company failed and lost investors, is it my fault? need thoughts

[musicman777]

Hey everyone,

Here I am in the career section again! I wanted some advice on this situation/predicament. It's all over now for the most part but it's still kind of bothering me subconsciously and I wanted opinions I was recently kicked off the project for an IT startup company because they failed to attract investors.

Last summer, I got a dream job doing contracting work for an IT company. I will not say who or where they were. The work was related to web development and programming and it was a remote job so I got to work from home. For a long time, these people were extremely happy with my work. Let me say now that from the beginning to the end, I was 110% an honest and hardworking person for this company that even invested dollars out of my own pocket to help certain aspects of it work, it was an IT startup company. They appreciated all my work and even offered me a stake in the company (which I never formally received). I can't say what but the company was selling a digital service that was patented by them.

 

Well, this project of theirs, eventually I took over all the development of everything they were doing (I was only one developer on the whole project apart from my friend who was the project manager but really didn't do much that often). Eventually they hired a foreigner who was very experienced as a consultant to help out. After months and months of development on this digital service I was developed, it turned out it would not be economical for them to do it. They changed their mind on the entire direction of the product and it was going to operate in a totally different fashion.

Well that is all fine, except one typical work week we had a meeting on this new product and I was told investors were looking at the product in two days. It was completely out of the blue with no advanced warning whatsoever. Then the people in charge of the product, they put me on the spot, asking immediately if I needed help on the project and if we could get it done in time. I didn't even know how or what to say! I was only a programmer and I felt they were sticking executive decisions on me. The boss nor the project manager hardly even evaluated the entire project or tested anything. Additionally they would go MIA every weekend and refused to answer their phones at that time. I decided by pulling a few all nighters and having assistance from our foreign consultant I could have the product mostly polished by the investor meeting. I told them it wouldn't be perfect, some features would have to wait until afterwards, but we could have it mostly presentable to see what they were trying to do.

 

The meeting came up and as it turned up, it was a disaster. The guy in charge of the company scheduled a second meeting for three days later and asked us to fix the remaining issues with the application and he would have one more shot. Believe it or not, one of the things that broke on the application in the first meeting was something the foreign developer did and not me. He deleted an important file to the digital service by accident...

There were still some issues with the service they were trying to sell and I worked several nights, 12-14 hours of hard work once more including fixing the broken file. I also had a meeting to tell them that I was uncomfortable being put on the spot the one day and I needed advanced warning on important decisions of the company. They said they didn't have a choice and the investors work on their own agendas.

 

Well, they had their next meeting with the investors and again, a disaster. I had no idea what happened but I was removed immediately from the project and locked out of everything. My friend, the "project manager", he said the meeting didn't go well and the boss exploded. He barely gave me an explanation of what went wrong but I heard there were "programming errors". The thing about that... I would get an email every time there was an error with the application and I did NOT get any. I have a feeling I was lied to and that something else caused this investment opportunity to fail.

What do you all think about this predicament? From the beginning, I tried to use my best judgement about everything. And when they asked me for extra help on the project, I told them our product was so complicated (which it was) that no one would be able to help and jump on board in that short amount of time. I did get told that our boss was running out of money for funding and I think that is why he pushed the project so quickly...

 

Part of me feels responsible because I was so deep and committed to the project. But I also feel there was poor management issues. The "project manager" was inaccessible, especially on weekends including the weekend before the investor meeting. He barely evaluated to tested the application nor did the owner of the company. We never have a formal walkthrough of the entire application. The company didn't always provide the tools and applications we needed to develop the project fast enough or correctly (hence me having to buy things out of pocket!). And I also feel that there was a "skeleton in the closet" that spooked these investors, possibly a licensing or legal issues. I don't think a programming error scared them away and I also know there were no significant programming errors when the site was demonstrated. I had the rug pulled out from under my feet when they got rid of me. They are also making excuses about sending my last couple paychecks. The reason I care about all this, I want to have a good reputation. I worked hard and I was proud of the work I did for this company. It is bothering me subconsciously this company and their product failed. I need some reassurance by others if they think I did everything I could have done correctly and that this went deeper than just me.

 

Sorry for the long post, I needed to thoroughly explain the situation and thanks for reading if you got this far! Fortunately I am still working for another company and the company I subcontracted through them for is still offering me work, so not all is lost. But I am still being bothered subconsciously about it.

[1a1a]

Sounds like your dream job turned into a nightmare and that your skillset was taken for granted. Give your energy to the jobs you still have that value your input.

 

Programming will speak for itself, your functional output proves your worth.

[agent1607307371]

I don't work in programming, but from what I've heard your experience is not unusual at all. Try to put it behind you, it's not your fault.

[musicman777]

Hey,

Thanks for the couple responses so far. Sorry again the post was long. My friends and family are even trying to cheer me up over it. It's not the first time it's happened but in this instance I had a lot of faith in this business. Cutting contact and dumping the project so rapidly almost felt like breaking up with someone! lol, that is the closest feeling I have to explain it.

[DancingFool]

From what you wrote, I'm seeing some serious red flags that you may wish to pay careful attention to in the future. First is that it sounds like you had 3 managers sucking up money and one guy (you) doing actual work. Second is that starts ups don't run on hierarchy and government hours of 9-5 and off on weekends. Finally, the absolute lack of communication and the owner not actually working with you diligently on the project. I'm not talking about micromanaging, but making sure things are shaping like they should and being clear with where you are at in the programming process. It sounds a lot like they wasted time, money and resources until the point of no return instead of putting it all into finishing the product and selling it. Frankly, you don't even know what the actual status of the project is, only that they shut you out.

 

As for reputation. What you deliver speaks for itself in IT. You can point me to what you've done in the past, you can talk a great talk, but at the end of the day what you can and cannot do, can be tested really fast. Either you can or you can't and that's that. So I wouldn't worry too much about this company and what transpired with them. I know it's painful for you, but maybe in the future be more wary of how things were run and walk away faster. A lot of what you describe smells like a rotten fish and I work with start up companies often. Some are good, many fail for a reason and it's not the guy doing the legwork, it's the guy in charge that's the problem.