Competitors infiltrating my community, looking for suggestions

Hello everyone! It's a different kind of Monday :) What this post is: a place to hang around and chat just about anything - without having a specific topic to discuss. Think of it like the watercooler at your office. Look forward to hearing from you all!

What are few red flags to observe. What red flags can be tolerated? I have heard different views for micromanagement. Like it go away with time. What to do if founder is too much involved in what ever you do. Looking at every detail,

I am building a platform which would help aspirants get connected with peers and mentors to get guidance about their respective domains. How should I attract initial users?

A little about me. I'm a BE CSE 2021 passout. I have 1 year of work experience as a Software Engineer at a startup right out of college. After that, a friend and I decided to build a product together. We incorporated a company, went on to look for investors, got enough funding to last a team of 3 for a year. We hired an employee, and then I quit my job to work at this company full time. It's been 2 years since. I am still single, living with my parents. Long story short, the product isn't doing well. 2 months ago, the company pivoted to services and consulting, and the good news is we just got our first client. The project is small and simple (and we are running a loss taking it), but we believe this is the first of many, and the client is very wide reaching and has lots of connections. I've been pressured by my parents and relatives to quit the company and start jobseeking again. I currently handle the entire backend development and software architecture, so definitely got the skills, but given the current job market, I think my time would be better spent working on the consulting services rather than jobseeking. I have tried multiple times explaining to my Dad and uncle that I want to concentrate on what I am currently doing, rather than looking for a job and losing what I currently have. Help! Criticism accepted, but please help me find a way to convince everyone to stop pressing me to leave the company I co-founded.

Who all should be actively avoided? 😛

I feel like this is a general problem that people who join startups in really early stages face. They get hired to do a function, then once the startup picks up, someone more senior gets hired and they’re practically demoted. This is happening third time to me, but still haven’t figured how to deal with it. The first time, someone from Stanford got hired and I felt really insecure about it. We got along pretty well but I couldn’t take that we were of the same age and this person was managing me despite me being around in the company for longer. That person left, my function was changed as well and again after a year, I was layered by another person. I just joined a new company four months ago and feel like the same thing is about to happen. I know they’re hiring someone. Makes me feel anxious about how I’ll lose ownership of things I’ve been doing and I haven’t even gotten the chance to prove myself yet. Do I just wait it out? Or talk to the founders about it? I understand where they come from, they do what’s best for the company. But I feel like I should look out for myself as well.

Hey Folks, On the onset , I would like to welcome all the new members who joined Grapevine over last few days. Grapevine is a nice platform and I really hope all of you will enjoy great conversations and viewpoint on this community . Now to the point why gatekeeping might become essential : I heard some days back , a good man on YouTube posted a video telling his fans about this awesome community. That is why you might have seen outburst of ‘ this is a nice platform ‘ posts on Grapevine. They also thank him in the body of the post xD. Honestly , I am fed up of this non sense posts And my timeline is already cluttered due to this. Now his followers will start highjacking the community. Right now , this being a professional platform , the posts were interactive and decent to read. Now don’t be surprised if you see posts irrelevant to the community. I remember same thing happening with r/developersIndia community some years back and right now , that sub is kinda dead and have repetitive kind of questions which can easily be found if you have taken the effort to search for the posts. Secondly, I won’t be surprised in case their is a difference of opinion with the Guru , people or his followers will start you bashing left , right and centre. I know this post sounds rude and entitled since everyone should have fair opportunity in life , but definition of fair varies as well. I’m very interested in knowing the POV of everyone involved here - may be I am over thinking. But would appreciate your thoughts on this .

What questions would you ask to evaluate if you should join an early stage startup in this market? The objective is to ensure job longevity, avoid getting laid off and experience a reasonable amount of growth. Is there anything else that we can do apart from asking questions to the company folks?

There's this coworker who comes off as extremely aggressive during discussions and individual interactions. This is causing a shift in entire team's environment in the wrong direction. Personally this is causing me to avoid getting into discussions with them. I'm looking for ways to deal with this person and keep the work environment peaceful. Here are some of the observations about their behaviour: 1. Highly opinionated and treat others who have a different opinion as hostile. 2. When someone else is trying to explain something which needs to be explained serially A -> B -> C, and they are interested in C, they get restless and start badgerring with questions about C while the other person is still on A. 3. In discussions, which require a deep understanding of the product, which they do not have yet, instead of admitting that they have doubts and asking questions, they try to act as if they understood it when clearly they didn't because their senior was present. For instance, they paid attention in the beginning and then got busy on their phone during the meeting and when asked if they understood, they just told the agenda of the meeting instead of what was discussed. 4. This is what tipped me off the edge. During a meeting which didn't involve their senior, they got easily frustrated when others were giving an opinion different from theirs and pointing out the issues with their opinion. After a couple of minutes, it turned into a heated argument and they started raising their voice and started making illogical sarcastic remarks. And after a bit of that they changed their tone into rude frustrated disinterest and rudely remarked "do whatever you want to do". So far we have tried to use humor to deescalate the situation. But this is clearly not gonna work in the long run, and their behaviour is getting worse day by day. I am trying to avoid a confrontation with them because it is not my place and I don't want it to get ugly.

Hey folks, This competitor's CEO reached out to me recently and we talked for an hour. In the end, he asked my current TC which was quite surprising. He then offered me a 100% hike + 10L esops. Although the offer is tempting. I have a problem. There is a Non-Compete clause in my offer letter for 8 months. How can I tackle this? The CEO said that, if I make up my mind he will make sure that my current org doesn't know any of this. Please help me with all the suggestions!! Thanks in advance :)