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The bit that sticks out in the story is this:

Justin and Sebastián left the company with the transition to investment

Obviously a ton of context is missing but if you are planning to stake the future of your company on a product that had until now been developed by these two gentlemen why weren't they going to be part of that future?

One thing I have grown an appreciation for over the years is the power of very small teams, i.e groups of less than ~4 or so. When you have a very small number of very capable people you can paper over a lot of deficiencies.

Overall though a very realistic view into what it's like trying to scale up a startup. If it's any consolation most of them blow up just like this, don't feel bad if this is a pattern you recognise from your past - it's just how it is. The game is hard and failure is expected, scale ups are by far the most vulnerable time in a companies history and yet you need multiple of them to "make it" and each one is completely different from the last.




I am a fan of small, committed, and accountable teams. Unfortunately, sometimes the management layer is stifling them. I recently worked on a team of four devs where we had... 9 (nine!) managers in every meeting. None of them were able to help us get specs, architecture reviews/approvals, or new environments. For nine months.


I'd call this a team of 13


> When you have a very small number of very capable people you can paper over a lot of deficiencies.

That surprises me. I would assume that the fewer people you have, the less talent you have to cover all needed skills. But maybe you mean something else with "deficiencies"?




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