Two months ago, I wrote a blog post with the title “Five things to know and do when you’re the co-founder of a web startup while not being a developer nor a designer“. At this time, I was confident my energy and my skills would bring value to the business. Recently, I felt that my own business partners who are also my friends and brothers did not see the real value of my work. Let me illustrate my feeling with this small story:
A week ago, I got an email from StartUP Magazine introducing the New Zealand Top 10 Internet Startups 2008. I forward it to the goodguys (Jas and James). No reply. Few days later, I decided to check what it is all about. In fact, StartUP partnered with Squidoo to implement a voting system that let people register to their site and cast their vote for their favourite startup (You can vote here). Sweet! I registered PocketSmith and announced to the team we are part of this exciting adventure 
- First issue: Jason reported to me that the link to PocketSmith in the list is broken. And we cannot edit or even delete the entry. Damn. I contact Ben Young (on a Saturday night) by mail asking him to delete the entry so we can create a new one with the right URL. Thanks someone in the sky, Ben is super reactive and nice and we got it sorted the next day (after few other unexpected changes that had to be made – Ben, I own you a bottle of Champagne Unfortunately, we already had sent an email to our users so we missed a chance to encourage them to vote for us…
- Second issue: I had a look at random comments at the Squidoo NZ Top 10 web startups and decided to post a nice comment to give people an idea about where we come from and what we do. A comment let by Clairednz “Event Finder, Xero, Rock Star Recipes, Menu Mania, Get Staffed, AliveWorld all look to be over 2 year bracket….” kind of encouraged me to make my post young and dynamic. Unfortunately, it was judged too enthusiastic by my business partners.
- Third issue: Jason sent me an email explaining why I should change or delete the post because it is not representative of PocketSmith. Don’t get me wrong. Jason is absolutely right. I do need to be very careful about what we say in public. However, the way I was told I made a mistake was just too much. So Jason told me not to take it personally (easy
and James agreed. Cool. Nice way to finish a working Sunday. I decided to call for the day and come back home. Sent an email to the guy. Got a reply (wootwoot!) by James saying I should come onboard the day after cause I need to “put some structure around my work” Damn they did not understand anything… That was just too much. I came back home without knowing what to do…
This morning, I woke up quite late and started working from home. I did not really want to see the guys. I just had a chat with Jason who, as usual, understand what I feel, and told me I will pick me up to have a coffee in St Clair. Honestly, it is the first time I almost say no to Jas… Anyway, Let’s have a coffee and talk…
If you want to know what did we discuss about and if we solve this issue, read my new post “Just Do It’
Tags: business, competition, Management, Story
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