You might know that i’ve been working on a startup project these last few months. I’ve now decided to hand over my developments (in exchange of a small percentage of future revenue), to let my partner continue.
My mistake was that I didn’t know my partner very well before starting. It turned out that, personality-wise, we were not that compatible. And it also turned out that for me, that is very important. The ability to joke around, ping-pong ideas in an easy way, is a first requirement for me to feel good working in that small a team.
(not to say the guy isn’t a honest, decent guy, because i think he is)
So anyway, I’m handing over the start of this platform (3 months’ worth). If you feel in startup mood, and you’re doing Ruby on Rails, you can contact me – i’ll patch you through. I think it could work, and have a nice ROI eventually – the business model is sound.
For myself, I already have a nifty project lined up for start of next year, so i’m looking forward to that. It was an instructive experience. I’m looking forward to try again sometime, with this lesson under my belt.
Thanks for sharing this experience – at least I could found out that I am not the only one in a similar situation. I also founded a Rails startup with an Indian partner and my story is very similar to yours (except that it took a year to step out of it; my wife was also involved as a coder (and my 1.5 year old daughter as an innocent bystander
– we had to move to India for a few months) and also I got nothing out of it (no equity, money or anything)).
It was a tough decision to make – after all, I built the code from nothing, had hundreds of hours in it etc. – but it was the right decision to make and I couldn’t be happier now.
Thanks to you too for sharing your experience too ! Must have been a tough decision.
I’ll only get money out of it if the project succeeds – but i feel like a weight lifted off my shoulders, however it turns out.
Good luck with your new project.
Starting over .. it sounds tough but so challenging.
Good luck and all the best in 2009.
Good luck for the future. Knowing your founding partners is something very difficult until you are really working all together. I experienced that and that can be sometime painful. What I learned if you are founding a company, you need to work in a pre-startup (before leaving your day-to-day job, every weekend or alike) mode where people can know each other for a while before doing the big jump.
Alexandre: good advice
Indeneus, aleX: thx