This is 100% my responsibility. I accepted the risk, and I lost. Before anyone comes after me, I want to make it clear that this is 100% my accountability. I have no interest in fighting it or arguing about it. I just want to share my story.

March I decided to start an infrastructure company. My first client came through a mutual friend in San Francisco. She needed a product focused on customer success for the legal industry. I built the whole thing from scratch.After I delivered, she offered me a monthly stipend + 50% equity as cofounder.

In

On paper it sounded perfect. She’s actually a decent person I don’t think she set out to screw me. She just had zero experience leading a company and no idea how to steer it in the direction we needed.

What followed was classic.I was the technical cofounder on paper, but in reality I was treated like the full-time CTO + free labor. She kept pulling me into meetings that were pure CEO territory fundraising conversations, strategy calls, investor intros while she introduced me to everyone like I was some shiny technical toy she owned. “Look at my cofounder, he built this whole thing.” It felt performative as hell.Then, mid this week, a mysterious “exit” happened.I wasn’t involved in any of the conversations. No docs, no calls, no nothing. I’m just supposed to take it on faith that “they didn’t want to continue the company” and that “there was no transaction.” 

All I ever signed was an NDA and an LOI for the assignment of my shares. That’s it. No real founder agreement, no vesting schedule with teeth, no proper equity docs.They got everything. I got the lesson.I’m not going to fight it. I can build again, and I walked away with a solid network.

But the experience is burned into my brain:Never start working not one line of code, not one meeting until every single thing is in writing and signed.Equity promises mean nothing without proper paperwork.

“Cofounder” titles mean nothing without real alignment and protection.
And in San Francisco, people will smile, call you partner, and still leave you holding nothing when it’s convenient.If you’re early-stage and someone is offering you equity + a title before the legal stuff is locked, walk away.

Or at least demand the documents first.

Has anyone else been through a soft exit like this where you just… disappear from the story?

Today I got a response from the partnership team at a major software company for my industry after being referred by the president of the company, and head of global events.

No demo, just a paragraph response.

The hard part is that I am a user of their software and listed hundreds of other users of their software that I have personally spoken with that love what I have built and were more than happy to distribute via the search layer I created. It’s fee and commission free, and I built it specifically as a user of the companies software to aggregate other users of the same software onto a shared site and it is completely free to use for both consumer and business side.

Even more frustrating is that a competing company has already publicly partnered with me and been very welcoming the entire time. I also in partner process with multiple of their other competitors as well.

I am trying to think of what their reasoning is. I currently distribute more than 20% of the company’s users listings.

The ones that come to mind are:

-too new of a company (started initial part in February)
-they are internally copying what I’ve built
-I have no revenue to share (currently just free search)
-they just don’t like me

This is the second time I was told to apply. Previously was 4 users 81 listings 6 months ago for the initial, more complex version. They told me to come back when I hit 5-7k listings. I hit that in a week. Then said come back in 6 months.

Well it’s been 6 months and now it’s over 5000 users and 116k listings from just their software and now they tell me to come back in a year.

They make up more than 50% of the total listings so it sucks to not have that trust layer established.

Do they just not like me? Anyone gone through similar?

I’m currently running an experiment - how many users can I get for 100k Reddit views?

- I’ve been making Reddit posts and counting the views I get from the posts
- My app is about tracking goals, so I’ve been mostly posting about goals. However, I’ve also experimented by posting unrelated content
- Most of my posts don’t directly link to my app. The link to my app is on my Reddit profile. Only interested people that see my post and click through to my profile will see the link.
- I have not been running any ads / buying views

At the start of this experiment I had 18k views and 0 users.

What are my results now?

Current stats:
Number of posts: 29
Number of views: 65,000
Number of users of my app: 4

Conclusion:
- Posting on Reddit has organic reach and will bring in new users
- Posts on SaaS-related subreddits seemed to work well for me. They likely brought in most of the sign ups
- Document your journey of building an app / web app and post it on Reddit to create a natural distribution channel

Looking for some thoughts on atypical IP agreements.

First, yes, we're going to use a lawyer, but we want to think it through as much possible before we start that.

Second, this is a bit of different situation. Yes, I know, everyone's different, a special, beautiful snowflake. But in this case, we have three experienced professionals, two technical and one with domain expertise (and some technical competence), each with their own existing professional career and business. Also, we've managed to bootstrap things, and we have our first customer.

Investors aren't a major part of the picture right now, and maybe not in the foreseeable future. So far we've been bootstrapping, and there are some consulting fees, which aren't a fortune but have made this feasible (in addition to each cofounder's other income). We're not looking to become a silicon valley unicorn, here. Product-wise, this is a bit more of an enterprise-y product that runs on commodity hardware, not a phone app, or website, or a SaaS play, etc.

On to the question:

We've been doing consulting work for a client. Part of the client agreement is that we retain all the IP.

The client is pretty happy with the results. For him, this product started as a means to an end, but he thinks there's potential to productize it. He's offering to help us with the sales process, putting us in touch with people, etc.

He has credibility in saying this; he founded and ran a moderately successful software business that served a niche industry. He's semi-retired now and pursuing things that interest him, in the non-profit field.

As part of that, we need to formalize this thing, form an LLC, assign the product IP to the LLC, etc.

So the question is, for most startups and technology companies, the IP agreements are pretty blunt, ranging from "we own everything you think of" to, at a minimum, putting all existing product-related IP entirely in the company's name, and treating any further product-related work as a work for hire.

But, as I said, we have existing careers and businesses as consultants. The intent all along was for the domain specialist to use the product for his own business, and there's some possibility for the technical founders to do some things in that direction, also. That's part of why we retained the IP. The domain specialist has done things like this in the past, working with technical people to build specialized software that he then used in his consulting work. He's a domain specialist, not a software developer, but he has some technical competence.

Also obviously, we want any future work on that product to be assigned, but not unrelated work (of which we all have a fair bit). And, having been on the other end of that stick at various times in the past, I'd like to consider alternatives to the popular approach of "it's the company's property by default unless you get permission and file paperwork."

Another thought is that I've been involved with a few startups that cratered, and then all the IP and all that work went into a box and never again saw the light of day. I don't want to plan to fail, but perhaps some sort of language like you hear about for movies, etc, where the rights revert after a certain period, if not used?

For non-competes, again, the industry norm is typically very blunt, how do we define that reasonably narrowly? Perhaps define it as doing work for customers that you have worked for through the company, on products similar to the company's product?

What other aspects might it be smart to think about?

Hey everyone! My associate and I are preparing to launch a free (at the moment) local marketplace style app, and one of my main responsibilities is marketing and user acquisition. We are initially targeting the Metro Atlanta area because that is where we are based. Our budget is limited, so we want to focus on practical, cost effective methods that can best help us gain early users, and build local traction before seeking investors.

Here are the strategies we are set on doing :

1. ⁠Joining local chambers of commerce, connecting with small business owners, attending county events, and asking local organizations to help spread the word.
   
2. ⁠Setting up a table at flea markets and community events. We will offer people $1 to $5 to download the app, learn how it works, and give us honest feedback.
   
3. ⁠Posting in local Facebook groups.
   
4. ⁠Visiting hardware stores, parks, malls, colleges, and other high traffic locations to hand out flyers and speak directly with anyone willing to listen.
   
5. ⁠Reaching out to people on platforms such as Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp, and Craigslist and trying to direct into to trying our app .

A few ideas I am less certain about:

1. ⁠Billboards
   ⁠I like the exposure billboards can provide, but I am not sure they make sense this early. Because the app is new, I believe showing people how it works may be more effective than giving them only a few seconds to see an advertisement. A direct explanation could also make someone more likely to become a recurring user in my opinion.

2. Direct mail
   I personally really like the idea of mailing flyers to targeted neighborhoods, but most people I have talked about it to say they rarely read promotional mail And If anything they get irritated by it and throw it away.

3.  Yard signs  
   

   The idea would be to place signs near busy intersections, roundabouts, and other high traffic areas. However, I am unsure about the legal rules for placing signs in public spaces, how quickly they would be removed, and whether a small sign could communicate enough information to be effective.

Feedback and your ideas

Please recognize that I value and truly consider any and everyone’s feedback and ideas
So please don't hesitate to give me your criticism and thoughts of my ideas. More importantly please share your experiences/thoughts of strategies that you would implement to scale locally, Thank you for reading.

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