Hello everyone!
Earlier this year in May, I graduated from a full-stack web dev bootcamp in Canada (one of the better, well-known ones). Unfortunately, as many of you probably already know, the job market sucked at the time and basically none of my cohort was getting hired (even now, probably only a bit less than half are hired). I was honestly not quite sure what path I should have taken given these circumstances. A few weeks after graduating, an opportunity came up to co-found a startup. A VP of a medium sized startup in Canada contacted me about my final project which he thought was interesting (it had to do with AI-assisted travel itinerary generation). He pitched his idea for another AI startup to me and I thought it was really interesting and jumped right away on the idea. Another friend from university, also a full-stack dev with 5 years of experience, who was basically on his way out of his company (the company culture started sucking a lot), said that he’d be interested in working on this startup as well and the three of us ended co-founding that startup soon after in around June.
Honestly, I’m having the time of my life working and developing for the startup. I’m learning so much about the challenges of running a startup, I’m getting hands-on experience with everything I learned in bootcamp (databases, front-end development), and even more (AWS, Wordpress, QuickBooks, etc.) My two fellow co-founders, even the one I didn’t know from before, are both great to work with and I’ve developed a great personal and professional relationship with both of them.
Now, here’s my problem. I haven’t made any money since. I did have to contribute some money to the company (only around $1000 CDN), and our overhead isn’t big at all, so I haven’t had to contribute more. I honestly feel really embarrassed about my situation and try not to talk too much with friends and family about the fact that I don’t actually make any money with what I’m doing on the daily. Furthermore, it’s uncertain when exactly my startup will start making money. We haven’t received any funding and are still in the process of making MVP (although close to finishing), but we have signed a B2B pilot project to build a widget that uses our back end for a company here in Canada. It doesn’t seem like that would be enough for any of us to make salary, just on that deal alone.
What should I do? I’m really at a loss and am not sure what to do. Financially, I’m alright - I kind of expected that I’d be in this situation when I first started bootcamp so I made sure to save up a lot beforehand. Should I start looking for an “actual” job? Would it perhaps be good if I finished MVP then left to make real money elsewhere? Should I keep the startup and work on it simultaneously with a job that actually earns me income (for my current startup, I am currently working at least 40 hrs a week on it).
Any advice or comments would be appreciated!
You didn’t mention what situation the 2 other cofounders are in.
Do they put in at least 40 hours a week like you? Do they still have their full time job, or side gigs? Do they have zero income from anywhere, just like you?
You really have to treat this like a passion project, and not a job. If you invest into a passion project, and end up making $5,000 as a one time thing, great! That’s very different than needing it to have a consistent salary.
But, it’s actually more than a passion project. It’s teaching you a lot (so it’s like, a free professional coding bootcamp). And, it’s a good resume builder. Tip: don’t actually put “cofounder, CTO” or any other nonsense on a resume. Just but software engineer at your company.
Doing this is teaching you a lot technically, and it’s good for your resume… both something you should leverage into a real job.
You should always plan for never making a salary from this project. Statically, you’re not going to. If you plan for that, you’ll be okay. And if the company is a success, just quit your job. On the flip side, if you plan for this company succeeding, and it doesn’t, you’re completely screwed.
Alternatively you can look for freelance gigs.
Either way, the mentality should be that you’re never going to make salary from your company. That should be the approach. Doesn’t mean your company actually will never succeed, it just means that’s the approach you should take.
You should take 5-10 hours a week to apply to jobs, and tone down your startup work hours a little. It might take you a while to find one, so I don’t mind you doing the startup full time until you have a job or gig in hand, because, it’s very valuable education.
Find a job and then do the startup part time.
IMO right now you are working on a hobby or side project. You still need to validate the MVP, and you are pre-revenue with no major investment.
I would continue working on it but try to find something stable, with minimal stress, that allows you to put your free time into the startup.
As you said, you are doing OK financially. The best time to look is when you don’t NEED the job, as then it will be too late.
You are taking too long to build an MVP, specially the amount of work you are putting on it. Dont be a feature creep, focus on what is essential and show it to your users. Even if you finish your MVP, it could still a long way to start having revenue, imagine profit or being able to get funded.
Ideally you should have an income or savings even if your startup makes money, taking a salary could hinder other sector of your business.
And your cofounders should know about your situation, because if you put yourself under financial stress, it soon will reflect on you job, so be honest with them.
What about a half period or weekend job, is it enough to cover your expenses?
My advice would be to focus on SEO on whatever you do. It so important, and often overlooked.
Personally I used riseo.ai for my marketing and SEO tools and we now rank on page 1 of google and get customers everyday from staying consistent
Okay bot.
You are in the “uncomfortable sweet spot.” Stay with it. Do some freelancing if needed to pay bills. Even bartending - whatever it takes. … but don’t borrow from relatives. :)
As a developer I stronger encourage you to be laser focused on your customers and their unmet needs. Make sure you have a written definition of who the customer is, including their demographics, socio-economics, and psychographics. And a written definition of their problem. If you don’t have this figured out, anything you develop will highly likely miss the mark. If you need to, spend 1/2 day with the three of you in a room hashing it out. If you can’t get this CRISP, then put the code down and go talk with customers. When you know these things, you’ll have a much better idea of what to code and when revenue is possible.
It comes down to what your passion is. If you aren’t 100% in this startup I’d give them a 1-3 month notice for the main guy to source funding or clients or you will step away. For the time being look for small bounty jobs online that you could complete in your down time to keep yourself afloat (Do NOT wait until your bank hits $0 to start worrying about this).
Keep looking for a job. Have an exit strategy with this startup. It making money doesn’t mean u will see any of it.
Just take it easy! It takes times. You’ll be able to build your own path