Perhaps this thread has gone too long, but the comments are overwhelmingly against doing work for free.
TL;DR - It’s an interns fault for taking crap free work, in essence putting their future in someone else’s hands.
My experience: 3 years ago I was an accountant and thought about killing myself nearly every day. It used to take me 10 - 15 minutes to get out of my car every morning just to walk inside. I was able to use free work to transition from a boring career to one I enjoy in an incredibly short amount of time.
Rather than go back to school only to finish in debt and start at the bottom I was able to trade valuable work that I could do (finance/accounting) for experience in work that I wanted to do (development/data analysis). I would always suggest short projects so as not to overwhelm either party, but this turned out to be very favorable in the long run.
One major caveat is that these were not company created internships. I wasn’t in the business of letting a company compile all of their shitty work only to pass it off on someone to do for free. THAT IS WHAT NEEDS TO BE CALLED BULLSHIT ON.
If a job seeker shows just a little initiative they can force free work to have a training component that is defined in advance and one from which they will benefit. Too many workers put their future in someone else’s hands by assuming the company has some training program mapped out for them. Not surprisingly, these are exactly the types of employees who continue the cycle of useless and exploitative internships that you rail against.
If you are doing work for free, YOU are on the hook. You hold most of the cards because there is nothing forcing you to continue working.
First, if your product truly is amazing then there is nothing wrong with cold calling someone to alert them of it's existence. Particularly if you are offering them free use of said product. In fact, if your product truly would enhance their lives you owe to them to let them know about it.
If someone cold called me and offered me 25 hour days I would not call it spam.
Second, do your best to warm the cold call. At least narrow the distance between you and your prospects. You would be surprised at how connect you really are. Just remember specifically who your target is and how it can help them. Tell everyone you know to look out for these types of people and see if you can't get 5 minutes of their time.
Bottom line, targeting the right type of person with the mission of improving their lives is not spam. Mindlessly sending out requests to anyone and everyone is spam.
I like what danilocomaps said. I would also add, put your e-mail address and phone number at the bottom of every chalkboard. No sense alienating someone who likes it but is too busy to get to the end.
It's a cool feature idea. Although, I have a workaround. I usually just copy the link location and save it to my delicious account with the tag toread.
Maybe delicious is blocked at your company, so that's not an option.
Did I need another search engine in 1996?
Did I need another social network in 2007?
Another mp3 player in 2002, etc.?
If you really want to do it, you should do it. It's all in the execution. I'm sure Startup Foundry is not serving everyone's needs (and they probably don't want to). Figure out who they aren't serving and cater to them.
That's what I am thinking...at first I saw that the need was there to just go back to the basics. But they have done this wonderfully.
That's kinda one of the reasons I have posted this, because given that HN is my target audience - I want to know what is missing, what are you guys looking for that you aren't getting anywhere else.
I wouldn't mind helping a little -- I could cover Israeli startups. Or, why not try and find a few people to attack each article differently? Have someone do the technical side, another do the marketing and combine into the one article? A multi-user, multi-author blog, I think that'd be fun. Also, try and do follow up articles on any one startup as linked at bottom. Just have a pool of authors ready and they can help when they feel like it. Leverage the idea of "guest author."
Try and create a matrix that each startup can fill out -- and make that searchable -- a checklist that changes over time.
Wow. I've been there. 3 times actually. Unfortunately, your question is deceptively complex. There are several smaller questions/concerns contained within your dilemma.
Financial:
Can you afford to quit? You say you are married. If you don’t have kids, you’ll need 6 months living expenses. Better yet would be to have a years’ worth. I have heard conflicting reports on how easy it is to get unemployment if you quit. For now, I would assume that you cannot get unemployment.
Next, Quit or Don’t?:
If you decide to quit - here’s what you should do:
1. Give tons of notice. Since you don’t have anywhere to go, you can keep earning money and be openly looking for a new gig. The fact that it’s out in the open should alleviate some of the stress for you.
2. Figure out why you’re so unhappy. Write down two answers. First, an answer that is well rehearsed. This is the answer you can tell your boss and co-workers so you don’t blow up and tell them they are killing you. Second, an answer that is the real reason. If you’re this miserable at a job you’re going to have to do some serious soul searching to figure out why and you’ll need a plan of attack to deal with these issues so they don’t disrupt you in the future
3. Find the person who will be most upset about your quitting and manager your relationship with them. This will be huge on down the line.
4. Ultimately, be nice. You’re leaving and the way you leave will stay with you forever in the minds of your bosses and co-workers.
If you decide to stay - here’s what you should do:
Don’t phone it in. The anxiety of being at a job that you hate and continuing to do half-assed work will crush you. Better to take risks on projects that have the chance to excite you and do great work for the company. If you’re going to leave anyway, just find a way to politely decline the work you don’t want to do and pick a project that has a chance to be a game changer.
Next, look for another job. I know this is obvious, although in my opinion, you have 3 ways to go with this:
Option 1: Get another job, any job. Call recruiters. Call everyone you know. Shotgun resumes. Apply to jobs you know you can get and get a new one. Once within the new job give yourself 6 weeks to determine if you like it. If you like it, great, you have a job you like. If you don’t, move on to Option 2 or 3 and figure out how the fuck you’re going to explain why you have been job hopping so aggressively. Just be happy that you have a job that doesn’t make you cry. If it does, go to therapy.
Option 2: Figure out what your dream job is with extreme detail. I mean everything where is it? What do you do? Who do you work for? What your boss is like? How much you will get paid? Size of company, revenue, industry, etc. EVERYTHING. Write at least 3 pages on this and find companies and positions that match your target and go after them with everything you’ve got.
Option 3: Start freelancing. Be slightly less selective about the projects you take, but find a market that you are comfortable serving and do whatever it takes to give them what they want. Maybe even finding a few projects that pay $15 or $20 an hour will give you and your wife more confidence that you can quit. And if you do well you might be able to parlay those into an even more successful full-time side gig.
And when it’s all said and done and you have your dream job, do something nice for your wife. Dealing with this type of thing really sucks for women and I think taking a trip with her and showing her that you’re happy will do wonders for both of your psyches.
Option 4: Tell your employer you have aspirations and would like them to consider keeping you on the payroll for 20 hours a week instead of full-time. You'd then have the other half of the week to work on a startup.
I meant women, although in the cultural sense. This is to my knowledge the first generation of women who were raised to be supportive and nurturing at home while still feeling the pressure to earn as much men.
Having the role of nurturer be challenged, I'm going to assume, is more psychologically damaging for a woman. Especially when that woman has career woes of her own.
No doubt all of these cases have individual components, but doing something nice for your spouse is rarely bad advice. =)
