The US is inching closer to a representative, accountable democracy. But it’s still a secret. Only a few of us know… This is about my trials and tribulations.
After 4 years of not finding any cofounders, I found one. Then he bailed.
Group 1
Two months later, a guy contacted me on FounderDating and proposed to build my site. I said I couldn’t afford it. He convinced me to talk to him. It sounded much more affordable than not building it! It costs me as much to live as 3-5 people in India working full time…
In mid-December we planned to launch in March, almost doubling the 9-week schedule he provided. That was before he took 3 weeks to reach the 2-week mark. But really it was only half-way to the 2-week mark. And then after about 5 weeks, we had solidly reached the 2-week mark for the first half of the product.
Apparently he expected to just throw something together and it’d be good enough. He didn’t really want to understand what was required. And, despite what I asked him for, he expected to use whatever technology his people knew how to use. He was put out when I insisted we at least discuss it. He then asked for the second payment to start coding. That was not quite fully out of the realm of reasonable, so I paid him. I thought maybe I’d just get less than I bargained for. But then he disappeared. It took me 2 weeks to give up on him fully. He didn’t even have the courtesy to say he quit.
He didn’t want to be honest, either with me or himself. I wasn’t rude, or mean, I just wanted honesty, and he couldn’t face it. It was a painful failure. He took the money and ran. When I have time, I’ll pursue him in small claims court.
Post-Failure: Group Two
It took three weeks to find people, put a better spec together and get bids and check references. Of the eight groups, 6 submitted bids. I couldn’t afford the best one (I thought.) The references of the one we chose were outstanding. Group Two started in March.
Group Two was better. They wanted to start with a better spec and new story boards. It took time. And communication wasn’t too good. They work midnight to 8am… It made me write better specs, though (some of them they even followed!)
And one friend said he’d review their code, and I found a technically sophisticated woman to manage them, just as they began coding. But then she went silent! It turns out she fell ill or injured. I tried to keep in touch, but she never got back in touch with me. I don’t know what happened.
At least my friend would review their code. But then he got very busy at his new job. So I was doing all sorts of stuff and trying to manage Group Two at the same time. And managing isn’t a strong-suit of mine… It was stressful.
They were producing very slowly and weren’t communicating well. I started talking to one of the other groups- let’s call them Group C. And I informed Group Two. A couple days later, Two had made enormous progress! So I said goodbye to C and worked with Two.
But when I found time to test it more, it seemed shoddy. So I made time and dug under the covers, just as they claimed to be finishing the second software milestone. They were only about half way there, if you counted the details. And they had done things their own way, instead of using the algorithms I had designed and coded. Failure.
I tried to talk with them about the code. They sugar coated the story, ignored the details and asked for more time and money. Failure.
Post Failure: Group C
I began talking to C again, and on a Friday paid them a bit to start getting the code to Beta. They promised they’d charge me nothing to assess the code and would help get it to Beta quickly, maybe even by the next weekend! I ended the relationship with Group Two. At least they had worked honestly. And their failings were in line with normal humans- mainly poor communication. It was my fault, too. But there were lots of times when I asked them for status and didn’t hear back for days.
Sunday night I hadn’t heard from C- a bad sign. Monday night they said they couldn’t start till Wednesday, which they’d spend assessing the code- ouch! The engineer again promised he wouldn’t start charging until he was really coding. Friday he gave me a proposal to rewrite the code with a better framework. It would take $10k and 12 weeks. Ouch. It was reasonable. But when I read about the framework, there was a weak point. I asked them about that, and proposed a way to work around it. I didn’t hear back. Tuesday the project manager said the engineer was going to be working on a different project. He said he’d give me back half the money. I gave him lots of reasons to give me all of it back, but said I would accept half. He changed not a line of code and I didn’t hear from him again. Failure.
Post Failure- Group 4
Then Group 4 began. They had been late in the bidding, so didn’t seem very interested, but they came highly recommended. But now I’ve hired them and they seem to be working well. We were talking every night and every morning. Then they went silent for 2 days. I held my breath. The PM got in touch with the engineer and made apologies. The lead engineer bit off more than he could chew. He was trying to make progress and at every moment just needed a bit more time. Finally he made progress. Yesterday morning we had a long chat and he promised, again, to always be in communication. We’re human, it happens.
Of the three projects he had bitten off, one didn’t work, so I’ve taken that one. A second was too messy. The third he made progress on, then handed to someone else to finish while he went back to the second. He made progress today and checked some code in, but it needs more work. Meanwhile, I made progress on the third, some charts, but I can’t finish it. I’ll look for someone more proficient to help.
Late, Poor, but Committed
So, we were supposed to be launching in March. Now I’m hoping for June. More congressional primaries have come and gone. California’s primary is June 7th. I’m hoping we’ll be up by then, but it won’t be in time to make a difference.
I’m a good back-end software engineer, but I can’t build a website. I’ve fixed a lot of their code, but it has been painful. I’ve stopped almost everything to help the current development team (one engineer, a UI designer/formatter, and one tester.)
At every step of the way, the challenges are huge. They are beyond me. Every step of the way I’ve had to grow, and there’s no letup in sight. In various ways I’m in a fair amount of pain and insecurity. But it turns out, that’s what’s required. There’s only failure until there’s success. And success rarely comes of its own. It has to be created.