My co-founder is someone I used to work with at a previous job. It’s nice cause we know we get along, work well together, etc. I know that’s not possible for everyone, but I think someone from your personal network is always a great choice as long as they’re not too close

We live in an era of unprecedented access to free information. Anything you could ever possibly need to know to run a successful business is available for free online

I think there is a lot of opportunity in massage. In my city things are either ridiculously overpriced and hard to book, or cheap and sketchy.

A middle of the road service, with nice amenities, managed professionally would do well I think

I’m sure a not insignificant amount of them see proprietary business strategy documents and get “inspired”

I’m sure a not insignificant amount of them see proprietary business strategy documents and get “inspired”

Started off alone. Recently took on a technical co-founder. We do data analytics stuff with dashboards and reports.

I just didn’t want to go it alone anymore. Even if I make less money (doing 50/50 split now) I’d just rather have someone to experience the journey with. Maybe I’m being naive. Time will tell

I have no idea what your business does

As a CEO you need to be able to sell your own product, that’s the bottom line. I’d recommend working on your pitch and doing some homework. A founder who can’t even pitch their own product won’t go very far imho.

At some point you could hire a freelance sales resource. If you compensate well you can get some good talent. If you do some commission-only thing you’ll struggle to find even bottom of the barrel candidates. Sales jobs are a dime a dozen these days and top performers get their pick of the litter.

You could also look into taking on a co-founder or Senior level person who has those skills. Like a VP of Growth type role.

The CTO not knowing anything about AI/Datascience/ML makes me question why you’d even want equity in this company…

I would never do that personally. Shares for virtually every startup ever should be considered worthless or like a lottery ticket.

This tells me they have no money or no access to money and want free labor.

Why would an end user of a SaaS platform give any kind of a shit about what certifications an employee of said company possesses? You might be overthinking this. Unless is mandated by your business or customers, focus on creating value and not arbitrary certifications.

I think it’s pretty trashy tbh, unless it’s at some sort of event being put on by the business.

I also don’t think it’ll be effective, kids will just throw it away

If sounds like you guys are still in the ideation phase, figuring out if three’s a “there there”.

I wouldn’t say this is a business failure per se if you move on, since you haven’t actually launched anything. Idk if that changes how you feel about it.

The sunk cost fallacy is real. Don’t let yourself feel trapped by it.

I would personally say table it for a little, get your personal life in order and let your brain process the startup process, then re-evaluate in a couple months. You sound like you’re spread too thin.