When the new equity crowdfunding rules go into effect, I was thinking a more interesting model could involve equity. Every person in a "startup cooperative" could own a piece of everyone else's startup. It might help minimize the risk with doing a startup if you own a small piece of a number of other companies.
That's really quite a cool idea. Definitely do it! I'd be interested in helping to build it. The cooperative rules are, I think, quite different in the US and UK, but I'm reasonably familiar with it in the UK.
I don't think it has to be open-source... you just need to release things.
And what's a great motivator for releasing things when working alone? It's having other people expect you to make progress on your projects. That's why I made a club that meets weekly to screenshare what we're working on.
It's the benefits of YCombinator weekly dinners, without the benefit of awesome speakers, great advice, or mentorship. But I'm there! If you want to get feedback on your projects and give feedback on other people's projects, then you should join my club.
When I went to tech meetups I met a couple mentors that had office hours... the first thing they started talking about was how much money they helped startups raise. They acted as if that validates any advice they gave. And their advice didn't seem that good.
In reality I got more helpful advice from my peers. That's why I recently started a club for developers. The idea is to meet weekly online and talk to each other about the progress of our projects and startups. If any developers feel like they have no network at all (like me), then you should join my club. The link is in my profile.
This is why I don't like posting my product ideas publicly for anyone who searches keywords. If I give away all the details of my implementation, I could be helping someone else who is doing "competitor research." If I don't give the details, then my idea sounds incomplete or just like everyone else's idea in that space. No matter how many articles I read on HN that ideas are worthless, I still feel reluctant posting my best ideas on a site like that.
But I have a solution. It's called Indie Developer Club (see my profile for link). All the meetings are small with less than 10 people. You can show off a pre-release demo or talk about the specifics of your project, but you aren't posting it for the world to see. So you get some feedback but you don't have to worry about a competitor Googling you.
You've described the Managers at my part-time job exactly.
I spend 4 hours shoveling snow in near sub-zero temperatures and oops I missed a spot by the side of the dumpster... who cares? Do customers go by the dumpster? No. Is it affecting the garbage being picked up? No. Then why the hell do they have to write a 10 sentence angry note to me for the next time I work? They are so unbelievably insane.
But I am more resolved than ever. I will stay at that job until I make the equivalent amount of money selling software. When I finally quit there it will probably be one of the best days of my life.
I worked several shit jobs. Late nite gas stations, food delivery to gang riddled neighborhoods, two factories, and a china warehouse. Not to mention retail, which is even worse because you have to deal with idiot customers on top of idiot managers. It can be an eye opening experience for sure.
That's true. But I don't have to print and ship bags myself at all. It's all automated by the good folks at shopify and Printful. They take a good chunk of each sale of course, but the net results are worth it.
To get a low-wage job I had to lie on my resume. Retail stores won't hire you if you put down you have a CS degree and a few years programming experience. They want long-term desperate people. I was desperate but it looked too much like I would bail first chance I get.
Why would I want a shitty job? Well I needed money and I never break the 1st and 2nd rule of my club:
http://www.indiedeveloperclub.com
Why involve the boss? Why not just release it on your own? If your boss has good leads to send you, you can have him sign up to your affiliate program.
If it's big in North America and Europe one of those competitors will be entering Korea soon. If they don't enter Korea there's a reason for it that involves the specifics of that market. But you wouldn't know those specifics anyway because you know nothing of Korea.
Unless you trust your cofounder like a brother, I wouldn't go for it.
