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To be fair, I've met plenty of idea guys in real life. I can't imagine the internet somehow being worse.

It's always ' I want Multi billion dollar company X combined with multi billion dollar company Z. Build this for me in exchange for 2.5% equity vested over 5 years.'

Then if you do waste a weekend on a POC you'll hear it doesn't match their vision. You don't even get a thank you from these jerks.

TBH I've given up on starting a tech company completely, I work a 9-5 and then make small games afterwards.




> It's always ' I want Multi billion dollar company X combined with multi billion dollar company Z. Build this for me in exchange for 2.5% equity vested over 5 years.'

Those are the generous ones.

If you're a tech person and you 'join as employee #1' then you have just decreased your chances for a reasonable payday by about 90%. So make sure that salary is a substantial one, or negotiate for double digits stock. Otherwise: better to be a founder. Same risks, more control, better payday if it works out.


Oh the idiots I was talking to didn't want to actually pay me any money.

It's just equity in whatever far off pipedream they have.


That's borderline abusive.


Make the POC your business, call yourself a market-fit engineer and "yes, right away" all the way to early retirement.


I think this is what many technical serial-founders do essentially.


Jesus Christ. This is such an amazing idea.


I'm willing to offer lagniappe 2.5% equity vested over 5 years if they build this for me. Which reminds me of something I read once on the internet, paraphrased ... "build the thing that you want or be forced to build the thing that somebody else wants"


I mean you could always disappear to somewhere with nicer weather and run away with their idea...

Every time I've been given an annoying "you do all the work" offer like this I've entertained the thought. I'm surprised you don't hear about it happening more often to be honest.


Because someone else's idea is always worse than your idea.

The only ideas I considered stealing were ideas I had previously (or close to that).

There is an upside, you can talk about your idea freely, chances of theft are low.




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