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Stories

First-person accounts from inside the startup grind.

305 posts
Stories·Jul 21, 20155

S Corp or LLC?

I am a young entrepreneur in Georgia and I haven’t tried to make any sales on my e-commerce website (Complete and everything works) since I am worried…

Stories·Jul 1, 20153

The biggest barrier to entrepreneurial comfort

I’m stuck. I started a business while I was still studying, got the diploma and pushed as hard as possible to make it a success. After 2 years of effort,…

Stories·Jun 30, 201510

The company I cofounded just got acquired and everyone is happy … except me.

I’m absolutely freaked out by the prospect of going on vacation for 3 months, don’t want the ‘earn out’ (the acquiring company has already told us we’d…

Stories·Jun 16, 201510

I’m a broke startup impostor

On the surface it looks like I have my shit together — semi successful business, past startup success, business education and connections from one of the…

Stories·Jun 3, 20153

How much do you charge for a pilot with large enterprise companies?

We are in work safety space – our software increases focus so people have fewer accidents – and our potential clients are large enterprises who have the…

Stories·Jun 2, 20153

AppSumo is a ripoff

Got an email today advertising “one of our best deals”. $25 for a lifetime usage of the ShareAsImage service – A tool to create quotes on nice backgrounds…

Stories·May 30, 20158

Airbnb drop your faux benevolent attitude already

Got another “Support home sharing today” email from Airbnb. Yes, I’ve used Airbnb. In fact I enjoyed it. But Airbnb is NOT about sharing. Sharing means…

Stories·May 9, 20156

Can an ex-startup founder ever be a happy employee?

Sold my last startup to an interested party due to feeling stressed/burnt out as a solo founder. Got a job at another startup thinking it’d be great. A…

Stories·May 4, 20154

Bound by a non-compete, and offers to work at a competitor startup

I recently had to layoff everyone on my consumer SaaS travel metasearch startup because we ran out of funds to continue as a team of 3 (2 other engineers,…

Stories·Apr 30, 201518

Secret’s investors should be fired for gambling away their fund’s money.

So with a “heavy heart” Secret’s founder David Byttow decided to “return” their investors money rather than attempt a pivot. Sounds like a noble move,…

Stories·Apr 27, 20157

How to find a mentor who is actually willing to help you?

I mean how do you actually find a mentor who is willing to commit to you. I have had many “mentors”, but none of them actually focused on guiding me, they…

Stories·Apr 22, 20159

I just walked out of my startup because of irreconcilable differences, but I am depressed.

I was part of a very exciting and fast growing startup. The co-founders had been doing this for about 6 months before they met me. When I came on board,…

Stories·Apr 20, 201518

Sole Founder and Bootstrapping – Ashamed to say it?

First of all, I would like to thank the creators of this platform, it is really great to see you are not alone struggling with a startup, in a world where…

Stories·Apr 12, 20157

What Selling Drugs Taught Me About Business — Part 2

So it was late, I had just smoked a joint and for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to tell the world about my adventures in life and…

Stories·Apr 9, 20151

What Selling Drugs Taught Me About Business

I moved out at 15. In order to work I could not attend school anymore. When dropping out I was told by my peers that my choices would lead to a career at…

Stories·Apr 7, 20158

Acqui-hires is an aberration that will go away once the bubble bursts.

So the Duke Law Journal actually wrote a research paper on acquihiring: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2040924 The summary:…

Stories·Apr 7, 201512

Being an Older Woman creating a Start-Up

I’m 54 years old. And a woman. Running a tech start-up. Let me repeat that. OK, maybe not. I think you get the idea. In an industry where everyone expects…

Stories·Apr 1, 20154

Where do I start?

As a co-founder of a startup, I struggle with this question at least a couple of times a week. Every so often as the technical cofounder, I feel…

Stories·Mar 31, 20157

Lots of responsibilities but lots of dreams…

I have an MVP app that needs more development before I really can market it. My beta group research was highly positive. I’m out of money – been paying…

Stories·Mar 19, 201510

Do you think this will get funded?

I created a social network over a year ago. The traffic has grown since just from my SEO work. It’s now getting 15,000 daily visitors on the site and 200+…

Stories·Mar 19, 20155

Startup Studios & Unearned Equity

I’m an early employee of a company that was started out of a popular startup studio. Me and my team work incredibly hard getting our company off of the…

Stories·Mar 17, 20154

Is this a good strategy to have?

I’m working on a website- a tech blog. I don’t do ads because I personally hate them. I’m active on social media and am trying to do all the right things…

Stories·Mar 13, 20153

Are you a Bay-area founder with depression or anxiety?

SA cofounder, Dana, here. Patrick Hoge, a journalist with the San Francisco Business Times is looking to speak with founders (on or off the record) from…

Stories·Mar 12, 20155

Thought I Was Doing Everything Right… But I Did The Most Important Thing Wrong

Do people want your planning to build? That is the first question you have to answer. Talk to the market you’re targetting. Alot. I didn’t, even though I…

Stories·Mar 2, 201520

I don’t know where to go from here …

I should start out with the fact that I am 17 and a wanna-be entrepreneur, that’s what I’ve been told. I dropped out of school at 16 since I hated it. I…

Stories·Feb 16, 201512

Can I make a living being a black male in tech?

I feel like that it is a burgeoning field. I see a lot of black people on tech panels who never built a product or code, who are racking up consulting…

Stories·Feb 3, 201514

If you negotiate they pull your offer

Beware. Venture Backed High Profile Company lowballed me after a very strange, hurried rushed job process where I was told the position paid 20k more–and…

Stories·Feb 2, 201528

Newbie Founder/Entrepreneur trying to find his way

I’m a newbie to this game, (call me ‘fresh meat’)…15 years ago, I rolled the dice and decided to go into the domain business. At the time, I was working…

Stories·Feb 1, 201523

Vice President, Boss, Manager. Start-up founder?

Let me start by giving you a brief history. I’m a 34 year old female living in the US. I am an employee of a small finance company. I don’t hate my job.…

Stories·Jan 25, 20159

I don’t know how long I can go on like this …

When I was 15 I built my first website, it was terrible but it had about 80 users and it made money. Not serious money, but more money than I had ever…