Yeah.

Co-founder had existing customers, revenue, all based on a spreadsheet version of the business. They’re paying me (fairly minimal) salary while I build the MVP. And a decent chunk of equity.

I’m a tech co-founder in Australia. But not available, sorry. Here’s what I want to see in a startup before joining:

• validation. I want to see you’ve read The Mom Test and have spoken to 100 customers to get a really good grip on the problem you’re solving. Ideally you’ve got some customers already without having developed the tech.

• risk sharing. If I spend three months building the MVP, I’ll have lost out on the opportunity to make ~$50k in salary. How are you going to share that risk?

• true co-founder mindset. I’m not the nerd who pushes the nerd buttons to make the thing do what you want. I’m a co-founder who has complete control over the tech and product. Show me that you understand that.

Seen too many non-tech founders with wrong answers to all of these.

Depends how quickly you learn, how early they are, how well they execute, and when inspiration strikes

I’d say six months minimum, I think. But if you’re still idea-less then keep going.

Go do something else. Get a job with someone else’s startup (always valuable), find a co-founder (maybe they have a good idea?), something different.

Part of the problem we have in the tech startup world is that the problems we encounter are already massively solved because a million other geeks like us looked for a problem to solve. Meanwhile, other parts of the population struggle with problems that we could solve easily.

Sounds like you need to do a lot of learning first before getting into building a business at all, never mind with these people.

Literally had this discussion with my co-founder this morning. Having bad days as a founder is normal. Days where the pressure is too much, you can’t get a grip on anything or make progress with anything, or even get the most basic tasks done. In Australia we call them “Doona Days”, doona being the Aussie word for duvet, so days you just stay in bed. This is fine. It’s ok. Nothing is going to collapse because you spend a day ignoring it. Give yourself permission to be human and imperfect. Just keep breathing. Pick it all up again tomorrow.

I’m a CTO, engineering manager and tech co-founder. I am definitely your target market.

What benefit would I get from this? You’ve listed a lot of features, but I don’t see how any of that will benefit me. To be honest, it just looks like a maintenance overhead. How will this help me?

You need her on board with this or you’re not going to make it.

Sit down and have the hard talk with her. Make it a safe space for her to speak her mind. Listen to her. Take her concerns seriously.

My first startup (I was not a founder, just CTO) messed up because the CEO’s wife left him and the ensuing drama took his eye off the ball during a critical year. We missed our growth targets and our VC’s merged us with a competitor, quietly removing our C-suite in the process (I took voluntary redundancy and got paid out).

You cannot do this if she doesn’t change her mind.

Your payoff is equity, not salary. Draw enough salary to meet your bills. Then in 5-7 years’ time you exit and get enough to never have to work again. Or you fail along the way and lose out. It’s risky, but that’s why the rewards are so big