Hello guys,
This sounds so damn ridiculous and I don’t even know why am writing it here but I just feel that sense of brotherliness amongst the meteor community.
I live in Nigeria and I started a small software firm about a year ago while I was in my final year in college. I am not a technical person at all so I partnered with my class mate to start the company. We developed a school management solution and sold it to schools using SaaS model. It worked out pretty well till we had issues that made us separate.
After sometime, I found out that the codes he wrote wasn’t maintainable and couldn’t be built upon by another developer. I set out to learn Meteor (I just love the meteor project)so I could develop a SIMS solution on my own that is just about enough to power the growing customer feature demands. This efforts was very difficult as i was literally the one in contact with the customers and attending to their needs. I didnt have time to concentrate and we were not boyant enough to hire an experienced developer.
That was how I meet a new developer whom I went into partnership with. Our partnership went so well, we developed a new product and we got quite a number of paid customers running already. The revenue we generated was only enough to run the business but not to pay ourselfs.
5 days ago, we got into a hackathon to develop a Computer Based Testing solution for practicing exams. The hackathon just finished and we came 3rd. It’s winners take it all and we ended up with no price. The team was so motivated before the result was announced because they worked so hard. We had a good presentation and a better product but then we didn’t win.
The team is so demoralized and my developer just announced to me that he is quiting because he can’t afford to keep going underpaid. Everyone is disappointed and I feel so terrible about it. The developer leaving could be very catastrophic to the business but I don’t blame him. I have probably failed him.
Startups are hard so I guess am getting my fair portion of it. I didn’t write this for people to have pity on me. I just wanted to vet my frustration. Am still in love with meteor as a project. It’s really a source of motivation that keeps me going.
Thanks
