Ask HN: PM gf wants dev bf to build MVP
Anyone else in this situation, and how'd you get out of it? My gf was previously a successful PM at several big SF companies. She joined a startup for great pay but they went bust after about year. I had hoped she'd go back to a more stable company again but she is now living her dream of founding a tech company.
Her and her also non-technical cofounder tried building their site through webflow, but couldn't get any real functionality working. They asked me to "just hook up a booking calendar". I made my first mistake here by dumping webflow and rebuilding them an mvp from scratch in React, and spending all my spare time for the next 3 months building out stripe/sendgrid/twilio integrations, admin dashboards, and redoing the landing page 3 times. All this time I was working (for free) under the assumption that either: a) my gf would get tired of not having income and get a real job, or b) they'd do some kind of soft launch, get a few customers, find some funding, and hire their own developer.
But neither has happened so a month ago I quit. No matter what I added they wouldn't ship anything, they just keep asking for "one more change". Since quitting I've been much happier to have my free time back, but the poor bastard they found to replace me is a python dev and gave up on doing react so now they've come back asking for just 1 more set of updates so they can finally launch, get investors, and have him rewrite the whole thing in Python.
The thing is, they aren't serious people. They're freaking out over the landing page background color, but neither of them have ever logged into the stripe dashboard to see what the transaction flow and checkout process will look like. And I know for a fact that "one more thing" just leads to "one more thing".
So my situation now is that my girlfriend is/was great, we're actually engaged, and besides these last few months she's been wonderful. But this whole process makes me resent her lack of respect for my time (I have an actual job). It's also made me seriously question her judgement for leaving $200k+ salaries on the table so that her and her cofounder can rub their last two brain cells together trying to get this thing off the ground. Unfortunately for me, she's so successful that she has the savings to pay her bills, but she doesn't have the common sense to see that this is making me hate her. (yes, I communicated a kinder version of this to her when I quit the first time).
Anytime I hear stuff like this I can't help but think of JK Rowlings ex husband. I don't know all the details and don't really care to search.. but I'm pretty sure he regrets not letting her pursue her dreams more while he was with her and not shooting down her ideas. I'll bet he wishes he stuck around longer.
I'd rather have the regret that I hung around too long, was too patient, rather than the opposite.
Just my 2c.
Every business idea I've ever had (and many ended up being successful) was shot down by the majority of people. It's easy to be the negative one. Very hard to be the positive one, but that makes it all the more worthwhile.
As a counterpoint. I hung around way too long on 2 ventures and I greatly regret it. My time and energy would have benefited me much better by grinding out my job and saving money.
How many JK Rowling wannabes are there who have wrecked their family's cashing their dreams? You don't hear about them only the ones that make it.
Point taken but this would be more like if JK Rowling was begging her husband write the book for her because she had a good idea and knew some publishers but never learned how to type. I'd let her write her own books all day long if that's what she wanted.
You may have already done more and put in more time than he did. Just wanted to give a counterpoint. Only you know when you are done and when hope is lost.
It's good to draw the line and I hope your relationship can survive this. It's often said don't mix relationships and business, and for good reason. Sounds like you know where you stand and you just need to find the right way to communicate it, while also being supportive of her dream. If they want to make this a real thing, they need to learn how to hire the right developers and compensate them fairly.
Wow, tough spot to be in to be honest. I agree with another poster that they need to hire the right developer, this maybe something you can help them with but only if they compensate you for your time. Otherwise you will turn into a non paid engineering manager/architect/recruiter.
Also their is much more to making a product successful than engineers. Do they have deep experience in the industry they are making this product for? Do they have a strong marketing or sales person on tap. Startups are very hard, if they don't have a customer already or soon they should maybe think about doing something else.
I do hope I am wrong and they are successful but startups are very hard and burning large amounts of savings when you are young can wreck you for the next 10-15 years. Financially it is better to keep large savings when you are young and this will allow you tremendous guilt free and financially secure freedom in you 40's.