Introducing the Players

I've been reading lately about microISVs and I like the sound of starting something of your own in your copious free time.  Well going out on my own is alright, but wouldn't it be better to drag a few friends with me?  Sure it would, and I've convinced a few to join in.  Here's the quick lowdown on the team.
The Style Czar - he knows cool and he knows how to make stuff look slick.  I think this is key since the product is going to be web based.
The Adept - he slings code like the Bush White House slings lies (constantly and with a level of skill seldom matched).
Me - the organizer and all around code monkey.  I also get to embarrass myself by posting about all this publicly.

We just started putting down the requirements for this project but we also needed to handle some basic business stuff.  Since there are three of us, we were concerned about starting a partnership together.  We're all green when it comes to business and legal matters so I started a thread on Joel on Software to get some advice on the subject.  One poster was a little frosty but I'll take the advice.  Don't focus on this crap and focus instead on creating a great product.  I guess there's not much to be done except to file the paperwork and leap together.  It helps that I've worked with The Adept on multiple projects and have seen and recommended the work of The Style Czar on multiple occasions.
Can three working people create a marketable product during their free time?  I guess we'll see...

Comments

[Matt Breckon]

The poster on JoS was a little frosty but there are plenty of other voices there too.

Forgetting "this crap" can be fine in some circumstances but if you haven't done your homework and understood the risks you could be making a bad decision based on one persons comment in a web forum. In my opinion, taking advice this quickly from a single web post is taking the easy option.

One of the rules of entrepreneurship is "do your homework".

There will always be people who tell you to do something one way or the other. You have to make your own decisions based on your own assessment of the risks. Ask for information and advice certainly, but make sure you understand all the options or you could be opening yourself up to trouble later on.

If this business is serious (i.e. you have a product you know will make good money) I suggest you seriously need some legal agreements. I think the original posters concern is that you are three guys playing at being a company. In this case worrying about the legal issues may pale into insignificance compared to the need of ensuring you have a solid product and business idea that will actually generate money.

[Paul Dix]

Thanks for the comment. We'll definitely be doing some homework. We haven't filed the paperwork yet and we'll need to outline the partnership in our articles of operation. I just don't think we'll spend too much time worrying about what to do if the partnership dissovles. I'm tempted to buy an ebook or two off the nolo site referenced. Any idea of the quality of those?

[Matt Breckon]

I have no experience of the referenced ebooks - sorry.

Here is a link to a discussion of the downside of partnerships. This is a UK site so some of it may not be relevant but I think there are some interesting things to bear in mind.

http://www.startups.co.uk/YYLBf3RowhgEFQ.html

Good luck with your venture.

[Ben Bryant]

I suppose I am the "frosty" poster on JoS you are referring to, though I never used the word "crap". Well, I want to wish you the best on your own blog. I like your characterizations of the partners, Style Czar, Adept, Code Monkey... Sounds like a good crew. Good luck with your endeavor.

[Paul Dix]

Thanks for the mojo! We're off to a really slow start since we're all on vacation during seperate times this month. We're planning on going ahead full steam in September so hopefully we'll get some good code written.