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How do I tell unqualified AI founders I am not going to build this thing for you

4 points by McLarenF1 ↗ HN
So... I've been approached by a former food truck owner with virtually no background in tech, technical education, research, development, etc. They want my team and I to build them what is, basically a GPT4 wrapper that helps early-stage founders with finding resources for their needs (yes, I suggested the Google search). This team has no product and no technical ability. It has already issued stocks to a board of advisors who (in my opinion) haven't advised them of anything to build even a sensible beta. Their website is insanely premature and the team currently would've been better off if they didn't get into the tech world given their random backgrounds.

In short, they want my team from our previous startup to build this for them for FREE after they gave even the lawyer equity, (yea I know) but the soon-to-be CTO is also a family friend. So it makes saying no hard, which is why I am here.

What do I tell this massive red flag of an operation?

14 comments

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cranberryturkey
Just did this two weeks ago. I finally got an offer after 3 works of prototyping for free...no cash. I said "sorry, I need to be paid cash to work on this".

That was the end of that.

McLarenF1
Thats insane....1 would be enough for me lol
cranberryturkey
they offered me 12% which easily needed 1-2M dollar budget.
McLarenF1
Were they funded before you joined? This company hasn't even raised money yet, but at the same time they say they're actively collecting checks so I have no idea what to believe.. they sound incredibly desperate, sounds like not a lot of AI talent is present in Austin (where they're based out of) but it also could be that everyone they might've approached is thinking what Im thinking lol
bell-cot
Gut reaction: Talk to some older people, who've been around business for a few decades, on the sort of polite-sounding, emotion-numbing buzz-phrases which they would use to say "no, never".

BTW - has this family-friend-turning-CTO ever done you (or your previous-startup team) any 7-ish-figure financial favors? I'm thinking "no".

McLarenF1
Funny you mention- this founding team is all over the age of 40, we would be the youngest people there (22-25)

The family friend wants to plan me as a successor in a succession plan to his position IF we join, and he's an old timer in the valley with strong connections but goes on random help sprees with random people just like this (my dad even told me to just entertain it and scope out what going on). He and my dad built a company that exited to Cisco in the '90s, and he's been doing random stuff like this since.

He has not done any 7 figure favors to me, however he has played a pivotal role in my family's life.

devdude1337
Never work for free! Either cash or equity. You should expect an equity relative to your amount of work multiplied by the median freelancer hourly rate in your region. For example: I put in 3 months of work, that should be at least 30.000$ of value. If the company is worth 100.000$ I expect 33% of shares in equity. Everything else is fraud.
McLarenF1
Yep! And we come from the industry too, we're young but we know what we are doing.. and in my many cases look for new ideas to work on. Even after talking it through my team, they said we shouldn't do it for anything less than 4k a month in comp, we can figure out stocks later if it's worth the time to discuss.

We have our heads on straight when it comes to not being frauded into free labor, especially in this market with all these newly minted AI know-it-alls that don't know a lick of code. I just don't know how to say I'm not interested!

sirspacey
I’d suggest showing your friend the teams of the AI companies that are getting funding. And maybe sharing the stories of the weed gold rush founders who all got crushed by PE. Yes, the opportunity with AI is vast, maybe even so vast a food truck owner could found a company that wins. But the competition is the most intensely well funded and resourced companies and teams - ever - in human history.

The Wright Brothers owned a bicycle shop before they pursued their dreams of flight. But want most people don’t know is they founded the bicycle shop to pay for their passion for flight.

Background matters some. Motivation a ton more.

You don’t owe anyone the duty of playing the greater fool.

rl1987
In Japan they would say something like "this would be difficult".
stevengraham
Forty-something former CTO here. Just tell them what you want clearly & concisely.

Do you want cash or equity? From your description it seems clear that you don't believe in the team or mission, so presumably value equity at zero.

Since you mentioned "my team and I" - I'm assuming you're running a dev shop or work with a few freelancers open to this type of work. If so - You could do something like giving them a one-page proposal for a 1-3 month MVP "sprint series" to "help them validate their concept" (at your current rate).

Don't "feel bad" for putting your desires first. It's the right thing to do. Also, don't judge them. I've seen some real underdogs pull through (it's rare so don't bet on it).

lulznews
Have you tried the word “no”?