If I were your investor, I would be worried by the following:<p>1) 2 biz dev guys, one UI guy, one dev doesn't sound right for an early stage company trying to build something<p>2) This post makes you look judgmental and emotional - two traits that don't really work well for a leader<p>3) Your post also shows that you're not listening - you insist that anyone who wants a better rate is greedy, and is the cause for the downfall of the American economy. Drawing this conclusion after the feedback received from Auston's previous post seems inflexible.<p>4) The team is hiring outside for a technical hire. This could be because a) you don't know any good people or b) good people don't want to work with you. Neither sounds great.
If they're pre-funding, in the middle of an angel round, why are they hiring employees already from general public? First off, why aren't they doing themselves? Is the team technically incompetent (by the virtue of too many biz-dev people)?<p>It looks like they really need another person on their <i>core team</i> - not just a regular employee. Somebody who's willing to be in the garage with you ( why do you even have an office at this point, by the way? ).<p>You don't recruit that person by posting on the Internet, you use your social network ( and I don't mean Facebook ) to do that. Do they not have any acquaintances, former coworkers?<p>This may well not be the case - and in fact, I'd imagine it isn't - but the situation screams "these people don't have a technical clue themselves and don't have anyone in their social network who believes strongly enough in them to take the risk and go into a garage with them".
Talk about digging a deeper hole.<p>So now programmers are all overpaid eh?
I don't want to open the whole debate again, but I see something really wrong with non tech people starting a company and then expecting to be able to hire a few code monkeys to build the product.
The product should come first IMHO - team of hackers working day+night.
Tying a candidate's desire for more pay with the decline the US economy is...um...creative. And saying "I do not want to know you" to candidates you deem to be greedy is disingenuous, considering that you're starting a company presumably to make money, right?<p>While I can understand wanting to be frugal, I still don't see how paying rates that most engineers would consider mediocre will attract the top candidate you presumably want as an early hire.
Jeeez, guys. Take it easy.<p>A job is a package-- money, equity, work/life balance, autonomy, authority, etc.<p>I personally agree that they might be a bit "penny wise, pound foolish" here - you have to spend money to succeed, and saving 10-40k on your first hire might be a really bad idea.<p>That being said, there are plenty of people out there (somewhere between naive and idealistic) who would happily dive into a startup for much lower cash compensation for the other benefits (whether they are equity or less tangible). There are also plenty of just-graduated wunderkind who might have the chops they are looking for but not the experience to command a monster salary.<p>And look hard at geography here: <a href="http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=php+javascript+css%0D%0A&l=Boca+Raton%2C+FL" rel="nofollow">http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=php+javascript+css%0D%0A&l=...</a>
(check the salary estimate on the left)<p>At the end of the day, these guys clearly made some missteps. They should change their tune a bit. But try to treat them like you'd want to be treated when you (publicly) screw up with your venture.
For a more direct response/clarification, please see: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=362152" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=362152</a>
Why not use the angel money to extend your runway and then hire only once you have product/market fit and some indication that your revenue model works? You'll have a better bargaining position with both investors and employees then, and won't be wasting an employee's time if you fail.
Am I the only one reading this post like so:<p>"We don't want to blow through our limited capital, so we're looking for 2 junior developers to create our new game changing web property for us.<p>And praying that what they lack in technical expertise, they make up for in passion"<p>Seems the author is trading one extreme (too many, too much, too fast) for another (too little). He needs to find the middle ground. Hire a rockstar, pay him a bit more then scale, give him some equity. Let him lead development but be willing to make some product trade offs.
Whatever you guys are making, if it kicks ass, nobody will care about this nonsense. You certainly have the attention of the HN community now, so don't waste it. It's time to stop fucking up.
Maybe this whole "overpaying developers" mentality wasn't around when I was freelancing because if I actually had $100 for every time someone wanted me to make them a website for $100 I'd be rich by now.<p>The correct response to the "bad" cover letter in the first place was "ignore it." That would have saved everybody a lot of time.