Happy Sunday fellow wayfinder!

Over the last few weeks, we've been looking at lessons around my "failed" web3 startup across:

• Investment (Part 1)

• Product (Part 2)

• Marketing (Part 3)

This week, we'll be looking at MANAGEMENT lessons (part 4 of 5). Here are the lessons I'll be covering:

1. Always have developer backups

2. Hold on to good co-founders

3. Manage your cashflow runway

4. Write tasks, not user stories

Let's dive in.

☕️ Reading time: 4 minutes

Team: Always have developer backups

On the management front, the first big hiccup was with my original team of developers. After a couple of months, they decided to abandon ship and focus on their own project.

They were a talented young team, but they also came in from a different blockchain (Ethereum) and wanted to get in on the NFT craze.

In the beginning, I had to spend a bit of time educating them on UTXO systems and getting them up to speed with the BSV blockchain. Developer resources at the time weren't that great as well, which made it even more difficult.

Although there were 3 developers, they all came from the same one company. So the lessons here were:

1. Hire two companies or keep a backup on-call

2. Hire two or more devs, but all from different companies

This is why methods like pair programming exist. It's common in agile software development, where two developers work together. So if one goes down, the other can pick up.

Always have backups.

Co-founders: Hold on to the good ones

After my initial team of devs disappeared, I was stuck with a product but no one to work on it. I panicked, as I was also managing another company simultaneously.

So over the next two weeks, I looked hard for a replacement. Luckily, I stumbled upon a builder named Siggi in a sCrypt Slack group.

Siggi was much more senior but had a wonderful blend of programming and business acumen. I offered equity to him as he was that much more valuable in my eyes.

Within days, Siggi proved his value and experience. He was doing the work of all three previous devs in half the time. He also helped rebuild the entire infrastructure from the ground up. This made it a lot smoother and more scalable.

We both saw the benefit of using original BitCoin technology. So it helped that he understood the conceptual differences between account-based vs. UTXO-based blockchains.

Over time, Siggi handled all the development. While I handled product design/management, fundraising, and customer support. Some thought we had a much larger team, but it was only the two of us.

When it came time to make the hard decision of shutting Honā down, Siggi was very understanding. He had been through similar situations before, as a seasoned businessman himself. Our open, honest relationship helped with issues you might’ve expected at this startup stage.

Siggi never considered himself a “co-founder,” because he came on later. But I very much saw him saw as one because of his value and contributions. It was an honor working together. As a result, we both know we'll be working together again in the not-too-distant future.

This is the power of keeping good relations with the people you work with. Honor (like Honā) is a way of producing these sorts of outcomes. It's a better long-term strategy for preventing future disputes or lawsuits, especially in business.

So if you find a good co-founder, treat them well and hold on to them. 

Cashflow: manage your runway

My initial pre-seed investment gave me a false sense of security. It also made me over-confident in securing my second round. This led me to neglect my cash flow runway.

I was so focused on building and iterating the product. So forgot to start the fundraising process earlier. I found out the importance of this when it was too late.

If you want to do a better job with cashflow, so you don't repeat the mistake I made, I recommend a few tools. I only came across them later on in my startup journey, but wish I knew about them earlier:

• Runway - a comprehensive cashflow management for startups

• Sturrpy - same as above but a bit simpler

• Xero - a bit more traditional accounting, but still does the job

• Google Sheets - if you have nowhere else to go, keep it old-school

Write tasks, not user stories

When it comes to product/task/issue management, you might be familiar with tools like:

• Asana

• Trello

• GitHub

• Monday

• ClickUp

But a new tool crossed my path one day called Linear (see above).

Linear became our team’s primary way of managing issues/epics/etc. Why? Because it takes a different approach to management, using their Linear Method. A bit unconventional, but I liked that.

As a result of Linear, we could stay focused without comprising all the moving parts.

We used Notion for almost everything else.

And there you have it! Part 4 of my 5-part series around lessons from my "failed" web3 startup. Next week, I'll cover the final part: market lessons.

Until then, remember: through patience & persistence, it will come.

GeorgeTwitter | LinkedIn | Blog | Tools

Last week's premium newsletters:

• Daily #151: Business Updates (Nov 28)

• Daily #152: Lua Hawaiian Warriors, US Military & Forgetting Roots

• Daily #153: How Will You Be Remembered?

• Daily #154: LIVE Interview of Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX

• Daily #155: A BitCoin Vision for the South Pacific

❤️ Loved this content? Get deeper insights about growing one-person businesses, building productive communities in the blockchain space, and applying ancestral wisdom. Click here to upgrade for $10/mo.