Do you ever feel like your co-founders are not competent even though you can't prove it?

[labbish]

@newbie2016 This is a fair assessment. I agree that they are better coders than me. Specially now that I've been away from that for a while. And as I said given enough time they produce really good quality code. But I'm hesitant to work with a VC or get into a client deal where expectations are more focused on speed than quality. And my main issue is that I've never worked with other teams so I don't know if it's a bad expectation (like grass is always greener on the other side) or if they truly are not a team that can deliver speed because of the 3 you mentioned we have picked good and cheap (bootstraped)

 

[hasta_lavista]

@labbish Sounds like y'all aren't being transparent with each other. Try doing accountability coaching on a weekly basis. Here's how I usually do that in details: https://www.ednevsky.blog/p/ive-been-doing-accountability-coaching

 

[miabby]

@labbish What’s worked for me when compressing timelines is making time the deciding factor. I will set a 2-week timeline and make sure we ship version 1 by then. Of course, many envisioned features will be left off the table, and we can only ship simple stuff. But the 2-week timeline prevents feature bloat and focuses on shipping usable products rather than setting a high bar. I guess that your team may not be slow, but rather, your expectation of what gets shipped in a small amount of time is high. And momentum gets built over time.

 

[labbish]

@miabby Can you give an example of a version 1 product? What is included and what's excluded for the sake of time? I believe our issue is that if I set a 2 week deadline the product is so dysfunctional that you can't call it version 1

 

[miabby]

@labbish

at if I set a 2 week deadline the product is so dysfunctional that you can't call it version 1

Exactly. My way of doing it is to arrive at what's possible by collaborating with the team. The only constraint is that what we ship must be usable and communicate what we're trying to deliver. So, for instance, a lot of times, version 1 might be something on Excel, it might be a very clunky UI, etc. But that's okay to me because we shipped something usable out the door and can now get feedback.

 

[kkcarter215]

@labbish I have felt the same… it’s tough, but so are the conversations you need to have with them.

 

[labbish]

@kkcarter215 If you have had any conversations that worked please share. And if you have worked with multiple teams and can compare please do as well

 

[heathathon]

@labbish Your development speed is, in a way, a product too. Bring it up, that you are interested in improving it. Analyze where the time goes. There are always low hanging fruits.

This is an area you will have to invest resources in. Note that they probably hate it too. You are in the same boat. Could be that they wanted to improve it all along but you never let them invest time in it.

 

[cupoftea]

@labbish This post tells me that the CEO is more incompetent than the Co-Founders.