First of all, thanks again to everyone who commented on my original post. Through the comments I realized I was spending way too much time trying to find some percentage that would make both of us happy instead of asking the more important question: does this co-founder relationship even make sense anymore?

For me, the answer is no.

I wanted to talk to him properly in person. The timing was terrible because he had been away longer than expected because of a serious family situation involving a hospital. When I found out what was going on, I honestly thought this was probably the worst possible moment to bring it up. But he eventually brought up the company himself, so we talked.

He still wanted to continue. His view is that I don’t see his real value, that he invested a huge amount of time, learned a lot, sacrificed a lot, and that he could still prove himself going forward. He also said his value isn’t limited to engineering and that he could contribute in marketing, product and other areas. He also argued that I gained some technical knowledge and insights through working with him.

I don’t think that’s completely false. I probably did learn some things through conversations with him. But the main issue for me is still that I’m not using any of his work in the product we’re launching. No backend, no codebase,.. from his version. The current product is the version I rebuilt.

So I told him I think we should separate operationally. I continue with the company, he is no longer CTO, he doesn’t have to keep working on it, and he can move on and do something else.

I also told him I don’t think reopening 70/30,60/40 or any other split makes sense anymore. I genuinely don’t think there’s a number where both of us would feel the past is represented fairly. He mainly looks at time invested, learning and sacrifice. I look at what exists in the company today and what is actually being used. At this point, trying to force the partnership to work feels less healthy than separating cleanly.

The only thing I still want to resolve fairly is what passive economic participation he should keep after leaving.

I offered around 6%. To be completely honest, I offered that mainly because I want to acknowledge the time he invested and because we’ve known each other for a long time and him having a hard time rn. If I evaluated this purely based on what the company is actually using from his work today, I probably would have gone way lower.

His position is that he wants at least 15%, and that’s where I strongly disagree.

We also still need to bring in a genuinely experienced technical person later, so I have to leave enough room in the company for the people who will actually help build and scale it going forward.

I’ve also funded the company so far as well: AI/dev tools, infrastructure, subscriptions and other costs. I’m not saying that alone determines equity, but I think it belongs in the overall picture.

The company itself has also moved forward. We were already in an accelerator environment and have now been accepted into a higher-stage program that is much closer to market entry and launch. That also means I now have to figure out how to communicate externally that the person previously presented as CTO is no longer part of the operating team.

So that’s basically where we are now. The split itself is decided. What I’m trying to figure out is how to structure the separation fairly. My current offer is 6% passive equity for a clean exit. His position is at least 15%.

What do you think is actually fair here? Would you consider 6% reasonable? Would you go closer to 10% just to settle cleanly?

And are there better structures than normal equity for something like this? I’ve heard about phantom equity / virtual shares / VSOP-style arrangements where someone can participate economically in a future exit without sitting on the normal cap table in the same way.

Also, how would you communicate the story externally from here? He was previously presented as CTO in business plans and accelerator applications. Now we’re moving closer to launch and he won’t be part of the operating team anymore.

Again, thanks to everyone who commented on the first post. I honestly think without those comments I probably would have kept trying to “fix” the percentage instead of accepting that the partnership itself needed to end.

I’ve built a working prototype of a web app using AI, but I don’t have enough experience in web development, programming, or cybersecurity to confidently turn it into a secure, production-ready product.

For founders who faced a similar gap, how did you solve it?

Did you hire freelancers, find a technical cofounder, lean on friends, or use another approach?

i built a SaaS product around a problem that looked painfully obvious: businesses lose leads because they reply too slowly, forget to follow up, or let conversations disappear across different inboxes.

the product helps handle those conversations, answer using the company’s real information, follow up with silent leads, and move interested people toward a booking or sale.

in my head, the pitch was almost impossible to reject:

“this can help you recover revenue you’re already losing, and you can try it without paying upfront.”

four months after launch, we have one paying customer.

one.

the product is free to start, onboarding is relatively quick, and the value should be measurable. Yet free users are not rushing in, and the few people who show interest usually disappear before becoming active users.

my current theory is that i confused “this makes economic sense” with “people urgently want this.”

maybe the problem is real but not painful enough. Maybe businesses tolerate missed leads because changing their workflow feels riskier than losing some revenue. Maybe the target market is wrong. Or maybe this is simply a distribution failure and i have no idea how to get in front of the right people.

how would you investigate this without hiding behind more features, more landing-page edits, or random outreach?

what evidence would convince you that the problem is demand rather than distribution? tell me where im wrong.

Hello everyone.

First of all, I know this is a very privileged problem to have. I was born and raised in Switzerland, I'm healthy, I can support myself, and overall I have a good life. I don't take that for granted.

I'm 27M and live in a smAll village in the canton of Zurich. I've been self-employed for almost three years, mainly doing software development / IT services.

The company is doing okay. I can live from it, but financially I'm nowhere near what I could probably earn as an employee. I currently pay myself around CHF 6k/month, and the company generates roughly CHF 3k/month in recurring revenue from hosting, maintenance, etc. There is around CHF 50k in the company account and 20k in my private ones.

So I'm not in an emergency situation. My customers are happy, I haven't lost one so far, and I have some leads. But I don't have the next larger project signed for the coming months, and that uncertainty has made me question what I actually want. The last few months were extremely stressful. Now things are quiet for the first time in a while, and my head finally feels calm again. Maybe almost too calm. I sometimes sleep in, deal with urgent work, and then struggle to motivate myself for internal projects. There's work I objectively know needs to be done, but I just don't feel like doing it. That worries me a little because when I'm motivated, I can usually work an insane amount.

Part of me is starting to miss being employed.

I miss the idea of joining an existing company where not everything depends on me. Working on an established product or system, having colleagues around me, and focusing on doing good work instead of being responsible for sales, customers, development, infrastructure, strategy, and everything else.

And honestly, proper holidays sound amazing. Taking two or three weeks off without worrying that a production server might die would be nice xD.

There is also the financial side.

I grew up relatively poor. We weren't starving, but there was never much money and many things simply weren't possible. One of my biggest fears is reaching my 30s, wanting children, and realizing that I spent all those years chasing entrepreneurship without building real financial security.

I want to be able to afford a nice home one day and, more importantly, have enough money and time for my future children. I don't want them growing up with the same financial limitations I did.

From that perspective, a normal job suddenly looks attractive: good salary, pension, holidays, predictability, and the ability to plan ahead. I don't even need remote work. If the job was interesting and paid well, I'd happily go to the office.

At the same time, the thought of giving up my freedom genuinely hurts.

Right now, nobody tells me when to wake up, where to work, when to take a day off, or what to spend my time on. If I decide I want to build something, I can.

I've wanted to turn the service business into more of a product company for a long time, and I'm currently working on a niche B2B software product with a real use case. I'm genuinely excited about its potential.

Then there is AI.

I was a lead software developer, and the industry is obviously changing very quickly. I don't think software development is going to disappear, but I do wonder whether I became self-employed in exactly the kind of service business that will become much harder over the next few years.

Maybe building my own product is the right response. idk..

Or maybe this is actually a good time to join a strong compan, learn from people who are better than me, work on bigger systems, and develop my career while I'm still young.

That's probably my biggest concern: opportunity cost.

If I keep doing my own thing for another five years and the business remains just “okay”, will I look back at 32 and wish I'd spent those years becoming a much better engineer / architect / product person inside a great company?

But I'm equally afraid that I'll take a job, enjoy the salary for six months, and then feel trapped. I don't want to trade something extremely valuable for security and regret it.

So I'm in this weird position where neither option is obviously bad. The company isn't failing. I'm not desperate for money. But I'm also not making enough that staying self-employed is the obvious choice.

For people who have been on both sides:

Have any of you voluntarily gone from self-employed back to employment even though the business wasn't failing?

Did you regret giving up the freedom?

Or did you realize how much mental energy entrepreneurship had been consuming?

And especially for people in tech: would you consider 27 a good age to spend a few years inside a larger company and develop your career, or would you keep pushing the business while it still has momentum?

Curious to hear from people who have actually lived through this.

I have been trying to build a deployment platform and i wanted to know what are the most irritating problems founders come accross when it comes to deployment is it continuous deployment or reverse proxy configurations. Also, i would love to know what services people or startups use to deploy applications on the cloud and what framework do you deploy the most.

I'm working on a consumer hardware startup ($400 hardware + recurring consumables, with potential B2B) in the pet space. I know consumer or hardware isn't the best space to be raising in right now, so I'd love your input.

We've validated the problem exists with 150+ pet owners, had ~110 customer discovery calls, and 15 people have paid $50 deposits ($6k committed revenue pipeline) so far for a product they haven't ever seen or used yet, and wouldn't be shipped for another 8+ months (paid based on renders alone). We've also had about 9 more verbal yesses to the price and deposits, but they haven't converted yet.

Almost all of these came from the strangers we met in public or talked to online just once. Not all of the chats were with people that could afford the product. So from the calls, of those that could afford, 22% converted from the one chat.

We have a good idea of who our ICP is and we feel confident that if we can get in front of more of these people that we know already convert, we can gain more traction. But it's hard getting those impressions for free without spending so much of our time.

Some of our customers keep messaging us asking when they can buy, but we aren't able to sell legally without certifications, which would happen after tooling. So we're capital constrained for selling.

We're doing a beta test soon with some of the early customers. We have a V3 prototype and are working on the units, but it's just taking some time cuz well, hardware is slow. One of the customers actually messaged us recently offering $1000 (2.5× retail) to buy right now because they want it that badly.

So far we've spent $0 acquiring these ppl, but we're exploring partnerships with some pet businesses + influencers, but raising some capital now would help a lot in building trust with consumers (professional videos, influencer marketing with certified units, etc).

At what point do we know when to raise? The plan was always to gain more traction, but having those certified units would be a large part in doing so.

I'd appreciate any insights :)

(The problem requires education, but once most of the customers are educated, they're really compelled to make a change. Our product could potentially prevent expensive vet visits (science backed, we've talked to vets as well), so it's an investment and it replaces a task that is otherwise very time-consuming and quite gross, which is why many pet parents don't do it.)

I'm the CEO of a B2B DaaS startup (first time founder). We just demoed our product in its beta state (the beta is more the platform than the data itself) for the first time to a lead, and he's been really engaged with it. It feels like he would be willing to pay for the product after the demo, but I'm scared of having the pricing conversation. I have a price in my head based on what I know of the business I'm pitching to, and I plan to give offers to the lead given they're supporting us during our beta test. However, I'm worried my number makes the lead go cold, as we are so close to a first sale.

Can someone help me understand what I need to ask myself to stress test this number before I present it to the lead?

​

A quick intro first

I'm a first year law student,

Also into tech

(Especially Algorithms and Data sciences)

I am developing a high-signal hiring platform specialising in niche, boutique and Intersectional roles.

And recently I got into quite the rabbithole:

My question was basically:

-"Why are there so few high quality sites for the important tasks of Hiring,interning and networking"?

Like sure there's LinkedIn and then we have Indeed,Monster etc but it doesn't feel enough.

Not enough for something of such importance and nuance.

"Somewhere, Right Now, Your Dream Job Is Being Buried by an Algorithm That Doesn't Care"

Somewhere out there is probably a role that's perfect for you built for your exact, oddly-specific mix of skills. And somewhere else is a hiring manager who'd hire you in a heartbeat if they ever actually saw your profile.

So,here I am in the elementary stages of this project.

And I really would appreciate some advice and diagnosis.

I have Two questions:

1)

Is there any complaint or issue you have with the current job seeking and networking platforms like Linkedin?

If so what are they?

2) What's your idea of the desirable traits that a high-level, multifunctional hiring platform should possess?

Answering these questions would help me out a ton,so please leave some comments!

Building a marketplace where brands/businesses can list products, offers, perks, they want to distribute and business with relevant audience - coworking, communities, hotels etc can discover and distribute offers that are relevant to their customers/members.

It's basically distribution through existing business audiences rather than paying influencers or individually pitching dozens of businesses. Ex: a wellness brand could make an offer to gyms, hotels etc who can then choose if they wanna activate it.

If you run b2c/b2b, would you actually use this as a marketing/distribution channel? And what do you expect to pay for it? Upfront, per campaign, per activation, per lead/sale?

I’m currently in my 3rd year of college and looking for a remote internship in backend development.
I’m mainly interested in backend and want to get some real world experience working on actual projects, learning from people who are already in the industry, and getting a better understanding of how development works in a professional environment.
I’ve worked on a few projects and I’m comfortable learning new technologies when needed. I’m mostly looking for an opportunity where I can actually contribute and learn, rather than just do a bunch of basic tasks.
If you know any startups or companies hiring remote interns, please let me know. I’d be happy to share my resume.

I’m currently in my 3rd year of college and looking for a remote internship in backend development.
I’m mainly interested in backend and want to get some real world experience working on actual projects, learning from people who are already in the industry, and getting a better understanding of how development works in a professional environment.
I’ve worked on a few projects and I’m comfortable learning new technologies when needed. I’m mostly looking for an opportunity where I can actually contribute and learn, rather than just do a bunch of basic tasks.
If you know any startups or companies hiring remote interns, please let me know. I’d be happy to share my resume.

Looking particularly for Startups who are remotely distributed. For those who have done them or organized them,did you actually see a noticeable impact on output, morale, or retention afterward? Or did people mostly just treat it like an expensive vacation?

Looking particularly for Startups who are remotely distributed. For those who have done them or organized them,did you actually see a noticeable impact on output, morale, or retention afterward? Or did people mostly just treat it like an expensive vacation?.

I'm working on a consumer hardware startup ($400 hardware + recurring consumables, with potential B2B) in the pet space. I know consumer or hardware isn't the best space to be raising in right now, so I'd love your input.

We've validated the problem exists with 150+ pet owners, had ~110 customer discovery calls, and 15 people have paid $50 deposits so far for a product they haven't ever seen or used yet, and wouldn't be shipped for another 8+ months (paid based on renders alone). We've also had about 9 more verbal yesses to the price and deposits, but they haven't converted yet.

Almost all of these came from the strangers we met in public or talked to online just once. Not all of the chats were with people that could afford the product. So from the calls, of those that could afford, 22% converted from the one chat.

We have a good idea of who our ICP is and we feel confident that if we can get in front of more of these people that we know already convert, we can gain more traction. But it's hard getting those impressions for free without spending so much of our time.

Some of our customers keep messaging us asking when they can buy, but we aren't able to sell legally without certifications, which would happen after tooling. So we're capital constrained for selling.

We're doing a beta test soon with some of the early customers. We have a V3 prototype and are working on the units, but it's just taking some time cuz well, hardware is slow. One of the customers actually messaged us recently offering $1000 (2.5× retail) to buy right now because they want it that badly.

So far we've spent $0 acquiring these ppl, but we're exploring partnerships with some pet businesses + influencers, but raising some capital now would help a lot in building trust with consumers (professional videos, influencer marketing with certified units, etc).

At what point do we know when to raise? The plan was always to gain more traction, but having those certified units would be a large part in doing so.

I'd appreciate any insights :)

(The problem requires education, but once most of the customers are educated, they're really compelled to make a change. Our product could potentially prevent expensive vet visits (science backed, we've talked to vets as well), so it's an investment and it replaces a task that is otherwise very time-consuming and quite gross, which is why many pet parents don't do it.)

I am currently building something and honestly, I expected the hardest part to be the actual building. I have been thinking about this lately. Initially, I thought building the product would be the hardest part. You have to come up with the idea, build the MVP, fix bugs, change things you thought were already finished, and somehow get it ready to show people. But once the product is ready, then comes a completely different problem.

The product is moving forward. I can figure out the technical problems, change things, fix bugs, and keep improving it. What I am struggling with is getting the first few people to actually use it. I need someone to actually try it, give honest feedback, use it again, and tell me the gaps/improvements they need. I have reached a point where I have started to question whether am I approaching this the wrong way.

Should I spend more time talking to potential users before building anything else?

Should I reach out to people individually?

Should I focus on communities?

Should I simply keep building and wait until the product is better?

The frustrating part is that when you are building alone, it is very easy to stay inside your own head. You start thinking your idea makes sense because it makes sense to you. But you don't really know until someone who has no connection to you looks at it and says about "Yes, this is something that solved the problem". So I wanted to ask people here who have already gone through this:

How did you get your first 10 real users?

Not 10 friends who signed up to support you.

Not 10 random signups.

I mean the first 10 people who genuinely had the problem, tried your product, and actually cared about it.

What did you do that worked?

And lastly very important, where you felt that you have wasted your time and wish you had avoided? I am at that stage right now and would genuinely appreciate some advice from people who have been through it.

Hey guys I'm looking for an internship or a fulltime job offer, if there's an opening in your company or you know someone you could connect with, I'd be really grateful.

My current tech stack- Nextjs, Typescript, MERN, PostgreSQL, Clerk

I can pretty much build anything and with any tech stack with the help of cursor/claude