Join devRant
Do all the things like
++ or -- rants, post your own rants, comment on others' rants and build your customized dev avatar
Sign Up
Pipeless API
From the creators of devRant, Pipeless lets you power real-time personalized recommendations and activity feeds using a simple API
Learn More
Search - "startup idea"
-
My classmate is a real SAVAGE!!
He (team leader) and his team participated in hackathons several times and kept losing.
He noticed something common about winning team, majority of those team members were women, even if they were non technical and their project was pure bs, they were winning in the name of women empowerment.
This time he came out with a plan, he fired his boys and invited women into his team, and even made one girl the team leader.
Result? HE WON!!!
NOT ONE BUT THREE HACKATHONS BACK TO BACK
AND
His so called women team was invited by Google to pitch their startup idea.
Now, if they gets funding, he's gonna kick out these women and bring back his teammates32 -
Was lead developer at a small startup, I was hiring and had a budget to add 3 new people to my team to develop a new product for the company.
Some context first and then the rant!
Candidate 1 - Amazing, a dev I worked with before who was under utilized at the previous company. Still a junior, but, she was a quick learner and eager to expand her knowledge, never an issue.
Candidate 2 - Kickass dev with back end skills and extras, he was always eager to work a bit more than what was expected. I use to send him home early to annoy him. haha!
Candidate 3 - Lets call him P.
In the interview he answers every question perfectly, he asks all the right questions and suggests some things I havent even thought of. CTO goes ahead and says we should skip the technical test and just hire the guy, his smart and knows what his talking about, I agree and we hire him. (We where a bit desperate at this stage as well.)
He comes in a week early to pick up his work laptop to get setup before he starts the next week, awesome! This guy is going to be an asset to the company, cant wait to have him join the team - The CTO at this stage is getting ready to leave the company and I will be taking over the division and need someone to take over lead position, he seems like the guys to do it.
The guys starts the next week, he comes in and the laptop we gave him is now a local server for testing and he will be working off his own laptop, no issue, we are small so needed a testing stack, but wasnt really needed since we had procedures in place for this already.
Here is where everything goes wrong!!! First day goes great... Next day he gets in early 6:30am (Nice! NO!), he absolutely smells, no stinks, of weed, not a light smell, the entire fucking office smells of weed! (I have no problem with weed, just dont make it my problem to deal with). I get called by boss and told to sort this out people are complaining! I drive to office and have a meeting with him, he says its all good he understands. (This was Friday).
Monday comes around - Get a call from Boss at 7:30am. Whole office smells like weed, please talk to P again, this cannot happen again. I drive to office again, and he again says it wont happen again, he has some issues with back pain and the weed helps.
Tuesday - Same fucking thing! And now he doesnt want to sign for the laptop("server") that was given to him, and has moved to code in the boardroom, WHERE OUR FUCKING CLIENTS WILL BE VIEWING A DEMO THAT DAY OF THE PRODUCT!! Now that whole room smells like weed, FML!
Wednesday - We send P a formal letter that he is under probation, P calls me to have a meeting. In the meeting he blames me for not understanding "new age" medicine, I ask for his doctors prescription and ask why he didnt tell me this in the interview so I could make arrangements, we dont care if you are stoned, just do good work and be considerate to your co-workers. P cant provide these and keeps ranting, I suggest he takes pain killers, he has none of it only "new age" medicine for him.
Thursday - I ask him to rather "work" from home till we can get this sorted, he comes in for code reviews for 2 weeks. I can clearly see he has no idea how the system works but is trying, I thought I will dive deeper and look at all of his code. Its a mess, nothing makes sense and 50% of it is hard coded (We are building a decentralized API for huge data sets so this makes no sense).
Friday - In code review I confront him about this, he has excuses for everything, I start asking him harder questions about the project and to explain what we are building - he goes quiet and quits on the spot with a shitty apology.
From what I could make out he was really smart when it came to theory but interpreting the theory to actual practice wasnt possible for him, probably would have been easier if he wasnt high all the time.
I hate interview code tests, but learned a valuable lesson that day! Always test for some code knowledge as well even if you hate doing it, ask the right questions and be careful who you hire! You can only bullshit for so long in coding before someone figures out that you are a fraud.16 -
1. I agree to work with you on your startup idea because i believe in you.
2. I am the solo developer doing both the mobile apps, website, database and server side.
3.You call me shouting and complaining that i am too slow.
4. sudo rm -rf ~/your_project5 -
My guide to know if your startup is failing:
My Qualifications: Every startup I've joined has failed. Not necessarily because of me.
For the sake of me typing faster, x=startup.
1) X doesn't have a product, but just an idea that x keeps pitching as the next "big thing". (What's with this shit anyway?)
2)X keeps changing products, One day your designing IoT sex toys and the next day your building a self aware AI. For some reason, the people at X saw Silicon Valley or that meme about how Instagram was created and thought "Fuck that happens to every moron who can switch on a computer."
3) Even worse, X keeps changing industries.
4) X keeps lying to you, your marginal user base and seems overall unethical. (You should leave at this point.)
5) X wants to target some obscure and very specific market and keeps pitching the company along the following lines
<famous_company> for <random_market>
Eg: "Yo bro it's like Amazon but for necrophiles."
6)X keeps saying that X is the next big thing. (X is not and I can't emphasize this point enough.)
What you should realize is this is my general observation and some or all of these points may not apply to every situation.
Sorry for typos and any other stuff.11 -
I'm 20, and I consider myself to be as junior as they come. I only started programming seriously in June 2016,and since then, I've been doing mainly Android Work, and making my own servers and backends(using AWS/Firebase nd stuff).
For the first time in life, I was approached by a recruiter for a company on linkedIn. They "stumbled upon" my Github profile and wanted to see if I was interested in an internship opportunity. This company is an early stage start up, by that I mean a dude with an idea calling himself the CEO and a guy who "runs a tech blog" and only knows college level C programming (explaination follows).
So they want me to make the app for their startup. and for that, I ws first asked to solve a couple problems to prove my competence and a "technical interview" followed.
They gave me 3 questions, all textbook, GCD of 2 numbers, binary search and Adding an element to the linked List, code to be written on a piece of paper. As the position was that of an Android Developer, I assumed that Java should be the language of choice. Assumed because when I asked, the 'tech blogger' said, yeah whatever.
But wait, that ain't all, as soon as I was done, Mr. Blogger threw a fit, saying I shouldn't assume and that I must write it in C. I kept my cool (I'm not the most patient person), and wrote the whole thing in C.
He read it, and asked me what I've written and then told me how wrong I was to write 2 extra lines instead of recursion for GCD. I explained that with numbers large enough, we run the risk of getting a stackoverflow and it's best to apply non recursive solution if possible. He just heard stackoverflow and accused me of cheating. I should have left right then, but I don't know why, I apologized and again, in detail explained what was happening to this fucktard. Once this was done, He asked me how, if I had to, I'd use this exact code in my Android App. I told him that Id rather write this in Java/Kotlin since those are the languages native to Android apps. I also said that I'd export these as a Library and use JNI for the task. (I don't actually know how, I figured I can study if I have to).
Here's his reply, "WTF! We don't want to make the app in Java, we will use C (Yeh, not C++, C). and Don't use these fancy TOOLS like JNI or Kotlin in front of me, make a proper application."
By this I was clear that this guy is not fit to be technical lead and that I should leave. I said, "Sir, I don't know how, if even possible, can we make an Android App purely in C. I am sorry, but this job is not for me".
I got up and was about to leave the room, when we said, "Yeah okay, I was just testing you".
Yeah right, the guy's face looked like a howling monkey when I said Library for C, and It has been easier for me to explain code to my 10 year old cousin that this dumbfuck.
He then proceeded to ask me about my availability, and I said that I can at max to 15-20 hours a week since my college schedule is pretty tight. I asked me to get him a prototype in 2 months and also offered me a full time job after I graduate. (That'd be 2 years from now). I said thank you for the offer, but I am still not sure of I am the right person for this job.
He then said, "Oh you will be when I tell you your monthly stipend."
I stopped for a second, because, money.
And then he proceeded to say 2 words which made me walk out without saying a single word.
"One Thousand".
I live in India, 1000 INR translates to roughly $15. I made 25 times that by doing nothing more than add a web view to an activity and render a company's responsive website in it so it looks like an app.
If this wasn't enough, the recruiter later had the audacity to blame me for it and tell me how lucky I am to even get an offer "so good".
Fuck inexperienced assholes trying shit they don't understand and thinking that the other guy is shitsworth.10 -
"Fuck JavaScript, its such a shitty language" seems to be quite a common rant today. It seems as if JS is actually getting more hate than PHP, which is certainly odd, considering the stereotype.
So, as someone who has spent a lot of time in JS and a lot of time elsewhere, here are my views. Please, discuss your opinions with me as well. I am genuinely interested in an intelligent conversation about this topic.
So here's my background: learned HTML/CSS/JS in that order when I was 12 because I liked computers. I was pretty shitty at JS until U was at least 15, but you get the point, Ive had it sploshing about in my brain for a while.
Now, JS certainly has its quirks, no doubt, but theres nothing about the language itself that I would say makes it shitty. Its a very easy leanguage to use, but isn't overdeveloped like VB.net (Or, as I like to call it, TheresAFunctionForThat)
Most of the hate is centered around JS being used for a very broad range of systems. I doubt JS would be in the rant feed so often if it were to stay in its native ecosystem of web browsers. JS can be used in server backend, web frontent, desktop and mobile applications, and even in some system services (Although this isn't very popular as of yet). People seem to be terrified that one very easy to learn language can go so far. And, oh god, its interpreted... How can a system app run off an interpreted language? That's absurd.
My opinion on JSEverything is that it's progress. Thats what we're all about, right? The technologies already in place are unthreatened by JS, it isn't a gamechanger. The only thing JS integration is doing is making tedius and simple tasks easier. Big companies with large systems aren't going to jump ship and migrate to JS. A startup, however, could save a fucking ton of development time by using a JS framework, however. I want to live in a world where startups can become the next Google, because technology will stagnate when youre trying to protect your fortune, (Look at Apple for fucks sake) but innovation is born of small people with big ideas.
I have a feeling the hate for JS is coming from fear of abandoning what you're already doing. You don't have to do that. JS is only another option (And a very good one, which is why it's becoming so popular).
As for my personal opinion from my experiences... I've left this part til the end on purpose. I love programming and learning and creating, so I've never hated a lamguage, really. It all depends on what I want to do. In the times i've played arpund with JS, I've loved it. Very very easy. The idea of having it on both ends of web development makes a lot of sense too, no conversion, just direct communication. I would imagine this really helps with speed, as well. I wouldn't use it in a complicated system, though. Small things, medium size projects: perfect. Running a bank? No.
So what do you think about this JSUniverse?13 -
What is the most ridiculous over-the-top "startup" thing you've been the victim of as a developer?
Alternatively, what kind of weird startup luxury would you absolutely love to have at your company?
For me, at various companies I've worked at/visited:
1. Hammocks & fatboy beanbags. Current employer has a "Netflix & Chill" corner with nice couches, and a small gym. I have encountered isolation/flotation tanks at the office of one of our partners... which is cool, but over the top in my opinion.
2. A fully automated aquaponics garden in the lunchroom. Was awesome, until some fish died and started to rot.
3. One hoverboard per employee, at previous employer. I splashed hot chocolate milk in an arc over three desks. A coworker broke his ankle while watching me spill chocolate milk.
4. Daily scrum standup meetings, on socks, in a big bouncy castle. Not kidding. Fucking ridiculous... (but secretly fun). That employer also had spiral slides between all floors, a tiny half-pipe with tiny skateboards, and someone who rode a unicycle way too much. It was a fucking circus. Stuck in the office of a Fintech company.
5. Soldering bench (at my current company), with drawers full of breadboards, servos and electronics components. Completely unrelated to my work, but it was my idea. It's just great to build a simple kits together with another random coworker while brainstorming platform features & refining specs... much better than meetings with bullshit slides.
6. Unlimited energy drink. Developed a serious caffeine habit (15-20 cans a day), and almost got a stomach ulcer. Not beneficial to employee health.
7. I really do love working from home + unlimited holidays. Just being able to honestly say "fuck you guys, I'm gonna get drunk and play games today", and at other times working until 4am and sleeping in the next day, or taking a week to work in a park in Rome... It makes work truly feel like my favorite hobby. Combined with a good sprints and curious/ambitious people, you can easily track productivity anyway.19 -
I was thinking today about a certain aspect of running a software startup and then it came to me...
Hank Scorpio, from the Simpsons, was right in his approach.
So many time I have seen people get hired only for the company to get a less-than-optimal performance from them.
But why is this? Of course, it is many factors but one of the major ones is...
Employers seem to lump employees in together and assume that since most developers operate in one way that the new devs should be the same way.
The problem with this seems to be that we are all pandering to the lowest common denominator.
Let's face it, most devs (like most people) are not good, and almost everyone is not living up to their potential because of a lack of understanding of themselves and how they can achieve more.
On top of that, most devs are just employees who will do what you tell them to.
Since those above developers are the norm (Reference Seinfeld "95% of people are undatable") we have to assume that there is a 5% who are exceptional.
The difference between the 5% and the 95% is NOT some built-in superiority but that the 5% has a good idea themselves and an understanding of how to get the most out of them. They set goals and then find the right path to achieve them. They don't coast.
By assuming these developers are the same as the others is REALLY hampering their potential and by doing this the company only hurts itself.
So, that's a lot of talking but what actionable things can be taken away from this?
Hank asks Homer "What is your dream?"
Well, employeers should take the time to identify which of these developers are in the 5%. A problem arises though when the 5% decide it is in their best interest to blend in.
Like when home says his dream is to "Work for you?" Hank shuts him down and wants to get to the truth. He makes Homer comfortable with not only vocalizing but achieving his dreams.
When an employer is looking for their types they should be looking for the following...
1. A real genuine desire to achieve
2. A real plan to get their goals done
3. Critical thinking and self-evaluation
But more importantly, when they identify these types they should be asking questions like...
- How can we help you be more productive?
- Is there anything about our current operating norm that is hindering you?
- How does your productivity workflow look?
3 difficulties arise though…
1. Most hiring managers are incompetent, and quite frankly, everyone thinks they are in the 5% and for those managers who delude themselves into this without putting in the work, they will have an impossible time actually identifying those who are actually good and productive employees.
2. Showing special treatment to these folks may upset the people below.
3. You will hear things you don’t like…
Examples include…
- That new fancy open-office that you got because it was the trendy thing to do, you might hear that this is a huge hinderance.
- These days people seem to treat devs like nomads, “just give him a laptop and a table and he is fine”!. You may hear that this is complete BS. Real achievers may want a dedicated desk with multiple monitors, a desk with drawers etc.
- This WILL cost you money. I know of developers who cannot work without a dedicated whiteboard. Buy them whatever they need.
- They may want BOTH a standing desk and a chair to sit on.
- Etc.
The point is that it seems to me to be a foolish strategy to tailor your entire company to force everyone into the same work habits. Really good employees have the self-awareness to develop their own productive practices and any keeping of them inside a box will NOT help.27 -
When you have an awesome startup idea and it's not even close to being in the market, it feels good man2
-
I was offered to work for a startup in August last year. It required building an online platform with video calling capabilities.
I told them it would be on learn and implement basis as I didn't know a lot of the web tech. Learnt all of it and kept implementing side by side.
I was promised a share in the company at formation, but wasn't given the same at the time of formation because of some issues in documents.
Yes, I did delay at times on the delivery date of features on the product. It was my first web app, with no prior experience. I did the entire stack myself from handling servers, domains to the entire front end. All of it was done alone by me.
Later, I also did install a proxy server to expand the platform to a forum on a new server.
And yesterday after a month of no communication from their side, I was told they are scraping the old site for a new one. As I had all the credentials of the servers except the domain registration control, they transferred the domain to a new registrar and pointed it to a new server. I have a last meeting with them. I have decided to never work with them and I know they aren't going to provide me my share as promised.
I'm still in the 3rd year of my college here in India. I flunked two subjects last semester, for the first time in my life. And for 8 months of work, this is the end result of it by being scammed. I love fitness, but my love for this is more and so I did leave all fitness activities for the time. All that work day and night got me nothing of what I expected.
Though, they don't have any of my code or credentials to the server or their user base, they got the new website up very fast.
I had no contract with them. Just did work on the basis of trust. A lesson learnt for sure.
Although, I did learn to create websites completely all alone and I can do that for anyone. I'm happy that I have those skills now.
Since, they are still in the start up phase and they don't have a lot of clients, I'm planning to partner with a trusted person and release my code with a different design and branding. The same idea basically. How does that sound to you guys?
I learned that:
. No matter what happens, never ignore your health for anybody or any reason.
. Never trust in business without a solid security.
. Web is fun.
. Self-learning is the best form of learning.
. Take business as business, don't let anyone cheat you.19 -
Story of every failing tech startup (from personal experience, but a bit exaggerated):
Step 1: Come up with AMAZING idea that blows your mind!
Step 2: Run to investors to do presentation, continue to constantly repeat CLOUD, CLOUD, AI, CLOUD, MACHINE-LEARNING, MUCH WOW, MORE AI until investors are confused but mesmerized as fuck and decide to give you a shit ton of money.
Step 3: Hire all the developers you can find, a JAVA dev, a Python dev, a PHP dev, a Ruby dev, and ask them to get along with each other! I mean hey, they're adults right, they'll figure it out.
Step 4: Ask devs to launch the app, meanwhile, throw a LAUCH PARTY! HELLS YEA WE'RE ABOUT TO BE RICH BITCHES!
Step 5: Find out the hard way that no one needs a product that was launched! :/
Step 6: Pivot, and pivot next month again, and pivot again, and pivot in a middle of a pivot, and pivot pivot pivot pivot... and OH FUCK WE RAN OUT OF MONEY!8 -
Once, at my first job, the CEO of the company sent a group email in which he essentially lambasted my ability to do my job.
I wasn't even hired as a programmer, I was a data entry guy who learned how to code on the job, and at this point I was literally the only person writing code for the company. I regularly worked 12+ hours every day, and even though I had to learn practically everything on my own I was still getting things done -- at least, I would have gotten things done if the CEO didn't keep pulling me off of my projects to work on whatever his latest ultra-important-idea-of-the-week was. I was even working for an 8 hr/day, 5 day/week salary, putting in extra hours for free.
But no, my sacrifices and hard work weren't good enough in the CEO's eyes, and he chose to say that to multiple people in an email, including investors in our startup. I don't remember exactly what was said, but whatever it was made me so livid I couldn't do any work; every time I sat down to code, I thought about that email and it so infuriated me that I couldn't concentrate. It took me twelve hours just to calm down enough to get back to coding.
After that, I refused to communicate with the CEO except through my boss, the CTO.7 -
Startup.
Our intern is a weird bird. He is an immigrant (like me) and should be working his ass of to become an FT, and then tie the H1B. I never had an opportunity like this.
Instead the dude sat on his hands for four/five months since hired. He was managed remotely and fairly low touch. He was doing some light support work initially, though I had not heard anything from him.
I take him on now as his ass is about to get dropped. Manage him much more directly (small tasks several checking per day, you get the picture). We need to deliver something relatively simple in three weeks.
On Thursday I find out that the dude has no idea of what Spring is (we are a Java shop). Dude, you have had access to our fucking code base for five months, didn't it cross your mind to poke in? Maybe do a little research and see what this thing is that we are using ALL OVER THE FUCKING PLACE? I sit two desks from you, why the fuck didn't you ask me a question? This ain't fucking socialism where we have a five year plan.
I swear, two things I dislike: incompetence and laziness. And incompetence can generally be cured with some lecturing if the other party is willing to listen.14 -
I was contacted by a college senior guy (he was part of the core team of the club that I recently joined in my college).
Him: Do you want to launch your own startup?
Me: Yeah, I would love to.
Him: Nice, Listen. Even I want to start my own company. If you don't know, the current trend is ML and AI . So, I would like to base my startup on an AI application.( He was in his final year )
Me: I haven't tried any ML or AI stuff before.Sorry.
Him: Take 2 months time to study the AI concepts and do the app.
Me: But first, tell me what the AI app is supposed to do?
Him: It can be anything I have to think, you take the AI part and the UI and integration; with your skills and my idea let's build a startup and I will appoint you as the head of Application Development in my company.
*wtf, seriously dude? you want me to build the whole app for you and all you will do is put your fucking startup's name on it. I am building an application all by myself why the f would I ask you to publish it for me*
Me: Okay, I am getting late, I have to leave..
Made sure I didn't meet him again
and I have also came out of that stupid club..3 -
A few months back, me and my friends built our own Web Dev firm. I'm the one who talk to clients, customers, etc. and these have been the most ridiculous messages I received from them:
1. I don't like it, but I don't know why?
2. I have an idea! Can we change the design?
3. We want something with more of a `wow` factor.
4. Can't you just copy their logo?
5. But we are also a startup. You must understand that we can't pay the full price.
6. So do you have the file open and ready to edit/
7. Can't you just copy and paste it in?
8. We don't have much of a budget but there are plenty of projects coming your way.
These are just a few of the huckleberryfuck our clients sent. I'm not sure if I can handle them anymore.5 -
A few years ago I had a startup. I invited 2 friends to join and we split the ownership equally. I did most the work but didn't mind. I had fun. Anyway, the story is not about me. I was in a startup incubator.
There was this stereotypical rich kid in the incubator too.
For the first few months he refused to even share what his idea was.
Finally he was forced to do it. It was an app for storing gift cards. Literally, there were startups for some high tech phd genious types. But the guy with the idea of a gift card app didn't want to share in fear that we would steal his mediocre idea.
His idea was to digitalize physical gift cards without the consent of the companies and make a market for selling, buying and trading (and taking a fee). When asked what if the companies refuse to accept the unofficial digital gift card, he said he had talked to a lawyer that they should accept it or he would sue them. Wow.
There was a guy who had attempted at doing an app like that 2 years before too apparently.
So here comes the part about the work culture.
He convinced 3 or 4 computer science students to develop the app for him. He offered them 1%, no pay. Talking about how rich they would get and how big it would be.
Luckily, one of the developers came to his senses after a few weeks and convinced the others that they were worth much more.
The guy was furious and even threatened to sue them.
He even got like 2-3k USD from some of his parents rich friends to develop the app. He could afford to pay them.
Anyway, the app was never completed.
I have many stories like that from other startups. A lot of students getting ripped off to work for free. I know people who have startups going for years thanks to free labor.1 -
Once a CEO is 24*7 a CEO. For me it's Chief Experiment Officer
And only dreamers can have that title. One who dreams at night and work it out the following day.
Having a startup is much more than just having an idea
It's about revenue,
It's about value,
It's about team,
It's about impact,
It's about growth,
It's about compliance,
It's about being finance, marketing, HR and tech expert at the same time.
It's about respect the supporters,
At the end it's about the money you earn as an individual.
For playing all the above roles, you need to dream real big.
To me startup is about falling in love with your work first.
-
By an Indian CEO2 -
Today I volunteered for an iOS event to help people get started with Xcode and swift. Granted, I only volunteered because my gf is part of this startup and the pay was 50 bucks ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The fucking stupid organizer (has no idea what programming is) thought it would be a good idea to have a gaming section where people can play video games. Well stupid fucking fortnite had everyone's attention, and only a little group of people was interested in participating in the workshop (build an iOS game from scratch) that my gf worked her ass off to create.
Also, fuck trying to teach programming to kids.4 -
STARTUP IDEA GUYS SUCKS!!!!
So today one of my friend asked me to do an app for him and finally share 50 percent of the profit that I get. His idea is to build an app that can measure air pollution level, water pollution level, soil fertility range. I was like "what the hell!"... The beauty is that he wants me to pay him 50 percent for giving such (stupid, retarded) idea.
Wondering when these "startup idea guys" will realize that ideas are cheap but execution is worth the millions! Fed-up with such stupid people.14 -
Favorite/most hated language? (I love a good flame war)
Why did you quit your previous job / Moment you've considered quitting your current job?
Why do you think Linux is so much better than OSX? (Ahh yes I feed on apple flavored hipster tears)
What side project are you currently working on?
If you had the best teams and unlimited funds, to be used only on a serious project using both Blockchain, IoT and AI, what would you create?
If you forgot how to code, what other career would you pursue?
What is your "I was so busy wondering if I could, that I forgot whether I should" concept/idea/project?
How many chicken eggs would fit inside the moon if it was hollow? (I like retarded interview questions)
If you started a startup, what unique perk would you offer your developer employees?
Do you under- or overengineer?
Most unnecessary feature you ever had to create?
Most necessary feature your boss/client denied to approve?15 -
After months and months of slaving away, I quit my start-up job and feel completely amazing- here's what happened:
Met a classmate in grad school and he talked about starting his own company and he had full funding and etc. After graduation, moved to the new city where the job was located.
There were all these promises of us being co-workers and working on cool things and many other promises made. Soon after starting the job, most of these promises we're just smoke and mirrors.
Started working day in day out. Worked from 8am-9pm most days and worked on weekends too. Treated me like a I was a dog, talked down to me, gave unrealistic deadlines, pressured me with attitude and threats of losing my job. Hell, they thought they were the smartest person to touch the earth basically- example being that they mixed jQuery with VueJS in our Django template.....who the F*** does that. Another thing being that they had issues with me soft deleting records since they wanted them completely hard deleted and we had gotten into a giant argument about that fml.
What led to me leaving the job was that I had gotten sick one of the weeks, and I still showed up to work. Each day I was gradually getting sicker and sicker. Still tried my best to get work done. Saturday morning I get the most passive aggressive and bitchy text from my co-worker. "if you don't complete blah blah blah by Monday, we are going to have issues. Then on Monday you will work on blah blah blah". They blew the fuse with me. They would always punish me for being sick or taking a vacation. I'm not a dog, not a machine, I'm a f****** person. Went into his office when the work week started and gave my resignation on the spot and felt like it was the best decision I've ever made.
Now I just feel like a giant toxic cloud has disappeared from my life. I did walk away with so much experience and knowledge but now I just feel extremely burnt out from programming. Is this what I even wanna do anymore?
Few lessons I learned along the way:
1. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is
2. Free lunches aren't worth it
3. Unlimited PTO doesn't really mean unlimited- there's always stipulations
4. Start-up life isnt as cool as they say- don't take TV portrayals as the real thing
5. Your mental health is extremely important
6. It's okay to admit to yourself that you're burnt out
7. Take a break
8. STARTUPS ARE NOT FOR EVERYONE
This is just my experience and what I learned, so telling my story. Phew, feels so good to get that off my chest6 -
Want to make some friends quickly?
Just go to any pseudo startup incubator in a university (all business people with an idea), mention you are a coder (mimicking the typing on a keyboard to make sure they understand) and all of the sudden you'll have a crowd of people around you that "need to talk to you"
The other guys working with me have to physically protect me every time someone finds out1 -
Fuck startups.
Back when I was an wee lad I interviewed for an startup, not knowing that startups are not real companies. The scumbag interviewer, who was also the owner of the outfit, asked me what I was looking in a company. I said "fair wages, a non-antagonic environment and projects with real roadmaps".
He asked me to elaborate. I said, "You know, if today your product is a sales platform, I do not want to come into work next week and discover it is now an air travel tickets marketplace, or come back the very next day and discover it is now an automated pizza factory, or in the next day and it is now a crypto exchange..."
The scumbag looked PISSED. "Sorry, but we are looking for someone who likes the challenges of a dynamic environment (read: we do not have a business model and we hate the very idea of trying to make money out of our company), and you do not fit the profile"
Startups are not real companies, i.e. they do not systematically charge money in exchange for goods or services in amounts that exceed the cost of providing said goods or services. Most startups are just tax fronts for money laundering schemes. The rest are just playthings for rich assholes who can't get a real output-producing job. Those two categories are not mutually exclusive.
Take Facebook, for example. The poster child of startups. The Zucker that owns it just announced they are setting impossible performance targets on purpose, not even attempting to hide the fact that it is just a way to lay off large quantities of employees without using the words "massive lay offs". Companies, real thin-margin, lots-of-regulation profit-driven companies do not do that. They are not some sort of "capitalist woke", real CEOs just know that if their companies largely miss performance targets on their tenure, purposely or not, next it will be their neck on the chopping block. Because they can be fired if the KPI charts say they suck. But the Zucker cannot be fired, not even after commanding their beanbag and tap beer offices to be heated exclusively by burning hundred dollar bills.
So the Zucker is not interested in performance. Not even in lay offs as expense cutting measures - investors are an infinite source of free money for startups. The Zucker just wants to project power, especially now that engineers are not so confident in the stability of they high-paying jobs.
So are irrelevant 500-souls-or-less self-aggrandizing startups. Their owners are there because it is in vogue to have a startup or ten. And will have that startup pivot to whatever sounds fancy that season. After all, only poor people care about things like EBITDA and profit margins repeatability - A.K.A. "getting more money".
Fuck startups.13 -
I get a call where someone wants to start a startup, says since it's his idea he gets 50% and he will wait for me to finish the whole thing on my own expecting me to work for free 🙂3
-
I will be pitching my startup idea for the first time in my life to potential investors one on one after qualifying for a second round in a business competition.
I am nervous 😬, desperately need to get the fund, and haven't been a good presenter.
Background: the business is still on prototype stage.
I stutter by default if I am slightly nervous.
From feedback my prototype is great- but my pitching might not be too great.
Damn I just have less than 6 hours to pitch.
Fuck this nervous mess.
Dev wish me good luck😶13 -
I don't care what idea you have. I am not joining your "startup" as a technical co-founder. I too wish I could go to the store and buy bread with fucking equity1
-
back to devrant, yay!
closed my account when i entered a really nice company, but after a year it was taken over by another one that was not-so-good at all, started working for another startup and, BOY, i really didn't miss ranting about work, but now i NEED a place to let this all up, little by little, somewhere, before my brain melts
current startup is one of those founded by rich dudes who had an "amazing" idea that, as time passed, turned into a monster that not only eroded the team from inside, but also made us see how spoiled the bosses are11 -
The company I am currently working for is partnering with another startup. Nothing special about that. We should integrate their API into our system. I wasn't involved in the process when it came to checking there API and if it would work with our Systems. The Person who did that already left the company so I was left behind with some internal documentation. In that Documentation is already written that API is basically trash....
After I started integrating the API I found more and more flaws in the design. They are not sending any responses that would help, when a param is missing or the authentication isn't correct, only 500's . I got some documentation from the partner company so i thought it will be fine as long as the Documentation would be accurate. Turns out the documentation isn't even close to be up to date. Wrong content types wrong endpoints, wrong naming. Basically we could not work with that. We shortly contacted the partner Company. After a few WEEKS we got a response that they updated the Documentation what was right but still not everything was correct. At this point I lost my mind. I researched a little bit about them, the company is founded from 2 young people who basically came strait out of the University and doest have any experience or idea how to build an API. I investigated a little bit there websites.
They have an Admin panel on the base domain from their API but it is only accessible via HTTP. Like WTF , They use HTTP for an Admin Panel this must be a joke right?
They use Cloudflare without a HTTP to HTTPS redirection ???
I really had not that much time to research in there website but if I find these things in 5 minutes I don't want to know what I can find in like an hour.
At the end we will still use them as partners because surprise surprise our company already sold the product that uses their API.
I know that I will be the person who has to help fixing this shit when it breaks and it will break 1000% JUST FUCK THIS SHIT. FUCK THE PARTNER COMPANY. FUCK THERE API.2 -
Long long ago, I had a dream to start a startup.
Till today I'm not able to find an idea.
Then, I realized ideas cannot be forced. They come when they come.6 -
Found good startup idea, thinking about it few days and almost planning, one day i searched similar products from google and found exactly my product10
-
I was interviewed for a brand new startup, which is now worth +$20m, and I really liked the idea and founder behind. When I met with her, I was blindsided by another developer, who was gonna ask the questions (which is fair!) - I simply weren't informed.
The meeting went on, and seemed great, however we started talking about bug tracking, and I mentioned that I liked "New Relic" (no more!!) and he, the developer, obviously did not, as the mood suddenly changed and he started bitching about it being expensive, and that there were better alternatives.. The meeting endes shortly after, and I was told by the founder that she'll contact me.. Never happened. However I was told by the developer who was hired instead of me, that "another application was rejected due to personal preferences"..
May be small problems to anyone but me, but I just find it disgusting, and it's typical developers to be so high and mighty about their choises ("X language sucks, you should use Y")
I don't blame the founder at all, and I've supported their company since (minus ranting about the shitty product that they ended with)3 -
I see loads of students here.. and loads of freelancers and startup joiners.. all varieties...but one.. Anyone has a 'normal' 9-5 or sth (dev) work? Does that even exist?! Anyone stands up when the 8h are up and can leave the work behind?
I can't.. even when I leave the office I have algos & code stuck in my head..trying to solve the problem I worked on..
How do you handle non dev life? Is there anything left in a day?
I usually work monday-friday on avg 9h/day and have no idea how to manage not being fucked up at the end of the week. :\ I am trying to get back climbing, but usually I am just soooooo tiiiiireeeeeed after work.. I wanna sleep but when I close my eyes I see the code.. at least one core still left working..19 -
I have a friend who likes to change his tech stack every time he reads about a new technology online.....He started working on a startup idea of his.....He started with Larvel.....then came NodeJS...Then came .Net Core......Then Go.....And yesterday he told me that he is thinking about making it in Vapour.
Him: how long do you think it will take me
Me: ........Forever4 -
I used to work IT in an entertainment startup, and now I’m an iOS dev at a big entertainment company. Several people from my old company have been reaching out to eagerly tell me about their new app idea I just have to hear, asking me to help code their app— and have even hinted at me quitting my nice safe job to join their great new startup that doesn’t even exist yet.
I know this must happen to app devs all the time. What do you say?
How do you deal with telling these nice people who just don’t understand it doesn’t work that way, without crushing their dream? I have a coffee meeting planned to tell one of them “You should learn to code so you can make a proof of concept,” but I fear that won’t be received well.
What’s the standard protocol for telling people you won’t be able to code their magic app idea?10 -
Yeah, So the principals of hackathons is shit and am about to braek down to fucking cry.All you do is waste 48hours of your life discussing your ideas with irrelevant startup managers who will just shatter your dreams with a single sentence "this is already in market, what have you creat new?" For fuck's sake, it's my first hackathon , you guys have given me just 10 hours ,i have a team of worlds most idiot devs and i am their equally idiot if not more leader... However my idea was 1000% real and authentic and worth finding... if not, then at least give me prize for creating 9000 lines of code with 2 IOT devices and a working , documented model which no other fuckin team could do.... AND even not this, then FUCKING GIVE THE PRIZE TO SOMEONE WHO DESERVE IT, AND NOT THE TEAM FROM THE COLLEGE THAT SPONSORED IT.. fucking politics -_-2
-
I got a dayjob in a company. I got an error. I cannot solve it and I am so desperate. So I go to stackoverflow, nobody answers. I post on git issue, but nobody solves the problem. So, I pay someone to solve it, like Hackhands.com to find a mentor. There is no mentor that can help. So I pay more, hired a peer, and finally a development team just to help me. They get paid only if they solved it.
But each of my folks repeat my same steps, asking on stackoverflows or github, and none of these help. So, they end up hiring their own friends and mentors. Their friends also end up paying (pay before problem solved) someone to help them.
their friends pay for friends of friends, then friends of friends of friends
And all of a sudden it becomes a giant MLM scheme.
And those people they paid for actually work for a company behind the scene which I am a founder of 😁
Multi billions startup idea, is it?4 -
In my last rant (https://devrant.com/rants/5523458/...) I regaled you lovely folks of how I had to diplomatically yet firmly defend my work/life boundaries during off-work hours for non-life threatening affairs (a frustratingly common occurrence), and concluded the thread by mentioning that I still had a job, but would make a note of my frustration of that for whatever exit interview happens.
Well, no need for those notes any longer.
I and half of the engineering force, along with several senior managers were laid off this morning in the form of a "mandatory on-site all hands".
I live and work in NYC. Several people took trains and booked rooms from as far away as Boston to be here (or at least I know of specifically two people who commuted up here on Sunday to be here for the "all hands"). I presume those people used their travel benefits to get here and back.
We were dismissed before the meeting even took place, and according to a coworker I became friends with (yes, despite my snarky comments in other threads, I *do* actually have coworkers I became friends with lol) who survived at least this round of layoffs, once the actual all-hands commenced, the company first disclosed the layoffs, then announced being awarded a major contract with the very client the entire org had been working on overdrive to win for the last nine months. He had already been looking for a new job and got an offer last Friday, had been mulling it over, but told me once we were off the phone he was calling them up and accepting. He had three people reporting to him, and lost two. Even he had no idea it was coming until one of his now-former subordinates asked him to come outside and told him they'd just been let go.
I knew going in to this startup that "it's a startup, anything can happen, just mind the gap". That's why I asked on numerous occasions and tried to get time with our CFO to ask about revenue and earnings; things that in my years at this place were never disclosed to the rank and file, I'm not a professional accountant or CPA by any means, but I did take a pair of corporate accounting classes in community college because I like the numbers (see my other rants about leaving the field and becoming a math teacher), and I was really curious to know how the financial health of the business was.
It wasn't so much a red flag as it was an orangish-yellow that no one ever answered those questions, or that the CFO was distant but not necessarily cagey about my requests for his time; other indicators were good while interviewing--they had multiple fully integrated, paying customers (one of which being a former employer from years ago, which aided me in having strong product familiarity during the job interview), but I guess not enough to be sustainable.
Anyway. I'm gonna use the rest of the week to be a bum, might get out of the city and go hang with friends Pittsburgh, eat some hoagies and just vibe for a while. I've got assets and money stashed up to float pretty easily for a while, plus a bit of fun money so losing the job isn't world ending. Generalized anxiety because everything is going to shit worldwide, but that quickly faded into the backdrop of the generalized anxiety I always have because existentialism or something like that.
Thanks for reading. Pay the teachers.5 -
Long story short a guy texted me on Xing, he had an interesting idea, I joined in and now we are founding a startup.
Short story long, a guy texted me on Xing. I usually don't give a fuck because there always just fucktards that want to offer me modern enslavement. No thanks you lifeless greedy hamsters! (no offense) This time was different though. It was not the usual kind of words and the idea sounded pretty awesome. So I gave it a try.
We met in a Café and talked about the idea and about my role in it. It went pretty well and we basically had a nice little chat, coffee and cake.
I was still not convinced. It sounded to good to be true. Why would something like this ever happen to me? You know that kind of feeling. It was like "Hopefully I'm not selling my soul to the devil now."
We now work on the project, already have 5 customers and are a step before the first financial investment. I'm pretty amazed how that turned out!
Now to disappoint you a bit more (or maybe to give you hope?) All I've worked so far (except that one little one-year internship) happend by, me talking to someone that had a job, me being honest about what I want and me rejecting anything that runed my guts inside out. That's it. I never really applied for something. I just get to know the people and with that comes the opportunity. Just be respectful, curious and honest. The others will notice. Chances rise that you'll find something you love todo.4 -
So I was in an interview for a web developer position in a startup and the interviewer said to me "Do you think you'll be able to help the guys with CAD design?" I have no idea what to say. Does this guy even know what a developer is??!?!? I mean not that I dont know how to use CAD, but I'm applying as a DEVELOPER, not a product designer8
-
== Internship Interview Rant ==
This is the weirdest interview I've been to to be honest because it wasn't really ABOUT ME. It's like the boss is not really interesting in knowing what I can do, what I am capable of doing. He asked me about my educational background for 5 minutes and started explaining about the startup for 45 minutes. He explained how he came up with the idea like it was a children's bedtime story. He explain what the job is, BUT he didn't mention what programming languages they use. All he said was it required knowledge about different programming languages. I tried asking but he seemed to dodge the question for some reason by saying everyone needs to know a little bit of everything. (Srsly i don't even know what to start learning for this) After listening to him talk and talk and talk and talk, he finally said "hey, think about it and send me an email if you are willing to take it up!"
He works with STUDENTS. The team is composed of him and 5 students. o.O They all seem so..... quiet in the office. Is that normal ???? Or like shouldn't everyone be kinda "interactive" sometimes?
So there is a girl working there too for 3 weeks now but SHE IS IN ROMANIA like wtf, gr8 then i guess ill be the only girl there but hey perks of being a girl, u get to be spoiled sometimes XD it happens a lot !
Internship ad ----> Main language: English
Me: *rages internally during the interview and thinks: BRUHH WHY ARENT U SPEAKING IN ENGLISH i prepared what I was gonna say in english for an hour*
I wonder if the code is in english or maybe its not :(( But I wish it were because it would be soooo much easier in english.
And there you go, I guess I have one week to find a better internship or decide to deal with this talkative boss. This isn't exactly a story of my last job cause my last job is totally non-dev related. This is a story of (maybe) my future job unless I actually find a better internship.2 -
So after 7years of sound engineering, I started working as an intern in a startup company which does "anything" for money.
( Sending me to a seminar for taking photos of our customers is also in the list. )
Yesterday, I managed to grasp the basics of node and web sockets to build a simple chat app in order to satisfy boss' needs for a small website. He wanted to add it as a feature and assigned it to me as a task but it turns out nobody has any idea about putting it online. Seems like I still have lot to do.
Thing is, this is my 3rd month and I already started making no sense to anyone when I try to exchange information about coding/programming and latest technologies which we should encountered long ago. I am happy to experience and learn different things but I am feeling really alone.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for boosting me with amazing real life experiences and supporting my career changing decision even without knowing.
Have fun ranting!1 -
"I have a great idea for a messaging app.
But I can't tell you what it is until you agree to make it for me, I can't pay you right now but I'll pay you back when we make tonnes of money!"
My startup idea: you create apps for people with bad ideas and the fees on a 1 year 'loan' with high penalties for failing to pay. Fair right?3 -
When you wanna lunch a product and all domains with good names are taken; and when you find a good domain, the twitter handle is taken by an egg!!
-
I think I might change my middle name to "I told you so"
Couple of weeks ago I proposed integrating a daily process job into an existing WPF application (details of what+why would be too long to explain) and the manager suggested I make the changes
Me: "I can do it, but Jay has the most experience with that application. I don't have his WPF skills"
Mgr: "How hard can WPF be? If it uses the MVVM pattern, it should be a snap."
Me: "Its nearly an 8 year old WPF project with several chefs in that kitchen. I pretty sure I could figure it out, but that is a difference between 2 weeks and 2 days. Integration is pretty straight forward, Jay could probably do it in a day."
DevA: "WPF is easy. MVVM makes it even easier. I worked on the shipping app."
Me: "That's was a brand new, single page app, but yea, it should be easy."
DevB: "WPF has been around a long time and the tools have really matured. I don't understand what is so difficult."
Me: "I didn't say anything would be difficult, I know with that application, there is going to be complexity we need to figure out."
DevB: "It uses the MVVM, so all we need is the user control, a view model, controller, and its done."
DevA: "Sounds easy to me."
Mgr: "If you need more time to work on the vendor project, I'll have DevB work on the integration."
<yesterday>
Me: "How is the integration going?"
DevB: "This app is a mess. I have no idea how they got the control collections to work. If I hard-code everything, I can get it to work. This dynamic stuff is so confusing. Then there is the styling. Its uses dark mode, but no matter what I do, my controls show up in light mode."
Me: "The app uses Prism, so the control configuration is in, or around, the startup code."
DevB: "That makes sense. Will it fix the styling too?"
Me: "I have no idea. When I looked at it, some controls loaded the styles from the main resource, other's have it hard-coded. Different chefs in the kitchen, I guess. How far have you got?"
DevB: "I've created invoice button. That is as far as I got"
Me: "I'm finished with the vendor project and I'll be wrapping up the documentation today. I can try to help next week."
DevB: "Thanks. I think we might have to get Jay to help if we can't figure this out."
Me: "Good idea"
Two weeks and only a button. A button? I miss Delphi.3 -
So a team of 3 went to a hackathon. One of us didn't know how to code, the other just front end and I back end.
So we started with some ideas and choose one, starting to code it.
After we were about 80 precent into it at the end of day 2 (the event had 3 days) one of the coaches came to us, saying our idea is already a launched startup out there and we had to have a change of idea at the beginning of the third day.
Other two completed the simple front-end of the new idea about 7am and went to sleep.
And I, while was awake for 50 hours already, had to code backend of a minipay app from scratch in 10 hours.
That was HARD for a newbie like me, but in the end I did it.
We didn't win anything. But that was a really great experience for me. Plus coffee was provided infinitely there ;)4 -
We are 2 people working as remote android devs for this startup in another country. 6 weeks ago a new person joined onsite to work directly in startup HQ. I'l refer to him as an newguy.
Last week we started new sprint (of 2 weeks) to work on a new feature.
Newguy was responsible for gathering all the specs and planning, so this is how our sprint is going so far:
Day 1:
We have 10+ tickets in jira (tickets have only titles) no one knows what to do and we don't even have specification. I started pushing everybody onsite to get their shit together. We NEED UX/UI specs, we NEED backend to be ready, or at least start working paralelly so that once wer'e done with frontend backend would be ready. I mean cmon guys this feature is already 70% done on iOS, why cant you send us the specification?
Day 2:
We had a meeting on Zoom and talked about missing specification and project manager promised to send us the specs. Meanwhile the idea of feature became clearer so I agreed with the newguy to start researching about best way to implement our solution.
Day 3:
We received the specifications. I provided my research for the feature to the newguy. Turns out the he knew about specification 4-5 days before.
Instead of sharing information with us, he decided to create his own library to do what we want to do and blatantly rejected my research input.
Now he showed his implementaton (which is shit by the way) and presents it as the only way to proceed forward. He offers for us to work paralelly with him on this (basically he wants to write library alone, and we are supposed to somehow implement and test it, but how the fuck we can implement if backend is not ready and library is just a bunch of empty interfaces at this point?)
I talked with one of the teamleads in the startup and told him that this is not the way things were being done here before and new guy is becoming a dictator.
Teamlead talked with new guy and found no issue. Basically newguy defended his sole decision by saying that he did research on his own, there are no libraries that do what we want and he knows better.
Teamlead tells me to STFU because new guy seems competent and he will be leading this feature. Basically from what I gathered teamlead doesn't give a single fuck and wants to delegate all project management to this new guy.
Day 5:
End of the week. New guy claims that his lib is done so we can start implementing properly. I tried implementing his lib but its fucked up and backend is still not ready.
Day 6:
Backend is still not ready, no one is doing anything just waiting for it to be ready.
Day 7 (Today):
Today(Backend is still not ready, no one is doing anything just waiting for it to be ready.
So what can I say? His plan was to probably prove his self worth and try to lead this feature by giving us information at last minute. At the point were we should start implementing instead of researching.
What happened? Motherfucker doesn't know shit about backend, has been notified about backend issues multiple times but his head was so deep up his ass with that new library of his that he delayed the rest of the team.
Result? 7 working days wasted. Out of 3 developers only 1 was actually working (and his fucked up code will have to be rewritten anyways). Only 50% of feature done. Motherfucker tells me that this is how we will work in the future, "paralelly". The fuck is this mate? If you would have worked on this feature alone you would have done it already now, but instead you wait until we remote devs will login and fetch you the test input and talk with backend guys for you? The fuck is wrong with you.
You fucking piece of shit, learn to plan and organize better if you want to lead the team. Now all that you are doing is wasting time, money and getting on everyboys nerves. Im tired of fucking spoon feeding you every day you needy scheming office politics playing piece of shit. Go back to your shithole country and let us work.
When I was responsible for sprint planning I figured out what to do before start of the sprint and remote devs were able to do week's work in 1-2 days and have rest of the week off. This is how it's supposed to be when you work with a remote team. Delegate them separate features, give them proper specs ahead and everyone's happy. Don't start working on frontend if you dont even fucking know when backend will be ready. It's fucking common sense.
Now I need to spoon feed this motherfucker who can't even get information while sitting on his ass onsite in HQ. Fucking hell.8 -
Most memorable co-worker was a daft idiot.
this was 10 years ago - I was working as a junior in my very first job, fresh out of uni, for a very small startup. It was me, and the 3 founders, for a very long time. Then this old (45, from my perspective then..) dev was hired.
This guy had no idea how to do the job. no common sense. the code confused him. the founders confused him. I was focusing on my work - and was unable to help him much with his. His only saving grace? He was a nice guy. Really nice.
But why was he so memorable, out of all the people I ever worked with? simple. He had a short term memory problem. Could not, even if he really tried, remember what he did yesterday.... when I asked him what his issue was, he decribed his life is like a car going in reverse in a heavy fog. "I can only see a short distance backwards, with no idea where I'm going".
Startup was sold to a big company. I became a teamlead/architect. He? someone decided he should be a PM. -
This might be a long post. I need some serious advice.
For the past 6-7 months, My friend and I have been working with these two guys "Managers" on their startup idea. He managed the backend and I was managing the 2 frontend systems for them. The Managers are non-technical.
For the longest time, the Managers were very stubborn on how they wanted things to be implemented in my code or how they wanted something to look. Initially, this was not a bother as we thought that their experience bought some insight that we lacked, but after changing dozens of things back to how we originally made them, we started feeling unhappy. I specifically was more affected by this as most of their changes were related to the front end.
This caused a lot of rifts between us and sometimes led to heated conversations. I won't say that it's all on them. I do have an attitude issue. But then, it's the same with them.
Other than that, one of the Managers is very condescending. He used to talk badly, discredit my work and even say things like "Ohh, so you can't do it" for things that I said will take too much time to implement. This was seriously affecting my mental health.
Nevertheless, we completed the system, which was originally supposed to be just an MVP, over the course of these months and now have our sites up and running with almost 100-200 daily hits. But because it's an e-commerce site, that too with a very different model, the revenue has not started yet.
Yesterday, one of the Managers called me and in so many words told me that I should exit, because of my attitude, with my current equity which is just 3% which amounts to nothing as the company has no value right now. On top of that, I, an idiot, had not taken any remuneration for the first 4 months.
Although I too want to leave, now that I have seen their real face and also because of my mental health. I feel that the system I have made is worth more than 3% equity, way more than that. One of them is a multi-featured seller dashboard to manage products, finances, orders, and a ton of complex features like bulk uploads using excel, image cropping for products, and region selection. The other is a highly optimized dynamic site using Nuxt which is used as the store, with SEO good enough to often list it as one of the top results of various google searches. I'll drop the dev links in the comments if you are interested.
But I don't know how to go about it. I do have complete control over my code and have not signed any formal contract with them, but I feel bad about jeopardizing the company at this stage. Not to mention all that work will just go to waste as well.20 -
I got my dirty fingers on this leak of an AMAZING ML model capable of pondering EVERY PARAMETER IN THE UNIVERSE and saying if your business idea needs improvement or is good to go.
BEHOLD THIS 100% PURE PYTHON SOLUTION:
```python
import random
def magic(*args, **kwargs):
if random.random() > 0.5:
return "Good to go!"
else:
return "Requires improvement on value proposition"
```
This LEAK is from a startup that just received 4 BILLION USD IN VENTURE CAPITAL to improve their AI SYSTEMS.
Literally enough money to solve world hunger forever.
Who else is gonna invest in NEW THERANOS ADVANCED A.I. RESEARCH INTERNATIONAL INC?8 -
I started watching Silicon Valley some days back. Just finished season-1. I'm fucking sad and pissed off right now... No, don't get me wrong...Silicon Valley is good. I loved it.
Problem is, there is an Indian YouTube series called TVF Pitchers which had almost same story as silicon valley. I loved that series, when I watched it in 2015, after completing that I really was very impressive with the channel because of the originality and very off-the-track plot. Now after watching Silicon valley, I'm fucking sad... THEY JUST FUCKING COPY PASTED IT. yeah, some people with their "courtroom skills" will tell me that no it was different story... Fuck you! It was a copy and that's it. They removed Gilfoyle character and there was no product information in entire series... That was the biggest change in it. But overall it was a copy... A fucking copy.
The problem is they themselves, in their other videos, make fun of our movies/songs because of them being copied... Now, they are fucking doing it on their own.
I know it's not much related to devRant. Sorry about that.
Some times back, I joined a startup and they pitched in their idea as if they created it on their own... Later I found out that the same idea is running in a successful Palo Alto based company. And just like TVF Pitchers, they also used to make fun of an Indian e-commerce startup (a big one) because it was a copy of Amazon... THEN WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!!!
I don't know, but for some reason I just fucking hate it. Everybody here is busy copy fucking pasting US. They laugh at others, but they are also same... I'm going through Peter Theil's Zero to One.. and the book is making much more sense to me now.8 -
I've been working like a mad woman in a startup for 3+ years now. They feel like 10. Or at least the tech stacks we went through.
Never, ever join a startup, regardless of compensation, unless you know you can emotionally and mentally recover from that startup failing as if it is yours, not your bosses. Otherwise, it's just a shitty short experience.
My long experience is shitty, but man. I don't know.Those who built google, wanted to make a search engine. Did they know they're gonna be good? NO. This is the result of them being good. They now have that great product that succeeds and is able to become a self-referential piggy bank. You cannot be a self-referential piggy bank based on a fucking belief and idea, and a bunch of VCs who already put money in you. You know why? BECAUSE GUESS WHO IS THE ONE RESPONSIBLE FOR SUSTAINING YOUR START UP NOW?
The bloods and passions of youth, that join your startup, thinking they can make a difference, and you just undermine them constantly thinking that no engineer can make a difference if they can't ensure compliance with your dumb funding strategy.
Don't even get me started on the fact that most people who work for startups, rely on either laziness or passion. It's like a bunch of kids in art school, whose professor doesn't like anything they make, but they still kinda like it hoping one day they leave and become artists themselves. Then they discover that this shit professor actually taught them nothing about creativity in the real world, and what it takes to push something out.
And, it finally fucking hit me.
The reason startups will never work in this year, and beyond, AND TILL I SEE A CHANGE IN ATTITUDE IN 10 YEARS.....
The market won't fucking allow it with the current strategy tech companies are a fan of: hire a bunch of passionate devs who wanna learn a tool through doing our unique work. Doesn't matter. DIVERSITY. THE UNION IS THE PASSION. That's dumb as fuck.
Why?
Here:
- Passionate people do not have to use passion as an incentive, the passion was there, and them getting their idea made or money is the incentive
- If you hire a passionate person - even if they are the fucking best - you just made their passion a tool, in getting your PRs done and shit epics scoped AT BEST, and so the tools you're teaching them to use are getting away with doing less impactful, productive, creative work.
I AM SO DEPRESSED.3 -
!rant this is just a shoutout, how fucking happy I am. Clean code valued over fast but hacky push of features!
Backstory. I work for a startup. Long story short a guy with an idea needed a developer. I've worked for about a year without pay but now since we're live I get paid. Recently a new field of bussiness came up. I told tge guy with the idea (a.k.a. my boss) that we either could just "hack" the current code to just make it "fit" well kind of... Or refactor our main code base, as requirements where changing at least monthly and we just built on top of the monolith.
Don't get me wrong. It still isn't perfect. However I was able to refactor the main business logic for the last few days, as he understood, it's an investment into the future.
Good guy!
P.S. On another note: happiness or happyness? :O1 -
So this happened a few days ago.
Me: (chilling like a mo'fucka then suddenly an email alert)
*Opens email and realises it's from a recruiter*
Recruiter: We are a venture-based startup out of LA, funded by a top VC. We have developed the first turnkey Serverless Swift platform for app development.
We are looking at expanding our team and we have a few different openings for remote and contract work.
Simply reply to this email with your resume attached.
Me: Thanks for reaching out and presenting me with this opportunity.
I plan on going back to school this January and for that reason I humbly have to bow out.
I will surely keep an eye out for {company_name}. The idea is rather interesting I should say.
*I go back to chilling like a mo'fucka*
*The next day I'm at work, I get an email from the same recruiter again*
Recruiter: Thank you for submitting your resume.
We are expanding our team and are looking for Swift rockstars to join the movement of bringing server-side Swift to the masses.
We were impressed by your resume and wanted to get to know you better. This survey is the first step in that process.
Please take a moment and complete. It should not take longer than 10 minutes.
Me: ...........................
*Calmly walks away from my desk to the bathroom*
WHAT FUCKING RESUME HAVE I SUBMITTED TO YOU? BITCH, MY EMAIL EXPLICITLY SAID: THANKS BUT NO THANKS...
You can't just force an applicant3 -
Just got access to OpenAI beta. This thing is seriously impressive. The attached image shows it summarizing a paragraph from Friedrich Nietzsche. Apart from that, I have tried summarizing a complex Math Algo which I found on Wikipedia, getting specs for building a new PC, and also improving my Startup Idea. The results were astonishing. I can't imagine what possibilities it can have in the future.
At the same time, I can clearly see why they are not allowing open access to their APIs. The potential for abuse is so high here. Especially when most of our population is full of digital idiots. -
Developer dilemma:
1) Tell people that they don't need code to get their startup idea off the ground
2) Make up an excuse to code something useless -
I’ve been self-employed for the past three years. Though I did spend my first year out of college working for a three person, now-defunct startup, I’ve never had a typical 9-5 (or more like 10-8 nowadays) and to be honest, never really wanted one. Lara Schenck, LLC is a profitable business, and every day I do work that is enjoyable and challenging. I make my own hours, take vacations when I want to, and run everything on my terms.
While that’s all awesome, what you don’t get from working independently is the team experience. I base my work on teaching technical literacy to non-technical designers and content producers so that they can better communicate with developers. The theory is that if a designer understands why it’s a bad idea to request 18 fonts, and if content producers know why it’s not trivial to edit the titles of a set of related posts, life will be easier for everyone. At least that’s my theory, and the assumption on which I’ve developed my business.
Lately though, in a bout of the good ‘ol impostor syndrome, I’ve been feeling like, wait, how can I be telling people how to work on teams if I’ve never really worked on one? I’ve always been the ‘Lead UI/UX/Visual/Web/Front-end Designer-person-thing’, and have never worked for a larger company with separate teams for product, UX, marketing, content, frontend, backend, etc.
So I felt the urge to look for a job, and a seemingly perfect one fell into my lap. It was for an awesome company, and it sounded right up my alley skill-wise. The title was ‘UX Engineer/Interaction Designer’. I usually balk at the the term “engineer” (perhaps for good reason) but considering the presence of “designer” and the nature of the job post, I wasn’t too bothered.9 -
A client is offering me just equity for their startup. I do like the idea and the research they've put behind it, but I'm also looking at a timeline of 3 months for just the MVP and almost 6 months to an year to get paid. Should I go for it?
I'm in a decent financial situation rn, so money isn't that big a thing and I'm pretty young, so that's on my side. But still, 6 months+ of my time without any renumeration is nothing to scoff at9 -
How to get funding for your startup in India?
Just sprinkle a little bit of blockchain on your project idea. Done 😂😂 -
Prequel to my previous post:
I received an offer from a startup that did not meet the originally advertised salary range. In every other aspect this place seemed like where I'd enjoy working the most and each previous interaction made a very good impression on me. So needless to say this was quite a shock.
They immediately apologised and explained the situation. They only now started to expand to and hire from my location (which can be verified) and I would be the very first person from this location (seems true too but I could only really verify this after joining). They explained the salary range I had seen was for their main hub location (accurate too) and said that the recruiter who posted the ad did not adjust it to mine. I asked why tf they didn't notify me of this earlier and they said they are super busy with everything, are new to location based salaries and normally don't check the recruiters posts as it should be her work.
Now, even if this is totally true, it was an awful sudden shock and felt a bit like a scam - totally contradicting my previous impressions.
Here are a couple of other points that I'll just sum to save time:
- before seeing the job ad I had a *reasonable* salary expectation even lower than their actual offering
- on the ad, the bottom end of their salary range far exceeded my reasonable exp.
- the relative level of my position would be even higher up the range that I have seen realised would be top 5%
- having had seen the ad, I started to have an *ideal* expectation being the bottom of the range
- in first interview I told them my exp. is the bottom end of their range +- a bit
- I told this to a dev guy who has no fucking idea about this stuff and I don't blame him but he noted this down to higher management
- generally I have not been very precise of my expectation as previously I only had lower class dev jobs, this would be the first decent.
- Hence I have seen an enormously high variation in salaries offered to me so this advertised range whilst high seemed possible
Now, with all this in mind I posted here a question about what some of you would do in my position.
I received the following group of responses:
- it's a scam, bad place, run
- it's an intentional (common) trick
- people make mistakes like this esp. startups so find out if this is intentional or not
- just decide if their current offering is reasonable for the position and location, ignore the rest
- just decide if the amount is enough
- location based salaries are retarded, don't work there (I kinda agree and also don't)
- if they can afford the higher pay in another place they should have no prob. meeting the range
- it's more important that you'd enjoy it there if the pay is sufficient for general needs
- company culture is generally more important these days
- fuck recruiters and hr people (amen to that btw)
Here is what I did:
Regardless of whether I believe them or not I hyperfocused on the potential scam/trick aspect.
I told them that every other interaction with them was positive and would love to join them but this was a really bad impression and feels like they are playing with me. I made up some bullshit previous examples of companies trying the same trick on me (which obv. never happened).
Then I said that I think to resolve this they should invite me to their main office for a day (all interviews had been online) and if after that they are still not ok to offer me at least the bottom of the adv. range then we can part ways. Otherwise this should ensure both of us that we are a good match, etc.
They seemed to love the idea and said that I should go there for x till y (3 days) and if we don't hate each other by the end I'll get the amount at the bottom of the range and they apologised again about it looking like a scam, etc.
So thanks a bunch again to those of you who provided valuable input. -
Have a question about my career:
So far my career out of uni has been like this:
8 months in first place working as C# .NET dev, creating native desktop apps for windows. job was shitty, was not getting any best practices skills so I left.
12 months in 2nd place working as android dev in a startup. was working all alone and had to rebuilt my app up to 5-6 times to learn best practices. startup didnt care about android app at all so I left and now doing just some small freelance work for them.
3 months in new startup as android dev.Today I was told that its decided to focus on iOS and do all marketing (also uplift of new design) only on iOS. basically for next 3-4 months they don't plan to do much on android side. they saw that I showed some interest in backend and now they are asking me to talk with two other senior guys about starting with some small tasks for me on backend.
Our backend is mainly using python. Also backend guys will be pretty busy for next few months because they will have to deliver many new features in next few upcoming months. I've talked with one of them and he said that this is a bad idea to force frontend to start working on backend. However I feel that he's sort of gateekeping and probably just doesn't want to help me with getting up to speed.
In my defense, my knowledge doesn't end with C# .NET desktop apps and native mobile apps for android.
I have hobbie projects (gameservers) where I worked on websites (php,html,css,javascript,mysql) and also was taking care of a java based gameserver which is hosted in a linux vps.
Also I've had a small hosting "company" where with available tools I've managed to automate VPS(virtual private server) ordering, web hosting ordering and domain ordering. Basically I owned a dedicated server and did everything using whmcs, cpanel and proxmox virtualization.
I trust myself in learning this backend stuff and doing whats required, however I learned everything by myself and I won't follow all of these best practices.
Should I accept more responsibility on backend or should I continue focusing on android?7 -
Working with a group on a startup idea. We have weekly Google chat meetings with the full team and sometimes me and the other two founders have side calls. Our group is getting bigger so the weekly is getting longer so the 3 of us were talking about ways to make them more efficient. One was, background distractions like TV, random people talking in bg, kids...
So then yesterday the 3 of us went over a different topic and the guy who had brought up the distraction issue was in the bathroom shaving and trimming nose hairs the whole time. He kept asking questions about the agenda which we all had access to. I shouldn't even care much. I drink through the meetings anyways.2 -
Nope, I haven't built a startup. I lack:
Product Idea
Funding
Motivation
Basically all of what's required.5 -
When the CTO/CEO of your "startup" is always AFK and it takes weeks to get anything approved by them (or even secure a meeting with them) and they have almost-exclusive access to production and the admin account for all third party services.
Want to create a new messaging channel? Too bad! What about a new repository for that cool idea you had, or that new microservice you're expected to build. Expect to be blocked for at least a week.
When they also hold themselves solely responsible for security and operations, they've built their own proprietary framework that handles all the authentication, database models and microservice communications.
Speaking of which, there's more than six microservices per developer!
Oh there's a bug or limitation in the framework? Too bad. It's a black box that nobody else in the company can touch. Good luck with the two week lead time on getting anything changed there. Oh and there's no dedicated issue tracker. Have you heard of email?
When the systems and processes in place were designed for "consistency" and "scalability" in mind you can be certain that everything is consistently broken at scale. Each microservice offers:
1. Anemic & non-idempotent CRUD APIs (Can't believe it's not a Database Table™) because the consumer should do all the work.
2. Race Conditions, because transactions are "not portable" (but not to worry, all the code is written as if it were running single threaded on a single machine).
3. Fault Intolerance, just a single failure in a chain of layered microservice calls will leave the requested operation in a partially applied and corrupted state. Ger ready for manual intervention.
4. Completely Redundant Documentation, our web documentation is automatically generated and is always of the form //[FieldName] of the [ObjectName].
5. Happy Path Support, only the intended use cases and fields work, we added a bunch of others because YouAreGoingToNeedIt™ but it won't work when you do need it. The only record of this happy path is the code itself.
Consider this, you're been building a new microservice, you've carefully followed all the unwritten highly specific technical implementation standards enforced by the CTO/CEO (that your aware of). You've decided to write some unit tests, well um.. didn't you know? There's nothing scalable and consistent about running the system locally! That's not built-in to the framework. So just use curl to test your service whilst it is deployed or connected to the development environment. Then you can open a PR and once it has been approved it will be included in the next full deployment (at least a week later).
Most new 'services' feel like the are about one to five days of writing straightforward code followed by weeks to months of integration hell, testing and blocked dependencies.
When confronted/advised about these issues the response from the CTO/CEO
varies:
(A) "yes but it's an edge case, the cloud is highly available and reliable, our software doesn't crash frequently".
(B) "yes, that's why I'm thinking about adding [idempotency] to the framework to address that when I'm not so busy" two weeks go by...
(C) "yes, but we are still doing better than all of our competitors".
(D) "oh, but you can just [highly specific sequence of undocumented steps, that probably won't work when you try it].
(E) "yes, let's setup a meeting to go through this in more detail" *doesn't show up to the meeting*.
(F) "oh, but our customers are really happy with our level of [Documentation]".
Sometimes it can feel like a bit of a cult, as all of the project managers (and some of the developers) see the CTO/CEO as a sort of 'programming god' because they are never blocked on anything they work on, they're able to bypass all the limitations and obstacles they've placed in front of the 'ordinary' developers.
There's been several instances where the CTO/CEO will suddenly make widespread changes to the codebase (to enforce some 'standard') without having to go through the same review process as everybody else, these changes will usually break something like the automatic build process or something in the dev environment and its up to the developers to pick up the pieces. I think developers find it intimidating to identify issues in the CTO/CEO's code because it's implicitly defined due to their status as the "gold standard".
It's certainly frustrating but I hope this story serves as a bit of a foil to those who wish they had a more technical CTO/CEO in their organisation. Does anybody else have a similar experience or is this situation an absolute one of a kind?2 -
Hello, world!
Okay, guys and gals... I need your creative minds. I need a concept for sort of a property manager for my game.. I have an idea of my own, feel free to tear it apart or throw it out the window.
So basically.. You'll no longer have one Computer System (and you wont instantly hit the login screen for that System on startup) Instead, you'll have a lot of things. They will probably only be represented using text and menu's (likely no 3D or 2D environments or anything.. Though, a setup like News Tycoon would be epic, but I think that would be too much for this game.) You'll basically start off with a small space (probably a basement) with x amount of free space. In that space, you'll need to add things like a desk, chair, and a laptop, or tower + monitor. You can also buy things like server rigs with a ton of space, but those are pricy and bulky. Each item costs X amount and takes up X amount of space. Also, you'll need a desk for a monitor (or multiples..) and other things.. (Like your rubber duck collection ;P JK) You can also rent and manage servers. (renting is more exspensive in the long run, but things on your server are not on your property. But, if you own a server on your property you can rent space to to NPCs) As well as manage your devices, properties, stocks, etc..
Also, there will be in-game time. Depending on how "comfortable" you are will determine how long you can stay up in a day. In-game events will take place later on at specific times so staying up (or not..) will need to be managed well. Especially if you're being targeted by a rival (NPC) hacker.7 -
Recent discussion with ele gave me an idea to post this question here.
Which type of company should a fresh CS graduate work for? A corporate or a startup or a SME.
My advice for newbies is on SME for first few years. Then decide on your own based on your personality and career goals for future years.16 -
!rant
So, when I was young, I wanted to be a freelancing nomad. You know, live the live, work remote and travel.
But I didn't have the bones to pursue that. After 10 years of struggling as a normal "programmer", I did a little of everything. I did normal boring "erp maintenance" in C#, Oracle and some legacy stuff called Visual WEB GUI , which was fun, but required a full 9,5 hours work day, 8:00 am to 6:30pm, and the bosses where squares, and I was young and wanted to try something out of the corporate world.
Then I did some work for a newly funded consulting company that used python, Django, and postgresql, but the bosses promised a lot and delivered none, (I was supposed to work backend and have frontend support, which I did not have, and that hurt my productivity and bosses instead of looking at what they promised but did not deliver, they just discounted my salary 3 months in a row, so Bye bye MFs!!
Then I did some remote work for some guys, that, I managed to sustain for a whole year, the pay was good, the stack was simple, just node.js and pug templates, that gig was good, but communication with the bosses was hard, and eventually things started to get hard for them and me, and we had to say farewell to each other, I miss those guys. This is the only time I remember having fun working, I could work whenever I wanted, I only had to reach the weekly goals, and then my time was mine, I could work from home in the odd hours, or rent a chair in a co working space if I wanted to socialize.
Then fate got me one big gig with a multinational company, and I could hire some people, but I delegated too much and was asking too little of myself, and that project eventually died because I did not know how to negotiate.
So, I quit the whole entrepreneur idea, and got a public job at my University, I was a public employee with all the perks, but none of the fun, I just had to clock-in, work, and clock-out. That experience led me to discover a lot of myself, I worked as a public employee for a year and a half, and in that time, I discovered more about myself than what I learnt in 27 years of previous life experience.
Then, I grew bored of that life, and wanted some action, and I found more than enough fun in a VC funded startup ran by young narcissists that did not have a clue of what they were doing, I helped them organize themselves into "closing stuff", you know, finish the things you say you have finished. Just to give you an idea of what it was like before I got there, the were working for 3 months already on this project, they had on paper 50% of the system done and working, when I tried to use the app, I couldn't even sign-up without hacking some database commands, (this was supposedly done). So I spent a month there teaching these guys how to finish stuff, they got, Sign Up, (their sign up was a mess, it is one of those KYC rich things, that financial apps have), Login, and some core functionality working in a month, while in the previous 4 months they only did parallel work, writing endpoints that were not tried, and an app that did not communicate with the backend. But the bosses weren't happy with me, because I told them time and time again that we were not going to reach the goal they needed to reach to keep receiving funds from the investors, and I had to quit before it became a mayhem of toxic employer/employee relationship.
So now I decided to re-engage with life, I have funds to survive about a month and half, I have a good line of credit in case I need some more funds, and the time of the world.
So wish me luck!!! And I'll be posting often, because I would like opinions, hear from people with similar life experiences and share anecdotes.
Next post, it's going to be about how I discovered taskwarrior, and how implemented my first weekend following some of the aspects of GTD to do all my housekeeping chores, because, I think that organizing myself will be key to survive as a freelancer nomad. -
Article 13 has gone through.
If you have a startup idea, move outside the EU to avoid millions of dollars of copyright fines.
Get the memes, get tor, get vpns, research how people get around the great firewall of china, because the EU just asked china to hold its beer.
I pity whoever's job it is to implement this piece of shit.12 -
HELP, ITS A MESS!!
Here is a thing : 30 hours ago, i was completely free nd useless .Had a lot of reminders to open source & learn new techs for upcoming summer vacations .
But day before yesterday my friend called me to say that he got a 6 month internship in web from some (not so big) startup and they were looking for some Android dev too, so he gave my name and wanted me to mail him my resume.
I did, and within half an hour he called, discussed about the work and wanted to test me.(as i said i didn't had plans for internship , leave alone a sudden test, but the company was work from home so i didn't denied ) The test was a big one but easy, he wanted me to design 15 UI activities for an app by looking at the wireframe. I asked for next 6 hours, did it in 4.5 and submitted him the repo...
THE TROUBLE STARTS NOW...
1) He seemed impressed i guess, coz the next day when he saw my message, he Created a group of 5 people within a few minutes and started assigning tasks(?!) And in the personal chat what he said was just weird : "You are the lead for this project" (WTF??!?)
2)I had already mentioned him that i currently had exams so won't be doing any much of practical work but after every few grp messages, he was trying to assign me some task and a deadline. Weirdly, the test was actually a wireframe based on the project idea from some of their client , and just to show my skills, i have designed layouts of 15 of their activities of their app.
3) The negetive part comes like this: THERE IS NO MONEY AND ITS A 6 MONTH INTERNSHIP !! Fed up of this continues indirect deadlines, i asked him What's my responsibilities as a team dev, what will be my tenure and what will be the pay to which he replies that:
"there is no stipend for this, we have multiple projects lined up in which you can contribute and your internship period is 6 months which could be increased/decreased on the basis of your performance. You will get a PPO, Internship certificate , mentor support and intellectual code rights (which i am guessing means my 2 word name in the about pages of the apps i develop for them ) .And as a lead , you will be getting an experience in leadership skills "
I am really confused. Work from home seems like a relaxing thing , and being a team lead for the first time definitely would make me a little more confident. But why does it feel to be kind of fraud plan? Plus there is no pay and i would be ignoring my creativity ideas for this (not completely but i am sure anyone giving a job would expect some work from me eceryday ).
WHAT SHOULD I DO???3 -
so the startup I used to work on, that ngl had an amazing product, is on its last legs.
It already was when I was let go coz they couldnt afford a full-time staff anymore but now they cant even sustain 0-staff company (ie just CEO/COO/investors remain)
It got millions of USD as grant in some competetion they won before I joined so both the idea and the product were good
Only thing that sucked was the CEO's attitude and their abhorent marketting skills and priorities
ANYWAY. It's bitter-sweet. Even the most well-made of products can fail just coz of the person-at-top not taking the right decisions at the right time.
And all my nudging could do was delay its eventual collapse2 -
Hey just brainstorming a business/ startup idea I may try out sometime down the line. I wanted to put it in writing available to my peers for review. If that sounds boring, sorry.
So I've had an idea and I know it's a million dollar idea because it's absolutely boring as fuck.
Recently I have been learning about NoSQL and it has gotten me pretty excited about unstructured data.
Now the first thing you should know about me is I like to make business software. I don't like games or social networks or blah blah blah, I like business stuff. One dream I have always had is to make THE business solution. I've noticed so many specific business solutions for very specific areas of work. Specific software for car washes, which is separate from the software for car maintenance, which is separate from the point-of-sales software, which is separate from the [...]
One of the problems with this is the inconsistency. Modular is good, but only if the modules are compatible. They aren't. Training needs to be provided for each individual system since they are all vastly different. And worst of all, since all of these different applications reach their own niche market, they charge out the butt for things that are usually very simple "POST a form over http(s)" machines.
I mean let's not get too dreamy here. My solution is an over-complicated form-builder. But it would be a game-changer for small and medium-sized businesses. Allowing users to build their own front-end and back-end disguised as a drag-and-drop form builder would be THE alternative, because they could bring all of their solutions into a single solution (one bill!) and since THEY are the ones that build what they need, they can have custom business software for the price of a spreadsheet program.
The price difference we could offer would be IMMENSE. Not only would we be able to offer "cookie-cutter" pricing as opposed to "custom" pricing, but since this generic solution could be used for essentially all of their systems, we aren't just decreasing one bill. We're decreasing one bill, and eliminating the rest entirely. We could devastate competition.
"BUT ALGO", you scream in despair, "USERS AREN'T SMART ENOUGH TO DRAG AND DROP FORM PARTS TO MAKE A FORM"
I mean ya true. But you say that like it's a bad thing. For one, we can just offer a huge library of templates. And for another, which is part of the business plan, we can charge people support dollars to help them drag and drop their stupid fucking forms!! Think of the MONEEYYYY YOU COULD MAKEE BY EXPLAINING HOW TO COLLECT FIRST AND LAST NAMEEE. Fuck.
The controls library would be extensible of course. You would be able to download different, more specialized controls if you need them. But the goal would be to satsify those needs with the standard collection of controls (Including interesting ones line barcode scanner and signature input and all that). But if all else fails, maybe someone made an open source control for you to implement and ignore that stupid donation button. We all do.
This could PURGE the world of overpriced and junky specialized business software, and best of all, it's aimed at smaller businesses. With smaller businesses making more profit, they will stay afloat better and may start to compete with their larger foes. Greater for the entire economy.
Anyways, I'm sure it's full of holes. Everything always is. But I still think it's something I'll try before I die.24 -
startup idea : job offer email as a service
basically a company which will send you a fake offer letter email, so you can try negotiating better salary from your current org.
high risk high rewards game3 -
i have an idea today for find job as Junior:
First of all, startups usually hire senior devs only for two reasons:
1) is critical to their business, they need people that will ensure the project will be done no matter what, seniors usually brings that to the table.
2) The startups that raise some founding, usually have 100k+ raised, that money is basically enough for hire Seniors for some time without troubles, taking into account they will usually be highly profitable in the mid term, it is not a big deal to take the risk
Today startups, at least the most interesting ones, play the game in God Mode due to that founds raising, it is like having a max level character in some MMO with insane amounts of gold, you will buy only the best gear with that gold, not the low level gear, why you want to buy low level stuff, if you can buy the best of the best? that is why Juniors are not likely to have a place in startups, they can pay the Seniors.
But, there a situation in what an startup will wish to hire some Juniors, this is situation is, when they have never raised founds, they have no Cheat Mode, this ones are usually startups that have just few weeks or months of being created, and they need the MVP ASAP, this startups usually already have one or two Mid/Senior level engineers, but they have a very highly benefit from having a Junior in their team, this guy will no take any part in the Cake, will only work for lot less money and will discharge some stuff from the Seniors (Taking into account that is a minimum competent Junior).
Here is where Juniors can get jobs, at least for start their careers, and taking into account that thousands of new startups are created every year, this is a major market.
Ok, i already test that this approach if viable, i send requests to 5 startups that meets the conditions, and got response from 4! still not make a deal, but this is a lot more than 0 response after 2 dozen of applications to more stablished startups.
What you think about this? maybe this is just the jobless syndrome attacking me fuck8 -
I was talking to my non tech friend, one friend of her who is working at one big kind of MNC (Mobile network companies) asked me what do you use in VFox.
I have no fucking idea what's VFox. I said I have no idea what is, we don't use it. He immediately asked me what technologies you guys are using (I am working in a startup)?
I said we are using Ruby, Ruby On Rails and Python, Djanho. He said you use all the old technologies.
I was like: WTF :😂, Okay tell me what are the new technologies? My friend interrupted us.
Later I googled to see what is VFox. It is actually a hosting company and this guy who don't even have any idea about AWS, GCP, using VFox saying Ruby and Python are old technologies. Lol.. -
So I just thought that we now have all the technologies to create a drone that picks my used coffee glass from my table, puts it in the dish washer and brings me a new one, but we just need someone lazy enough to master these technologies and put it in production 🙄1
-
!rant
Well kinda, more like first world problems.
I started freelancing almost three years ago, it took a lot of hard work, sweat blood and tears to get this whole thing running.
I am currently in a very good place, have a lot of retainer contracts and the awesome freedom that comes with being a freelancer.
Two days ago I got an offer from one of my clients, they really want to have me on board, full time, it's a small, already established startup company, that has big clients, they want me to go into partnership with them, see still haven't talked numbers but they are very "generous".
the idea is to get me ASAP full time on board and start working on a partnership contract specifying all the small details.
I love being a freelancer, the freedom is amazing, client acquisition is Eons away from being a problem, but I miss the team work, and I miss working on products and building teams, freelancers are kind of a lone wolves.
I love working with these clients, there is a lot of mutual respect, they are very transparent and we really are on the same wave.
This could be an amazing opportunity for the next steps in my carrier.
I'm having a hard time making a decision, I'm basically changing my mind about it every two hours...
I mean I guess I'm planning to open my own company at some point anyways... so maybe going into a small but stable company is the way to go..
What would you do?
Would you take the offer? Or would you keep freelancing?11 -
working at an MNC is like dating the hottest girl in campus. everyone stares at you, but only you know of the tantrums and the expenses that you have to take.
Every random aunty and uncle I come across gets a wide smile on their face when i tell them my company's parent company name. i goto this temple , and there, one uncle was introducing me to his wife "meet X ji's son , he is at Y company" .
previously when i worked at a startup, most of the time , people were like "huh? what does this company do?" and when i would explain them how our DBs are sending billions of notifications and interaction each second, they would be like "oh , so you work at IT" , YES DUDE, YOU WANNA GIVE YOUR DAUGHTER'S HAND NOW?
And this mentality is sick. i loathe the place where i currently work. i loved my previous org and now am just here coz my mom is too scared to let her son live in a different state.
The only reason a person works in a company is money and WLB. Indian service based MNCs don't give a penny more than basic industry standards. and when they want their employees to be available 2 days a week + x number of days when any CEO , ED or other sugar daddy is coming to office, you get an idea of the shitty Work life balance.
my previous company was a b2b startup, it always paid me more than industry standards and we had wfh until a notification came to enforce hybrid working bh end of 2024. till now not a single person from my team has relocated. All i had to do was to *plan* for living in a state and my mom got cold feet :/
i think so much about my future. i earn decent, so i wanna spend it to live and grow.
i wanna go party at friday nights and go on night outs. i wanna meet this cute school crush at anytime after office and don't worry about the 9 pm curfew. i wanna go look for a new home in a different area and get out of this parking hellhole. i wanna prepare for exams and do a hugher studies from aborad.
everything needs money and growth mindset. money makes money and i am trying to earn every minute. but a chained mind cannot fly . a non growth mindset will not let you evolve. and someone needs to tell it to people who control my every . fucking. action
i have seen people switching from one big name to another. i personally feel that you are just too comfortable in the environment of big names and deliberately ignoring the smaller names which are doing the actual build fast and break reality stuff. reward is proportional to risk and if you are okay with just attributing to a big name, then that's on you20 -
!rant
Stake in a Start-up
I have two of my friends who have planned on a start-up. These guys are engineers but have no coding expertise. How much stake should I ask for?
P.S: I've studied the market as well as the proposal and have planned on working on it.6 -
TL;DR: I have some rambly shit to say...
Update on the Uni stuff: I think I got a pass in all the subjects. Two exams left but I am holding on. It's a big deal to me since last year I could barely do a single subject per semester - a subject I had failed a few times because of lack of interest and good ol' depression. Anyways, I persisted with that subject, got my Bachelor's in Food Technology and now I'm doing that Master's of mine... It probably looks wild to people here that I did that switch but I have always had a relationship with computers as long as I remember myself. So it's not surprising that as soon as I got a choice in what I *actually* wanted to do I chose this kinda thing. But I do have to rant that it took me 10 fucking years to choose! And that I did not choose it before choosing food technology which I will probably never use anyways. I wasted so much of my energy and time on that. I did elect programming as one of the subjects while doing food tech but I really should have moved to something else. But oh well. Guess I had to find out the hard way.
For all those reading, this is what it looks like when you're 30, have very little experience in doing programming for anything else than academics and are doing a major career switch through studies after struggling for 10 years with a 4-year Bachelor's. But such is life.
Also a bit off topic but I just cannot handle people not telling what they mean because of the inability or lesser ability to tell what that is in the first place.
I can't deal with the fact of how fucked human societies are. I just can't. I am way too nice for it. So I listen to stuff like true crime to really get a feel of how evil people can be. I know it's ~problematic~ or whatever, but to me it is a way of engaging with the lesser spoken side of human beings.
And maybe, just maybe, I should get checked for ADHD again because I feel like despite my therapy for depression, nothing really has changed with the ADHD symptoms I was diagnosed with. And maybe for autism since people have labelled me that way and it might explain some stuff... All that is to say I need some good mental care. And this society is shit for it. Hell, apparently one of the psychologists I was under the care of thought depression resulted from ungratefulness. All this while I was legit being abused. But that abuse has stopped now that I found a psychologist that is actually standing up for me. I just mourn for all the time I spent being depressed and how it fucked my memory and stuff. How much it affected me and all. I have no idea why I'm being this vulnerable but it feels somewhat fitting... How do you cope with being 30 and not remembering almost all your life? What you remember being what you managed to write down or has been negative enough it stuck in the brain for forever...
Just why am I fucking supposed to be all happy and shit when I am just tired of life because it is too goddamn much? I have no real reason to look forward to things, online friends and the offline one included. Because ultimately, I have no damn motivation to look forward to anything, really. I am supposedly doing better but in reality I am just getting better at going through the motions. The therapy, while mindblowingly effective, is not actually addressing the core cause of everything and just expecting me to fake it till I make it. And this is me saying that about CBT. Why should I have to tell myself things just to feel human? I am one and as long as I'm alive, nothing will change that. So why do I have to always feel like an alien wherever I am? So out of touch with myself that I don't have a self image or an ability to even tell what the actual fuck I want from life... I am getting better with the latter, but still. It hurts. I wanna shed so many tears but I'm frustratingly unable to do so.
I am just a human trying to human in this ocean of 8 billion humans. Maybe I will find some more connections, maybe I won't.
I wanna end this rambling session by a few things:
1. I will have to go to Canada at some point this year to see my in-laws and some other family over there...
2. I will probably have to seek a job there (for financial reasons it is much better for me to have one there and to work remotely in Georgia) and I have no idea of where to start since I am not the greatest material for it.
3. Life is going alright-ish.
4. I will hear from the startup company at some point this month.
5. I have plans for my future but no idea if they will ever come true at this point.
6. My family arrangement will have to change in more ways than one.
7. I should resume my unofficial first music album and engage in creative stuff because at the core, I have a need to do so.
8. Do I really have to do Duolingo again? I really want to not forget German and Russian, but I just never have practice. And Duolingo is surprisingly easy to forget to do for me.
The end.2 -
I have this fried that gives me some advice on how to find work, he said i need to come up with a project idea as something to put on my CV and also as a way to learn front-end dev.
Easy enough if not for the fact that this project should be something that's actually useful and has some concept behind it (like, something that might seemingly work for a startup)
I've been raking my brain for a week now, and all i can come up with is small meme projects, neat but sort of inconsequential experiments, or things that might be useful to me but have no reason to be web-based.
I never realized how hard it is for me to come up with professional-sounding project ideas :D
I'm just not that kind of guy, i don't really have the drive or motivation to do anything professional: If people wanna use my rice or whatever spaghetti software i create they are welcome to, i'll even write them some documentation, but its just kinda out there on the internet because i like sharing. I don't really have any grand product ideas, nor do i really care about what other people think or need.3 -
i have a very casual and boring job. it's a b2b company and you can get an idea of how less work we get (or how fast i am) that it's day 1 of the sprint and i have almost finished all my tickets. my manager always praises me as someone fast whereas i see myself as pretty slow and this company even slower.
i feel like quitting, but the relax environment and stability of the company on paper makes me wonder of that would be a correct decision.
It's a deep tech company (not just meat e commerce or car rentals, a proper b2b analytics giant startup with good profitability) , our sdks are used by major startups and yet i find it boring.
I am an android dev who would love to stay at top of the game. my previous company used latest jetpack libraries, kotlin, modular architectures and stuff. everyday was a hectic chaos of life where there were deadlines, new requests coming in every few days and i was becoming the awesome fast android dev that i am now.
in this company there is no challenge for me.But the amount of free time has helped me grow beyond a single domain. i am currently hustling in 3 areas : my body( i started working out regularly, got my tummy under control), my technical skillset( started taking web dev classes) and my physical skillset (started taking driving and swimming lessons) . the amount of self growth time increases since company has a good leave and PTO policy
it all feels pretty good but the constant feeling of being left out from the android domain makes me think if i should give interviews. am i being stupid or what? my friends are all growing up with better salaries and packages. i am way better than some of them and equally capable as a few of them, so i sometimes feel being behind in finances too :/7 -
Me: (lying peacefully with my legs touching sky and scrolling through some tutorials on my phone)
Dad: (frustrated seeing me in that posture) Everyone should be given a phone and you should start making something like a head gear that will hold that thing on thier eyes! Isn't that a "cool idea" you keep looking for your startup?
Me:1 -
I hate that i feel like I should be coming up with the next great tech innovation just because I'm in the industry. The onus is put on us to create the next Facebook and make a success of it, when no one would expect an electrician to create the next light bulb or a store worker to create the next great product. Why do we put this pressure on ourselves?rant startup tech developer devrant pressure success we can't all be the next zuckerburg random idea1
-
I was under fire right now.
One cellular company, Idea, whose Internet service works really good, was blocking port 22.
And other, BSNL, which works terrible at my home, and is not working recently, since last few days( Maybe be data pack was over ), atleast support port 22.
Just got the call from client who has to send sms to all its clients, immediately. So BSNL was not working. And Idea was not supporting port 22.
Still, I gave IDEA Cellular, a try, and luckily it worked today. They started supporting port 22, at the right time.
My ASS is Saved -
Startup idea #318 - App that runs in the background while coding.. if a file has more than 150 lines prevent the user from typing more in it!
Oh and also check if the code has tabs/spaces and limit them accordingly. If user uses both prevent them from typing in it!4 -
Well it's not exactly a startup idea but something that I and my team built during my first-ever hackathon.
The theme was to build some tools for developers to improve their speed and be more productive.
In our team we were some bunch of students who just knew how to build a basic front end and a little bit of backend and we came up with an application that lets developer query any command line shortcut through his voice and the website will return the keyboard shortcut for that. For example the developer can ask what is the shortcut for splitting the view into two halves in vs code and the website will look it up in database and give back the shortcut
Now when I look back it feels so funny. I still remember that the judges gave us a funny look but they appreciated our efforts as we were too young to be there.. lol
btw If anyone is curious about the project it is present here ..
https://github.com/LaurenAssistant/... -
1)not thinking too much.
Seriously, my mind is way too stupid to sit idle and relax. In my mind, Somewhere there is a thought about an incomplete project, somewhere there is a startup idea, somewhere there is a fear of an incomplete assignment, while somewhere there is a sad song playing.. and out of nowhere, there comes my beautiful crush and me kissing, and woah, am now doing bhangra and round and rounds of shotz with her, whoops whoops whoops go back, bro , go fucking back to your work :|
(After 5 minutes...)
"whats going on devrant now?, whats goin on insta now, has she repied on whatsapp? what she eating? hey!, i could make an app for....
And this cycle goes on.... -
Joined a startup, pretty happy with the company over-all so far truthfully. Secured a large project yesterday with higher billables so job security wise things are good. However... The project I've been working on is a mix of a Spring boot webapp and a game. Two separate applications that interact with each other.
Two teams. A home team, and an away team, plus.... 2 "AI's" to play against... Well.... whoever designed this "AI" designed it so they can only ever play as the away team. Why... every function, every method, every bit of logic is coded around what "Half" of the inning it is.... Now I had the bright idea of picking up the hardest task on the ticket list, of making these AI's be able to play as the home team.
WHAT A TASK, and to make things worse. Instead of using some kind of proper inheritance with actual structure, we have TWO COPY AND PASTED AIs where the other has more hard-coded team sided logic that needs to ALSO be adapted.
17 points my ass.
I do love my job though.4 -
Well I tried to start an startup a year ago but we had some troubles, but this week a friend of mine who is the guy that I share my idea to create the startup. We met and we are ready to work on that again. Wish me luck guys and if you are starting a startup, too. Good luck 😎 you can do it5
-
Been thinking for a while now about getting into the startup scene and launch my own AI startup. I even got the domain name registered a month ago. Just can't seem to think of an idea that's not already been done.3
-
My idea is really good actually my startup is doing great now.
But my first time pitch was a terrible one in front of a small investor. He trolls me but now in bootstrap mode we have more than 50+ customers world wide2 -
How many of you have managers who grill their employees for coming late?
Maybe it's just me being downright lazy but I've always had this idea that working for a tech company would mean flexible timings and no fixed minimum working hours (as long as you meet your deadlines and get the job done).
I've been working for this small AI/CV startup for about 10 months now and my manager/founder's nephew, who is my age(22) keeps grinding me for not coming on time. I'm not really a morning person (and my productivity decreases significantly whenever I wake up early) but I make sure I meet my deadlines.
Initially, I used to avoid all this BS but now it has started to annoy me. Suggestions?10 -
Not my CS lecturer but my ICT teacher in high school convinced me that it would be a great idea to go study CS at University. It was the best decision of my life as I'm now happily working full time as an Android developer for a startup. Couldn't imagine myself doing any other well paid job and being this happy.
Sadly I never got to tell him where I ended up post graduation but I did get to tell him that I secured myself a good placement year when I was at university when I found out he was sick.
He was so grateful of me getting in touch and I'm glad I managed to get to say thank you to him before he passed away.
Leukemia fucking sucks. RIP. -
Not a rant.
I’m tinkering for some months at something . Something that i want to turn into a startup, but i feel a little burned out, i have all this thoughts now that’s a shit idea that no one would even want it , even though i had great feedback and some users are already using it.
How do you guys deal with things like this?5 -
I would recommend to check:
+ The technologies used if it suit to you
+ Make a trial to get into the env.
+ What they provide as advantage (food, flexible time, home-office, etc...)
+ How old is the company (avoid fresh startup and the I have an amazing app idea)
+ The renown of the company on kununu
+ Why not ask some customers how they experience to work with the company -
So I am working in this startup at Stockholm for 6 months and 1 week ago decided to leave.
I am still under probation period(5 days left until probation period is over), so I should have actually given 1 months notice. However we had many meetings about this and we decided that I will give 2 months notice.
Like we decided, previous week I gave founders a notice of 2 months and they agreed to it. I sent them e-mail and they confirmed it so I have proof.
This week all of a sudden they are saying that their plans have changed and there won't be much work to do for me so they are are forcing me to leave after 3-4 weeks.
I understand their point of view. Since my salary is 41k, they are spending totally 53k sek on me monthly. So their idea is to save extra 53k sek by forcing me to leave 1 month earlier. Also I've heard that they plan to hire another person 2-3 months later after I leave, so essentially they will save 150-200k sek and that's fine, I get it, it's business as usual right?
What I don't understand is how can they be so inhumane?
We agreed that notice is 2 months. I informed all my relatives (since I will be leaving Sweden). I gave notice to my landlord (deposit is 10k sek) and etc. I wanted to have 8 more weeks to plan what I'm going to do when I leave.
When asked wether I can leave by the end of this month I didn't know what to answer. I said that I will need to think about it and now I'm "thinking" about it. First of all I mentioned to them that I am risking to loose my deposit. Instead of offering any compensation, they keep asking me how they can help me to leave as soon as I can?
Situation is really messed up.
Since according to the contract I am still under probation(even though I started working earlier than stated in contract, so technically I shouldn't be under probation) I have no idea what they can do if I don't agree to their terms.
As far as I know they are obligated to give me 1 months notice if they are firing me while I'm under probation, so it doesn't seem that I would have much power in this situation.
If I would try to force them to keep me around for total 8 weeks, they can just officially fire me while I'm under probation and I will have to leave in 4 weeks. However after one week I will become a permanent employee and then they will have to give me 2 months notice if they want to fire me. So it seems that they are trying to save their face by trying to force me to leave earlier on my own will.
My current plan is to agree with them and actually leave at the end of this month. But with conditions.
First I need to get in touch with my landlord, explain the situation and hope that he would give back my deposit even if I'm leaving 1 month earlier than I've told him before.
Also, since these guys decided to mess up my plans by trying to save some money, I think I should demand for some compensation? Like 10-15k? I had plans goddamit and we agreed that notice will be 2 months via e-mail after all.3 -
"Ultimate" success for a dev?
I don't know what that would be, so I'll be answering that around my experience.
Start really poor, so when you start making good money, you value and appreciate it.
Work for a company (Startup/MNC doesn't matter), and build your network with people/clients.
Work really hard in the beginning era and fail as much as possible.
Quit said company and build your own client-base, cutting the middle men out of the equation.
Work on your terms after that, remotely obviously.
Years down the line, come up with your own idea and start a company which makes enough money to retire with ease, not worrying about saving up for retirement. -
When I was attending my last year CS at uni I was approached by a startup that was funded by my uni.
It was the usual clusterfuck, an app idea that two business majors came up with. The idea was ok, but they had no coding experience. I was supposed to to set up everything and they told me that they might pay me with stocks.
(When they tell you they MIGHT pay you, you know its fucking bad)
There was so many red flags at this point so I told myself there is no way in hell I would do jackshit for them.
So I played along for a while, just so I could use them as a reference when I applied for a real job, and it actually worked.
Sometimes I go and look at the domain just to see where they ended up.
They didnt get past the index page.1 -
Anyone heard of a an interview process where you apply through a job site and the first interaction back from the company is a coding project?
I've had it a few times where I'm told there will be a coding project or there has been later in the process, but I've never had it as the immediate first step.
Why would an unknown small startup think that someone would spend a couple of hours effectively working for them without having the slightest idea about the company and culture. An application is usually classed as an expression of interest and a discussion into the wider detail is then usually had with some HR or recruiter representative (or at least that's my experience in the UK)6 -
Thought about startup.. Strange but literally saying no single coin had in my pocket.. Still have love for startup.. But u know what no project no idea no team.. Still struggling for startup.. Fortunately few days back got proposal of govt project.. One min game literally coin replaced his face.. But after some days grant procedure issue pending sucks.. Still have love for startup.. Suddenly got a thought can I do it after grant but I know I have devRant support.. So still continue to love for startup ;-)
Just few days are remaining and waiting for it.. -
I just finished posting this but think it deserves its own post.
If you're creating a business or "startup" (as people like to call it these days) don't assume the idea is novel or investors will just jump on board. Focus on the business fundementals, money and cash flow, even before launch, unless you can afford not to. But really you can't afford not to. Selling before launch means that you're effectively doing two things 1 you're collecting new customers and income for the business and 2 you're. raising awareness at the same time. Obscurity is death and failure.
Get you a good sales team and marketer when the time is right.
Have a year of runway.
Identify the sites and groups your target audience and investors frequent. Start conversations now, buzz is the hardest thing to generate.
Start building relations with customers and potential clients now. Discuss launch, ask them if they'd be willing to pay up front before launch, in order to secure a "lifetime membership", offer it as an early opportunity and charge extra. Giving a discount out of the gate is a mistake B/c it says to potential investors that you don't think it's ready or worth it yet. Of course if it's between making 1. Some money or 2. No money, don't let it be a deal breaker, offer a discount. Going from no clients to any clients is a BIG deal. If you can do 1 you can make it to 10, if 10, you can reach 100, we etc.
No one likes asking for money and yet it is as important if not more important than development. -
Hello!. I have a little tech app idea I'll love to startup. I made an educated guess that my target users are mostly on the android platform. At least 70-80%.Now I don't have funds to get a development team and I want to keep the expenses to the barest minimum. I have a little tech background. I have, used html, css, c# in the past. I always hated Java in school. But it seems I have to embrace it or Kotlin for the development of the app. I want to be able to build at least the MVP and try to gain traction. I am also thinking about cross platform options to cater for both Android and the few iOS users we may have. React Native and Flutter comes to mind. I also think I can get someone highly technical than myself as a co-founder to help. I will appreciate it if you can drop your 2 cents.15
-
After spending the year after graduation trying to do a business with some school friends, that didn't make a dime for a year, I decided to look for a real paying job.
My first step was to go to a hackathon and hack for the week-end. I got involved in not one, but 2 projects: the second was because someone I met and won with at a previous hackathon asked me to, and I finished the first project early. Let's call her "S"
Then comes the end of the hackathon, and after it concludes I muster the courage to go on stage and say that I'm looking for a job, so feel free to chat me up.
No one really came to me for a job, but S came to talk to me about the startup she wants to launch, and how she is looking for a tech guy. I was close to dismiss it, because I was looking for a job paying $$$, but agreed to met so that she could show me her business plan and try to convince me.
Turns out she did convince me, because the business plan was solid, she was very motivated, and had already started validating the idea: there was a real need.
Now there we are, 5 years later, about 10 employees and paying ourselves real salary. -
I joined a startup and suddenly all I thought I know was disappearing and a very complex creature fell into my laps asking me to code it. Then there’s these trello cards asking me to pick them up and start solving.
Well, first, no idea how the whole app is structured.
Good thing, have a supportive team for sure. -
Working on maintenance suck, but that's why most of the software developers do. Stable job and higher pay. Mundane tasks like fix bugs or modify small part of the software.
Working on an idea is interesting in startup. You don't see shit code and code from the ground up. The work is creative. But the pay is low because the company is not profitable.
Which one is your choice?1 -
Today I've been summoned to work for the first time in weeks to help with the startup of a machine, and testing the HMI software that goes with it.
Me and a junior colleague go to the machine. We try to get everything ready for testing. Machine was left stuck in some intermediate state by someone else. I have no idea on how to control the machine's individual components. My colleague received a crash course a while ago, but was unable to reinitialize the damn thing, and the senior machine builder was too busy on another project.
In other words, me coming over had no purpose at all, and we accomplished nothing.
I really don't understand companies. On one end there's an endless bitching about how everything is too expensive, and on the flip-side you see 'em toss buckets of money through the window.
Oh well, as long as it goes from the window to my bank account, there's no problem for me I guess.2 -
I wanted to build a platform for student who wants to do research and are having hard time finding a good professor within university or from outside, so naturally I started asking professor I knew and this is what I get:
Normally they will only hire students from within university unless student himself has funding, and even with that hiring students from outside is a lot of procedures.
And no, such platform probably won’t be that useful as they get a lot of emails asking about research.
Startup idea instantly killed.7 -
I made a full html5 game that was an anonymous survey collection platform, it was meant as a solution for 2 problems: toxic work environments and gamifying boring processes the whole project was a gamification of business process to make it more engaging and add context, might not seem cutting edge but the devil is in the details i had to do lots of libraries and tools to make sure it is not exploited.
As for the startup the ceo fucked us all up and we ended disbanding, my only regret is that we actually had a revolutionary idea going on. -
Ok so.
You know you have to deal with annoying things when you take on a guard duty role and yes, we signed up for it because of the mullah.
However, you also want to do this with a reliable and robust monitoring and alerting systemthat you can depend on! And no i am not going to advertise a product for this... What i will tell you is which one to avoid.
Meet Quest "Foglight" ... It does EVERYTHING! It monitors, it alerts, it does trend watching it does fancy shmancy graphics, it does reporting, it is very extendable... WAUW, right! right?
Well, if you were stuck somewhere in 2005-2010 maybe... But this fucklight is cutting short on EVERYTHING
Today , i got called up at 3:30 in the morning (i am typing this after the incident) because this shit of a system has "HIgh Availability" by basically letting the FMS server suck each others jaggons and hope it somehow respons. This is a sort of keepalived thing, but on proprietary java tech..
Oh, yes, it's written on java and... yes.. Java 6
This means that, effectively we are running RHEL5 machines (yes, RHEL 5!!!) because something more modern in place? nope.
I have no idea anymore what i am ranting about, i'm tired, i'm tired of this shit, i'm tired of getting called up just because of some dude has been cussing up a sales representative, sucked each others jaggons and pushed the federal goverment with a shit solution for almost a decade now.
Fuck Foglight
Fuck Quest software, because did you really think you would get enterprise level support for an enterprise product which you payed enterprise euro's for it? You are so naive, how cute...
And consequently : Fuck Dell and Good job Dell.. For purchasing quest software, mess around with it, and then dump it back to the market... Srsly Dell , you were like me when i had this hot ass chick as a girlfriend but later seemed to be too crazy to justifiably tolerate compared to her hotness. Dump it like it's trump.
Oh, and, wauw! Foglight graced us with a successful startup process after .. what.. 6 times restarting? In 2 hours... With 12 CPU's and 128 GB ram and .... oh fuck this you don't deserve such resources.4 -
Been meaning to start a podcast that’s just based around talking shit about is there to talk about on that day I just have no idea how you attract an audience to a startup podcast2
-
I started to learn backend development for help a friend with his idea for an startup. i learn the basics in one week. then we put the hands on the project.
the first week everything was ok, we make progress fast and get things done, second week my productivity go to the floor. i found my self trying to do hacky stuff every day. never reach solutions. i was a mess.
Today i just broke, inclusive with my main Data Science projects im feeling bad. i quit everything a start watching Mr. Robot.
Right now i feels truly bad, but i have no option, tomorrow i will pit my hands again on all this shit, what more i can do? this is what i want to do.
The suffering and stress seems to be part of this job. We can only keep going.6 -
Bad (or at least uninformed due to unclear requirements) design decisions lead to somewhat perplexing (and above all, frustrating) problems down the line...
Here I am, wrote a cli client for event bus subscription, and since EC2 is eqv to Docker, had to fix the main function to keep it alive - now the deploy stage on the ci/cd pipeline fails due to startup script timing out. But why tho?
I’m not really sure whether I should’ve designed this differently from the get-go or whether my build and deploy configs don’t match anymore due to recent changes and I should figure out what’s wrong with them... or both.
Bottom line is: I have no idea what I’m doing.9 -
so I offered to help a guy with his startup idea which is in the making for a year at least. (A telemetry data collection device, mind you). It's an unpaid internship with no strings attached, no contract, mind you.
I am nowhere near the programming pro like most of you guys here, so that's what I want to focus on improving.
First thing he tells me to do is a market research on competitors.... I thought I left that bullshit behind when I left business school..
If I want to work without getting paid, I'd rather stay at home and learn c++ and opencl, and work on the MSc thesis full time, thanks.
Do you think it's the right thing to do or should I give it time?10 -
Question directed to devs who know a bit about setting up middle sized architecture.
Prestory: Joined into development of a middle sized online game. Figured they created a monolith over the last 6 years up to a point where nothing works properly and nothing can be changed without wrecking the whole system. Figured a monolithic approach isn't such a great idea.
Current Situation: In a different, same scale online game development team, game itself working but team is struggling with architecture.
My job is to come up with an approach on how to set up masterserver/matchmaking/database etc. Reading through various articles about common principles (SOLID etc.), i figured that a microservice+event-/servicebus architecture may work for that kind of project.
The idea would be to have a global interface in which microservices can be hooked. So a client registers to a client handler on startup, then starts to queue for a game, the client handler throws an event on the bus to register the user to matchmaking. The matchmaker happens to listen to those events (Observer Pattern) and adds him to matchmaking, when a match is found it throws an event on the bus to connect the user to the server, etc. One can easily imagine a banhandler throwing in a veto to cancel such an action, metrics and logging is fairly simple to add (just another service listening to all events), additionally Continuous Delivery, FRP and such are also beneficial advantages and it is said to scale well.
The question is, would you do the same, is there maybe something i might be overlooking? Do you have better ideas?
Keep in mind that we are not too experienced and are bound to different languages (python, C++ and java mostly) and are a small (4 Devs) Team with different strengths.
Thank you for your feedback and criticism!1 -
## Learning k8s
Okay, seriously, wtf.. Docker container boots up just fine, but k8s startup from the same image -- fails. After deeper investigation (wasted a few hours and a LOT of patience on this) I've found that k8s is right.. I should not be working.
Apparently when you run an app in ide (IDEA) it creates the ./out/ directory where it stores all the compiled classes and resources. The thing is that if you change your resources in ./src/main/resources -- these changes do NOT reflect in ./out/. You can restart, clean your project -- doesn't matter. Only after you nuke the ./out and restart your app from IDE it will pick up your new resources.
WTF!!!
and THAT's why I was always under an impression that my app's module works well. But it doesn't, not by a tiny rat's ass!
Now the head-scratcher is WHY on Earth does Docker shows me what I want to see rather than acting responsibly and shoving that freaking error to my stdout...
Truth be told I was hoping it's k8s that's misbehaving. Oh well..
Time to get rid od legacy modes' support and jump on proper implementation! So much time wasted.. for nothing :(9 -
VSCode. I used to be a WebStorm guy, but at one point I found out that I could do like 85% of the stuff in VSCode, and switched over. Things I still kinda miss from the JetBrains ecosystem:
- the elaborate refactoring
- the built-in navigation across the file and the project
- the really clever expand select and go to open/closing bracket (VSCode is kinda getting there, but for expand select it honours camel case words and that can't be turned off, it's weird with HTML files with inlined JS or CSS; for bracket jumping it must rely on an extension)
- the way that everything within the UI is predictable and navigable with keyboard only (tried opening a dropdown in VSCode without having a specific keybinding for that specific dropdown? In WebStorm it was Alt+Up/Alt+Down for any dropdown that has focus IIRC)
- the visual way of changing a colour theme (in VSCode you have to guess what is what before modifying a value; by the way this is an idea for an extension that I might research)
What I like about VSCode:
- the speed (although it can get slow with large files; on the other hand JetBrains IDEs are not that slow except for the startup, given that you're not working on a potato, but here we are)
- its extensibility and very active extension development (and the fact that it's rather easy to write your own extensions, although I haven't benefited from that very much)
- the ease of syncing settings (the Settings Sync extension and now the built-in mechanism introduced I think earlier this month)
- it's free (so I don't have to pay for it myself or nag to my employer to issue me a license)
I've tried Sublime and it's hands down the fastest thing I've seen (it can open a 100 MB text file on the shittiest computer you can find and edit it efficiently), the problem is that it's not so rich in extensions. I've tried vim, nano and whatnot, but I'm far from that, just not my cup of tea. I'm okay for the occasional file edit while SSHd somewhere, but that's all.
In an ideal world we'd have something like Sublime's performance with VSCode's ecosystem and JetBrains', well, brains...1 -
XFCE keeps crashing in the weirdest way when I boot, 50% of the time it works, the other 50% the startup applications launch like normal but the window frames and the bars are gone and none of the positioning shortcuts work. It's like an issue specifically with xfwm but I have no idea how the wm in particular could be fucked. I already know that the compositor can fail without taking the wm with it.
-
This startup contracted me to develop an app for them. They gave me the mockups and said they need it in 7 weeks. Two apps in 7 weeks, no problemo. Almost done with the first app then they came saying they are changing everything. How can you decide to change your entire app and concept mid development? You haven’t even tested the market to know whether your idea holds.3