rovingEngine

I’ve found rejecting the tendency to reduce people to narratives so incredibly important with our children.

Whether their latest choice has been probably good or probably bad, keeping those choices as something they did rather than something they are keeps the future open for them.

Technically, voting shares went to the trust, common shares went to an associated nonprofit. 100% between them.

This is close to three months, and many health plans renew at the beginning of each year, which accounts for the slight difference.

Almost anything smaller than a breadbox. I’m not trying to be flippant, but those are better starting conditions than I had for the moderately profitable craft kit or outdoor product manufacturing businesses I’ve run. Inventory is more likely to constrain your space than equipment, and power supply is more likely to constrain your equipment than budget.

Something I’ve found helpful: imagine you were starting from scratch today. Is this still THE problem you would want to work on? If not, move on. You’re right that 6 mo is not a lot in the grand scheme of things. Sunk costs suck, but there’s no getting them back.

If it’s still a good problem, then maybe your cofounder is right and the solution you were working on won’t solve it. If he’s the tech guy and you’re the business guy, I would assume you’ve done more of the talking to customers, but maybe there’s a tech challenge he sees. Worth investigating.

Strongly suggest against getting wrapped up in cofounder conflicts - that definitely doesn’t solve a problem.

If this is THE problem you want to work on, and you think your solution was headed in the right direction, modern no-code tools like Bubble make developing an MVP doable for a nontechnical founder. Depending on exactly what you’re building, something even simpler like a newsletter or some Google Forms integrations can do it.

Well done - I’m working on something broadly similar for similar reasons. How do eventually plan to monetize to keep it ad-free?

Join a makerspace if you live near a substantial one. Mine (Protohaven in Pittsburgh) has both a CNC mill and a Morgan injection molder (a rare small injection molder good for 100s of parts), which is a nice way of exploring some tech before buying it. Even more valuable are the people who hang out at these places, who have probably done the things you’re considering.