Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Motivating the Non-Paid Help

Posted by Cliff on from the keeping-the-talent-interested dept.

twjordan asks: "I am leading a small pre-venture-capital startup consisting of two still in college CE majors and two just out of school liberal arts majors. We all own stock in the corporation and we have a small amount of seed money, but we cannot afford to pay ourselves yet. I was wondering if anyone out there could help me with methods to motivate the others in the company. Many of you work (or have worked) on non-paid software projects and deal with this from contributors, but this kind of sits between that extreme and just plain management and motiivational tactics since there is more ownership and commercial intent. Can anyone help us out? Got advice or links to good resources?"

2 of 7 comments (clear)

  1. things that don't cost too much by faster · · Score: 2

    Food is always good (look up news of Google's chef), and posting news of your industry that shows how your product will be a winner works for a while. Control over work environment is great too; look for news of Pocket Science's office layout (maybe on their web site?). One company I worked for had 'cookie time' every afternoon; cookies, coffee, conversation. It usually ended up being about work, but we enjoyed a little break and 'bonded' some.

    Good luck! Let us know what works.

  2. On the negative side by Tony+Hammitt · · Score: 2

    Here's the things that kill motivation:

    1. Assholes. No one wants to work around assholes or on a project with assholes. If someone is habitually surly and rude, fire them. Make sure the other people know you fired the asshole just because he was an asshole.

    2. Pay cuts. So you can't pay anyone anything much right now, no problem. When you do start making money, make sure you can always pay people in a monotonically increasing manner. People can survive on no pay for a while and not hate it, but if you start paying them something then stop, you might as well close up shop right then. No one will want to work anymore.

    3. PHBs. Don't be like Dilbert's boss. Listen to your people's concerns, interact with them socially (especially in bars, more great ideas get generated in bars than anywhere else).

    4. Make sure your people know what the goals of the project are in explicit detail. If you're not sure yet, make sure you keep interacting with everyone until you decide just what it is that you want to accomplish. Everyone is happier if their work is useful, wasting effort pisses people off.

    These were the mistakes that completely destroyed the research group I was in. None of our work was ever used for anything usefull and we don't even speak to each other anymore.

    Pity since the work was cool and could have been profitable.

    Hope this helped,

    Tony