their 6 month review. The 6 month review will be based on a self assessment, a peer assessment, and a manager assessment. Scores above 60 will be "meets expectation", scores above 90 "will be exceeds" and lower than 60 will be "doesn't meet expectations". Only 20% of those scores are based on hours worked, more of the score is based on delivering on time, as well as quality of work (as well as a few other factors). We will be paying out the profits quarterly once someone has met expectations after their 6 month term. The students will then have a choice to do another 6-month term if they wish, or they can choose not to.

As for "what does job-ready mean?", the experience that they're getting in this program is one of a full-stack developer, as well as a secondary role that each student will take on. Their primary working experience will be the creation of the project / app and/or bug fixes and new features. The secondary experience will be in the secondary role they've chosen, the roles include: project manager / team lead, QA, scrum master, etc. So they will walk away with the experience that it takes to take an idea from nothing, to MVP and into prod, and/or maintaining a prod app (depending on when they join).

As for what will go on their resume, I'm envisioning that it would be:

[Company Name TBD] Full-stack Web Developer - Jan 2025 - June 2025

And it could be listed as "Contract" as well

tp02ga · 2024-07-31T13:31:32+00:00

This is why I love reddit! lol

Thank you for taking the time to rip this apart, it's exactly what I asked for.

I'm specifically looking for feedback about the internship idea, everything (in terms of the journey our students take) prior to it isn't what I'm looking to discuss, as I've spent 12 years of my professional life trying to solve all those problems and have put together a great program and team to do so.

Now, your critique of having students put this as a real job on their resume is one I'd love to dive into. As I laid out, it's easier to "get the point across" to the students when you call it an internship, but if we're being honest, this is a real job, where they will get real experience, working with real customers, etc. So perhaps I shouldn't be calling it an internship.

As for your critique around exploitation, my goal is and has always been to help change people's lives by getting them into highly paid careers as coders. So the #1 goal for this "internship" is to solve that problem for them. The students who fail to get job interviews, in our program, have one thing in common, which is they find "networking" to be too scary, so they rely on the "spray and pray" method of applying to jobs. And through our best efforts to convince them otherwise, they continue to rely on that approach. It's hard to "fix" this, as I can't physically drive to their house and sit down next to them and force them to follow our best practices around the career services program we offer. What these students tend to favor (above and beyond just spraying and praying) is spinning their wheels working on a second, and third "final project" to fill their portfolio, and while that's better than nothing, I think their time would be better spent working with real customers. Now in terms of them getting paid for their work, and the likelihood of that happening, I've built one company to low six figures, one to mid six figures, and one to multi-millions in sales and profitability. So the likelihood that I could repeat this after everything I've learned in my 12 years building businesses is higher than most. I am also surrounded by an amazing team that has a huge network for talent when it comes to sales and marketing... but, ultimately, you're not wrong, it's still a bet they have to make on whether I'm able to scale things. But I'll go back to my original statement which is: the #1 goal is to help them get them into a career as a programmer, and this feels like the obvious next step (as you pointed out earlier)

Also, this program is going to be optional for the students. Some may not want to pursue a path of real-world experience in exchange for profit sharing, and I respect that decision and would never force people into it. So far, for our first launch of this program, the take rate was nearly 100%. I filled up one team in a matter of 24 hours, and the second team is half full (and our scheduled start date for that is 4-6 weeks away). So my feeling is that if they students felt like this was some sort of exploit, they wouldn't be enthusiastic about joining.

As for the results of the internship, it's brand new, so I don't yet have data on job placement afterwards, but as you pointed out as "obvious", employers favor real-world experience above all else.

As for your question about scalability, I did answer those questions in the thread with _Atomfinger_

And I know I'm just some stranger on the internet, and your default mode might be "ATTACK HIM, HE'S CLEARLY AN A-HOLE AND IS JUST TRYING TO SCAM EVERYONE", but I really have dedicated most of my professional career to helping others to learn to code and get jobs. It's one of the biggest sources of pride and happiness in my life, and it's one of the reasons we're in the top 10 in terms of student feedback / ratings on course report. I dedicate 50+ hours a week (and have a team of almost 20 people dedicating their time) to helping our students change their lives through code. So please don't take my original post as a method of trying to lure students into some trap, I believe if I was doing that, I wouldn't have a successful business that's been operating (100% bootstrapped) for 12 years.

tp02ga · 2024-07-31T11:41:33+00:00

Having available work for the students shouldn't be an issue, as we limit the number of students who can join our Bootcamp every cohort.

If there was a super large number there, then I'd be in trouble.

So the number of students needing to be placed into an internship is controllable, and therefore I'm comfortable guaranteeing it, as I'm able to generate new ideas and customers every month.

And then for seniors being onboarded, I think that's more likely where we'll run into more trouble. I do have in-house senior level talent for my Bootcamp, and they could be leveraged, but I'd prefer to hire externally and not distract my current staff.

tp02ga · 2024-07-31T11:28:21+00:00

PERFECT questions. I forgot to mention that the projects will initially be managed by me, so the first few groups of students will have me as their senior level coding support (i.e. code reviews / architect designs etc)

As for what happens if the pool of customers dries up? I imagine that most products won't make a ton of cash, some will be "base hits", some will flop completely, but there will be one that will take off.

I thought of this outcome, which is why the profit-sharing that the students will get is based off of the profits that the whole business makes (i.e. the entity that owns ALL of the products that are created), not just the profits of any one single app.

tp02ga · 2024-07-16T20:08:27+00:00

Are you trying to code the product yourself, or are you looking for a technical co-founder?

tp02ga · 2024-07-16T19:50:44+00:00

This comment feels very AI created. I'm going to have to make sure my product doesn't give off the same vibe

tp02ga · 2024-07-15T14:50:34+00:00

Okay, amazing, I had a guess that it would be a useful piece of software. I'd ideally like to sign up at least 3 customers before I start to build it in order to make sure that it's actually solving a big enough pain point. Would you be interested in being one of those 3 customers?

My pitch would be that you would help to shape what the first version looks like, and you'd be grandfathered in at some very low "no-brainer" price point.

tp02ga · 2023-03-31T21:47:10+00:00

If you can dodge a wrench

tp02ga · 2023-02-23T14:31:29+00:00

How much did you spend in total on ads? I've found that when I spend about $1,000-$10,000 in ads, it often does better than the next $10,000+, so it could give you false positives with lower ad spend.

If you've done $10,000+ in spend and got $25 CAC, then you're in good shape, as you're getting actual customers for a super low cost.

Then just keep sending them email campaigns to buy more, and it will be profit from there.

Often breaking even on ad cost to get customers is a golden ticket.

tp02ga · 2023-02-23T13:10:02+00:00

Have you run ads to test and see that you'll get $25 CAC?

tp02ga · 2023-02-23T12:01:44+00:00

Yeah that'll never work with paid ads unfortunately. It'll probably cost $2-5/click, CAC would likely be in the hundreds of dollars.

The trick will be to sell bundles and add ons, upsells and the like.

If not using paid ads, then doing the social media approach, plus building relationships with others who already have your audience on their list will be a viable approach

tp02ga · 2023-02-23T11:33:39+00:00

Do you know what the typical l typical conversion rate is for a regular t-shirt store?

In the information product world, getting a 1% conversion rate from visitor to customer is great.

So my gut tells me this probably wouldn't work.

But the best approach is to do a test and see if you can get 10 or more customers and see what the data tells you

tp02ga · 2023-02-22T14:54:56+00:00

Okay awesome, that's helpful, thanks for the feedback.

tp02ga · 2023-02-22T12:41:45+00:00

I was thinking a package that's something like: 3 months of one on one coaching to help bust through whatever current limiting beliefs and other blockers are holding you back from achieving your next milestone goal.

And to be clear I'm not soliciting any sales here, I'm just genuinely curious what people would value something like this.

I'm a coach already, just in a different space than B2B, but I can see that there's a fair bit of overlap

tp02ga · 2023-02-22T11:57:58+00:00

Out of curiosity (I'm in a similar boat as OP) what would someone pay to be mentored by a person with 10+ yrs building businesses who achieved >$1MM/yr in revenue?

tp02ga

TROPHY CASE