skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That’s a hard spot to be in. I can hear your pain on how you want you idea to be launched. Honestly, learning django is no brainer. Django guys have done an amazing job building the framework. On a side note, why is your prototype taking that long? In today’s world, you can build complex apps faster than you can think off.
Here is some links that can be handy for your django learning. All the best!

This is a excellent wiki with lot of tutorial/information/samples about django
http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/Tutorials
http://www.b-list.org/weblog/2006/nov/16/django-tips-get-mos....
http://www.b-list.org/weblog/2007/sep/04/django-accelerated/
http://www.slideshare.net/simon/advanced-django/
http://djangoplugables.com/
http://www.djangoproject.com/community/
http://djangobook.com
http://showmedo.com/videos/video?name=1100000&fromSeries.... http://showmedo.com/videos/series?name=v7kABKL6R http://blog.disqus.net/2007/03/11/a-django-primer/
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-django....
I can recover the extra 29%, as it was structured as an option.
It sounds to me like this is a set of circumstances where the developer had most of the leverage, you failed to recognize it, and got burned.

Lots of businesspeople manage low-equity (or no-equity) employees. Their business isn't jeopardized when one of them threatens to quit. Some of them are savvy enough to know how to keep projects small and focused and checkpointable, so they're never more than a milestone into the weeds and can always hand working code off to the next developer. Others simply pay more than 80k for a lead developer. Many of them pay large premiums to hired gun consulting teams who will deliver pro work without caring about equity.

80k may sound really expensive to you. For a startup, it kind of is. But it's right smack in the middle of the ballpark for an experience Python webdev. It doesn't sound like you were really doing this person a favor. Chances are, when she poked her head up and looked around a few months into the project, it seemed like she was doing all the work and taking a sucker's cut.

She doesn't have to be right about that. She gets to do whatever she wants. People renegotiate comp all the time. You didn't sell her. She left. Learn more about managing people before you hire or contract more of them.
I think 6% is actually pretty sweet, I built a 1.0 for a startup from scratch while in grad school, and got all of a 0.5% stake, plus consulting fees. Usually a large slice of the equity pie assumes that you are taking a hit in the wallet now for something better down the road. I believe your developer felt like she was getting the best of both worlds.
How did she hold the company hostage? She did quit.
Throws another page into the fire
I had to take a salary, because I am 32 yr old experienced nurse and have monthly fixed costs that I can't get away from.
I agree, get your feet into your code. If you outsource it you'll at least know your app so you can manage it. Did you read the TC article about MyPlayList? http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/25/majority-stake-in-mypla...
Maybe this is a route for you.
Ouch. I suppose the moral of this story is to make sure you draw a line between employee and partner right up front, and be very firm about the roles. Obviously, ee's get a paycheck and little else, and partners equity and a little paycheck. Sounds like you put yourself in the position where an ee could hold you for ransom. You were paying her a good salary, and she had no risk. Lesson learned huh?

So what do you do now? You need to sever the relationship with this person, first and foremost. How much work is there left to do? If it's less than 25%, outsource this (doesn't have to be india... many dev's will be ok to pick it up, especially if there could be an upside - in the future). You should/could learn django regardless, since you should be aware of what your system does in the end.

If you've got more than 25% to do, you should really learn to finish this yourself. I'm learning django and python at the same time, and honestly it isn't difficult if you have a programming background. Be aware that you may need to move this to the back burner and take a job to get by.. you won't be able to move as fast as she did. You may also be able to find some devs on YC here that might be interested in negotiating on more favorable terms. Not all programmers can look at things that way, but most here can.

Good luck to you, and if you see me on IRC (django) I go by the same user name.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject:	viewr.cn & viewr.com.cn
Date:	Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:30:27 +0800
From:	Thomas Lee <mybestnames@gmail.com>
To:	alex@viewr.com
CC:	info@viewr.com

viewr.cn & viewr.com.cn
Dear Sirs,

We have viewr.cn & viewr.com.cn for your purchase to expand China market which is to be No.1 market in the world.

Your interest? make offer pls.

Thanks

Regards,

Thomasa
That totally depends on the app, doesn't it?
Hey Drinko, Normally when you give equity, their shares do not vest for at least 4 years. This is usually the case in most of the employee contracts. Also usually if any co-founder/employee leaves before an year she gets no equity. This is the standard.

As for getting the project finished, realistically learning django now is not an option. Outsourcing is an option but I wouldn't recommend it. You don't want to outsource your development at this early stage in your company.

Your best bet to getting the project finished is to threaten to fire your current developer. If she is fired before 12 months, she does not get any equity. Don't repeat the mistake of giving more equity/money to a third-grade developer who hasn't been able to get a working prototype in 12 months.
I think it's a nice, useful app. This could be a really cool facebook app as facebook's event planning doesn't allow for gathering individual's preferences. I'd use it on facebook, to be honest.

I really like how you convey the purpose of your site by showing users the steps, and the steps you outline makes me understand the value of your service. My only question is about how the responses are stored, as there isn't any sort of log in screen, unless it generates a unique url (I haven't created a gutmeet). The site could be redesigned in a much more modern and fresh look. Please get rid of that font for the logo :P. Maybe a better name could serve well. Gutmeet makes me think of someone eating a chunk of my intestines.

Congrats, though. Really consider a facebook app. I think something like your service, with more features, can turn into a full fledged event planning network that supplements the crap facebook provides.
While not a wine drinker, I do love beer and bourbon a lot and I thoroughly agree with a lot of this article.

A year or so ago, I spent a lot of time on beer rating sites like beeradvocate.com. You read about beers with high ratings and beers with low ratings. Ratings are stupid! There are plenty of very highly rated beers that I can't stand, and plenty of poorly rated beers that I really love. There are exotic, rare, extremely expensive beers that can do no wrong, and there are typical, everyday offerings that many scoff at.

Long story short, I stopped looking at ratings. I make my own decisions about what I want to drink. I know what I like better than any other person. Taking suggestions from people is fine, but subconsciously basing my approval of a beverage based on the average opinion of several thousand people is ridiculous.

Context is also extremely important as well. A thick, heavy stout that rivals the alcohol content of most wines is a terrible thing in the blistering heat. I also can't drink several extremely hoppy beers with food. Hitting on the ideal beer for the mood you are in or the food you are eating is far more important than a seemingly universal rating system for quality. There are plenty of highly regarded beers I can't see being enjoyed with my favorite foods. There are beers I absolutely love the first time and can't stand the second time, and visa versa.

In short, buy beer or any beverage with an open mind. Try something new or follow your instincts. Whatever the case, don't let anyone tell you how much you like something.
> I could imagine that SciPy and NumPy is much much faster than Matlab.

SciPy and NumPy tend to be just about as fast as Matlab, when used in their default manner. When you drop into inline Blitz/C for your inner loops using Scipy though, you can achieve orders of magnitude improvements.

Check it out: http://www.scipy.org/PerformancePython
If the backend and basic interaction works, there are tens of consultancies who can turn it into a presentable, usable, launchable web application. For a complex application, you're probably looking at 15-25k.
Every time I read about the failing American automakers, I wonder how much of their downfall can be attributed to the cost of their unionized workers' benefits and salaries. I heard somewhere (probably a hyperbole) that 60%+ of the cost of manufacturing a GM car can be attributed to the company's payment of pensions/retirement money. Does anyone happen to know where I can get data about this?
"threatened to quit and raise her own funding" unless equity was raised to 35%, that is very very hostile. - she only quit once they ran out of money., actions just speak louder than words for me.
Change the dates on this thread from 2008 to anything from 2000-2007 and you can find a thousand other threads just like it on c.l.l.

The short answer - don't hold your breath.
I'm not criticizing you for taking a salary. I take a nice one. I'm just saying, you're not working on "2 people in a garage" terms.
"this is a set of circumstances where the developer had most of the leverage, you failed to recognize it and got burned"

This is true to a degree. We agreed to the initial arrangement as a fair deal, but I didn't appreciate the way she swtiched terms on me, and then bailed when the going got tough. (ie funding ran out)
Yeah, but now all the technical knowledge of the project has walked out the door with her. Its a classic 'single point of failure' scenario.
@ambition - not a snarky question at all. The Rails book market is certainly growing crowded, so I think it is a very valid question. I hope this isn't a cheesy thing to say, but I really tried to make this the book I wish that I had to guide me after I had been experimenting with Rails for a while.

This book is different for a few important reasons:

First off, it speaks to issues of design rather than issues of API. That has important ramifications in the way the material is covered. Agile Web Development with Rails (Pragmatic) and The Rails Way (Addison) are two fantastic books, and both are on the shelf next to my desk right now, but they both concentrate on exhaustive coverage of the Rails API. The Art of Rails is meant to be the kind of book you buy after owning one of those. It takes someone familiar with the /syntax/ of coding Rails and attempts to provide guidance and insight into the /style/ and design patterns of architecting an entire application with Rails.

Second, it devotes three whole chapters (8, 9, and 10) to developing with the "Ruby style". So many web developers learn Ruby because of Rails that they eventually get to a point in their Rails development skills where they stand to really benefit by taking a few steps outside of Rails to learn how Ruby is a fundamentally different language than {PHP, Java, other OO/Procedural languages}. The Art of Rails really devotes a significant effort to talking about the new and Ruby-centric design patterns that constructs like blocks, Procs, method_missing, and instance_eval make possible, and then it provides examples of how you can use these design patterns in your Rails applications.

Third, it backs up design patterns with useful, concise examples that you can actually execute, but otherwise stays clear from drowning you with example code that is better left to online format.

Finally, I wrote it to read cover-to-cover, or at least a chapter at a time, whereas a lot of tech books these days are really centered around dictionary-style reference lookup. This book should be fun to read, have you nodding your head, and leave you with some useful abstractions, coding techniques, and new tricks when you're done.

I'll stop here to prevent myself from leaving a run-on comment, but thanks for pushing back for more justification of the book
She's taking a full salary, which by itself negatively affects the startup's chances for success.

She's not taking enough risk to get anything close to 35% in my opinion. It doesn't get more sweetheart that that. Too bad she was too dumb to realize that her good position could have been very good later on.
Streaming video also throws a kink in the hose. There's no indication of how much bandwidth you are actually using when you use such a service. With no files persisting to the hard drive it's very difficult to say what your actual usage levels are.
http://ourdoings.com/boston-lisp/photo.html?th=zh/c3/nssk.jp...
Invite only Hacker News.
I think the quality of Hackers News posts has been changing for while now. This is very normal given that the site is growing, and the audience is more diversified. I remember when HN was still a few weeks old, and I can tell you my experience back then and now is completely different. I think they are key players here and people who are really interested in learning/sharing and not just ranting. Thus I proposed a closed for-ever-invite-only HN. The top leaders on this site would be automatically subscribed and given each permission to invite (with limits). I am frankly not sure I will be invited myself, but I would certainly love to and I would be appreciative that a group of smart individuals think I can add value to their "secret" community.

Disclosure: This is no attempt to start a New World Order or Some Tech Masons...but it is an attempt to gather like minded highly intelligent intellectuals who love to observe, analyze and resolve different problems using technology
Well, my monthly outgoing are $2000 a month, so it kinda feels garagelike to me.
If you are a paying your developer a market value salary, you are basically paying to have your idea developed.

Unless you were paying the developer very little, or nothing, that is when equity should be used as payment

35% is a LOT with $6900/m
I realize this won't sound encouraging, but it seems to me that you were doomed from the start. Whoever writes the code in a web startup has to be a full cofounder-- which means a friend, not just a stranger you recruited for this project. You've inadvertantly shown why this custom exists. Trying to outsource the development would just be repeating the same mistake. Your best bets would be either to learn to hack, or find a cofounder who can among your friends.
Stanford Human Computer Interaction seminar - free videos on iTunes
I've been in pretty much the same situation - being the guy with the idea, not knowing how to code it and having problems finding developers that were both talented, got things done and were willing to stick through the hard times. My solution was simply to learn to code (PHP in my case) and it has been one of the best decisions I've ever made. I think you should do the same. It's not all that hard, and there's plenty of help to get if you ask google.

And by the way, it is obvious from your post that you're dedicated and really want this to succeed - that is the one most important ingredient in success. I think you have a good chance,

Good luck.

Feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions, my mail is in my profile.
I worked as a rails developer for less equity and less pay in Silicon Valley for almost a year -- I thought it was a pretty fair deal too.
Getting people to switch email client is tough.
I don't get it. This isn't MTV's The Real World: Tulsa Edition. She didn't like the deal she had. She told the founder, whose stake dwarfed hers, what her issue was. It didn't work out. She left.

What are you asking her to do? Stay on in an untenable situation? News flash for you: when you make a mistake signing on with a company, you aren't "honor-bound" to stay there until the situation plays itself out. If your situation sucks, leave. She did.

There's another unfortunate lesson here. When people threaten to quit, counteroffers are often a waste of time. People with MBAs will tell you not to make them at all. I've learned this the hard way; I got a really good offer in the middle of my last PM job, brought it up with my current company, and they upped my stake. But for the next 2 years, they were constantly on the defensive assuming I was going to quit again; it damaged the working relationship severely.

If you're a solid company, and someone gives you an ultimatum, a no-foul clean break is often going to be the right move. I wish it wasn't like that (I had no intention of quitting), but some political situations are untenable.
Thanks for the advice. Actually I have done other facebook apps that I thought are useful. But I realize that people on facebook aren't looking for serious things at all. They are generous on throwing cakes to each other, but not for any real interaction that you would do real life.

I would give it a thought since it won't be too difficult to do it in facebook.

regarding the response, yes you do have a unique URL that you can share with others. I have only make email works since it is out of my scope (my habit) to communicate with others via other channels.

again. Thanks!
Completely agree. At worst you fail, but you learned how to work hard, you gained access to some awesome tech circles, and you will be better off next time. As long as you fail fast and learn from your mistakes there's absolutely no downside.

In the best case, you're Xobni or Loopt or Reddit or Scribd. Seems like a no-brainer.

(Summer 07)
Not only that, but the market it's based in - our poster's app happens to be in healthcare, which has its own 800-lb gorillas (large hospitals and pharmas) and its own smaller players too.

Obviously the poster thought that the app would become lucrative enough to justify a $160k investment. If the payoff looked really huge, you could justify being a little more stingy with the options. Just sayin'. (From the guy who doesn't have a lot of options because his app is in healthcare too)
Well, you could use on of the YC post datasets and come up with the stats yourself? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=182374
Is this purely a community support kind of thing? Or does it allow the patients to manage their condition using the site?

I probably can't help because of a non-compete (I'm working on something that sounds almost identical, minus social networking). However, this space is always interesting to me.
/signed
What was the nurse doing? Ideas aren't worth 65% of the company alone.

I don't know if it's intentional but it seems like a lot of people here are talking as if there were "rules", like "x% is fair, y% is unreasonable". There are rules of thumb. But compensation is a marketplace. If the founder has no leverage, taking a lower stake in exchange for salary isn't honorable. It's just stupid.

Both parties need to feel like they're getting a square deal. If either of them don't, it doesn't work.
What is the feedback you need to respond to? How much different is what the app needs to be from what you have. Examples will help us understand better.
Learning Viral: Grow to a 1,000,000+ users on the Leech Method
The investment round was 20%, and I have a 45% stake.
Anyone know what the production costs were? Ad costs?
Even if you are able to get it out with the help of another developer(on contract or otherwise) it still doesnt cut it because this is just beta and there is a long way ahead for you to build a business.

For this reasons, and still more, I would suggest that to take this forward you absolutely need a technical co-founder. Try to find one, and even if you have to give a very high (~40-45% stake) consider it a good deal.

Additionally, 12 months is too long a time for beta. Cut down your featureset ruthlessly so that only the ones required to expose the core functionality of your site remain.
Funny you say this, what made you come up with this idea?

Interestingly, a few members from the old Joel on Software forum started such a closed community to share, interact and keep a much higher signal/noise ratio, and people were usually more honest since it was a closed, invite only forum.

This sure would be an interesting experiment.
@utnick -

Thanks! As to your questions:
- I've been a lurker in the Rails community ever since it was first released. So no, not active. I guess in that sense I'm doing things backwards. I hope to be active now that I'm not spending all my free time writing and am polishing up an acts_as_rdf plugin for ActiveRecord that I hope will help the semantic web-minded folks.

- I had co-authored another book for Wrox before, so had been emailing back and forth with them afterwards about how important Rails was. That email thread turned into a book proposal.

I can only speak for my own book writing experience with Wiley/Wrox, but it is likely similar across the tech industry. You don't have to write the book up front or get an agent. Instead you submit a proposal to the publisher that is essentially your pitch: it includes a potential table of contents, your own market analysis, and why you think the book is a necessary addition to the existing set of published knowledge.

If all goes well, the proposal turns into a contract, which is basically a 15 page way of saying that you split the copyright, get a royalty advance, and get X% of sales, where X seems to be around 10% for the big publishers. (Pragmatic gives 50%!!).

Then you start the writing process, which took about a year both times for me, divided into ~8 months of writing, ~2 months of editing, and ~1.5 month of last-minute bug fixing and waiting for the book to print.

All in all, it's been simultaneously the hardest and most rewarding thing I've done in my (admittedly short) professional life. If you're interested in more details about how to get your foot in the door, feel free to shoot me an email (edward [dot] benson [at] gmail [dot] com).
No, really, there are. =)
It doesn't matter what the nurse was doing, the developer was getting paid a good amount of money.

If I was hired to do a project, and my payment was inline with my market value, I wouldn't care what my employer is doing as long as I kept getting my money.

$6900/m sounds like market value to me. If I was in the nurses position, I would have offered 1% equity on top of $6900/m
So what exactly do you do on a daily basis that effectively prevents you from "getting a real job" ? To put it bluntly - I can't really think of what a non-tech person can be doing full-time for 12 months while waiting for the beta to be done.
pg,

The idea was that always that she would be a full co-founder. We agreed on a low equity split initially because of the asymmetric risk we were taking. The idea was always to increase her stake 6 months into the project, but not in the way it happened.

I met her through a friend, and 3 months ago would have been proud to call her my cofounder.

I am going to learn to hack regardless, I am just trying to figure out the best way forward in the short term, as the payoff for learning to hack will be a few months.
I think it depends less on the app and more on the negotiating power/experience of each party.
Just smells wrong, to take $6,900/mo + 6% (and agree to it) then for no reason demand more equity (which can't pay your bills) so basically the only reason to demand more equity is selfish-ness and you realize the founder is in a bad spot.

- She only left cause they were out of money, I suspect she would have rode that horse to death.

-I'm done debating; it was really fun, I got work to do; Im sure you do too... .rb