Technical Services Senior Specialist

My co-founder is a genius coder and that's the fkn problem

I'm 23M. My friend, same age as me, is literally one of the most brilliant programmers I know - built his first app at 15 and won every hackathon in college. We started a SaaS startup 6 months ago that helps small businesses automate their inventory. Got a 500k seed round cause investors loved his tech demo. But I'm losing my fucking mind dealing with him. He codes like a genius when he wants to, but that's the problem - when he wants to. Won't show up till 2pm cause "he codes better at night". Won't push updates for weeks then drops massive changes at 3am that break everything. Our beta users are pissed cause features they need are sitting in his "almost done" list for months while he builds random shit that excites him. I handle everything else - customer support, investor updates, sales calls, documentation, bug reports, and he still has the nerve to say I don't understand tech enough. His new gaming friends are over at our office all the time for "LAN parties" that last till morning while I'm trying to run a fucking company. Don't get me wrong - when he actually sits down to code, he's incredible. Built our core product in 2 weeks. But now he's more interested in playing League of Legends and watching coding livestreams than fixing critical bugs. Says "real startups don't have fixed hours" whenever I bring it up. I really need advice. We have a product that could be huge, users who actually want to pay us, but I'm watching it all slip away cause my co-founder would rather speedrun Elden Ring than talk to customers. I don't wanna lose a friend but my mental health is fucked from carrying this whole thing alone.

Yes, I am Naruto Uzumaki and u can become one

When I was in my last year of high school I started watching the Naruto series. This one the darkest time in my life. I was an average student doing my computer science course in a Govt school. All of the family members excluding my mom and teachers in my school label me as a failure. I don't have good scores in exams like my cousins and how much I try I always make silly mistakes and lose some points in exams. I started to think that I was a failure at that time. One of my friends suggested this series and has been a failure student and lost interest in studies. Naruto was the series that gave me the push I needed it made me feel like a failure like me can be successful if I put in constant effort and have the resolve to do it. For me, Naruto, the Might guy changed my life. I didn't get a good score on the final year exam of high school but I didn't lose myself and still put in the effort. And yeah finally all these efforts started to show up in my college years. Today I am earning more than my dad or any of my cousins or uncles and everyone looks up to me as a genius kid. I don't have hatred toward any of my family members and teachers because now I realize they didn't know the world. I still watch Naruto when ever I lose motivation to go forward.

How do you make time for life?

Okay so I have a bunch of friends who fall into the below 2 buckets: 1. Doesn't have a very demanding job, therefore can take out time for plenty of other things as well (pay isn't the highest and they're ambitious for more too, but right now they are sitting proportionate to their efforts/skillset/experience) 2. Genius, 10x contributor. Gets shit done in 3-4 hours max. Enjoys the rest of their day. (Pay is bonkers of course and naturally such people are rare too) Now, there's a 3rd bucket that I think I fall into: 3. A very demanding job (~9 to 9) and pay is also proportional to the hours they put in, so it's in between the above 2. These would probably include roles like Product management or any type of people management roles as well where you overlook an above average level of uncertainty. Now, 12 hours of work (with some breaks as well), 7 hours of sleep, 1 hour of commute, 1.5 hours of eating etc, 1 hour of workout (asking for too much here) and that's pretty much the end of the day. Now, I think the distribution of people in these buckets would be as follows: 1. 70% (basically everyone that is 'starting out') 2. 1% (hence, they are 10x) 3. Remaining? How do people in bucket 3 take out time from their lives to do basic things like: 1. Being with their family 2. Socializing 3. Rest (how else can I work for 12 hours without giving out garbage output?) 4. Growth? (I have only been in corporate for a short time, but I am crystal clear on the fact that no company cares about your personal growth. They might even push you towards being utterly dysfunctional elsewhere, so that you don't churn, but never the other way round. If you can, as a side product, get personal growth from meeting their goals, you're lucky. Otherwise, always be prepared for the worst)