太太的初創公司

我是一個悶蛋公務員。相比之下，我太太Florence從小就非常喜歡冒險。我們五年前結婚後，她成為了媽媽、創辦了一家初創公司，並完成了博士學位。我很高興我能參與其中，並且在這段冒險旅程中一直坐在最前排。

初創公司

5 年前我們結婚時，Florence 正在攻讀博士學位。婚後大半年，她懷上了女兒。然後停學一年以便照顧女兒。在照顧初生女兒的一個晚上，她和她的朋友們決定成立一家初創公司，專注於利用科技以幫助殘疾人士。 （一些背景：在她攻讀工程學博士學位之前，Florence 已經在工業顧問和工業工程裡工作了接近十年，所以並非趕熱潮而選擇創業。）

由於她在一些公營機構待過一段時間，Florence對政府和其他公營機構的資助計劃非常熟悉，使她能夠從大學科技初創企業支持計劃（TSSSU）中獲得3 年資助，總值超過100萬港元。

與許多政府資助計劃一樣，TSSSU有預先確定的資助範圍，並且大部分資助都是實報實銷的，這意味著您需要先花掉自己的資金，然後經過審批才能取回款項，而整個報銷程序通常需時6個月到一年不等。

當然，對一間沒有收入的初創公司來說，任何資金都是有用的，但實報實銷的資助和隨後的文書工作確實限制了公司的發展。畢竟，當時的另外 3 位聯合創始人中，有 2 位正在趕博士論文，而剩下的一位是大學的助理研究教授。Florence 是唯一一位在這家初創公司做事的人，而她還同時要照顧我們的初生女兒！

處理政府文書是一場噩夢。沒完沒了的表格；超過某個金額的採購需要多間公司的報價；支出和收據清單的嚴謹格式要求；把表格 email 給辦公室後，還要親身把 hard copy 奉上。種種不合時宜甚或無理的要求對一間start-up 來說實在費時失事。

而當撥款申請獲得批准後，公司裡的事情開始迅速惡化。

長話短說：公司有四位共同創始人，並各自擁有25%股權。Florence是唯一一個在公司工作過的人。而其中兩位，包括那位助理研究教授，只對購買筆記本電腦、iPad 和其他用於“研究項目”的工具感興趣，而Florence和剩下的聯合創始人 Steve，則想做一些有實際意義的事情。

結果不久後發生了一場醜陋的權力鬥爭，那位 “教授” 試圖把Florence踢出公司，但是股權的分佈令事件陷入僵局。而為了打破僵局，我們試圖在創業時簽署的股東協議裡尋找出路。但令我們詫異的是，那份文件裡並未有涵蓋股東之間陷入僵局的情況。

當時看來唯一的解決辦法就是解散公司，各股東分道揚鑣。但這可能會使Florence的名譽掃地，並且以後無法再從政府獲得其他資金。

幸運的是，我們獲得了這位 “教授” 的黑材料：他在電子郵件中冒充Florence為他的朋友公司提供虛假報價。由於他並沒有掩蓋他的踪跡，我們從電子郵件提供商那裡獲得 IP 地址，而一切證據都指向了他。諷刺的是，在一次他要求召開的臨時股東大會上，我們揭發了他的所作所為，並讓他在錄音下承認了。由於害怕被我們向警察和大學舉報他的不當行為，“教授” 夾著尾巴離開了公司。另一位創辦人也很快地請辭。

不幸的是，公司的有限資本被浪費了在一些法律費用上，而且儘管是他犯了錯，我們還是被建議以fair value換取他的股份和辭去董事會的職務。

這幾個月的經歷對Florence 和公司的營運造成了頗大的壓力，但它確實帶領我們走向了一個更美好的未來，並教會了我們很多創業醜陋的一面。但總括而言，我們很高興它發生在旅途的早期，而我們總算安然地渡過了。

經驗教訓：我知道這是陳詞濫調，但緊記只與正直的人合作。如果您是聯合創始人，請務必讓您的律師仔細審視股東協議。罐頭文件有時根本只是一紙空文，毫無價值。

 

 

Start-up competition

 Start-up competitions

For a small, non-software startup, one simple way to gain exposure, connection and even money is to enter into start-up competitions, lots and lots of them.

Our startup was no different.

Even in the midst of a power struggle in the company, we still entered into many different start-up competitions, either as a postgraduate students team or as the company. We entered into competitions like City I&T Grand Challenge, Elevator Pitch Competition (EPiC), Jumpstarter, Hong Kong Startup Express, among many others. We would usually do a little bit of research before entering, mainly to check if they were for students or very early start-ups to participate and secondly, to see what kind of prize they offered.

Some competitions like Jumpstarter would offer winners monetary awards and/or investment, while some offered selected participants the chance to meet investors and mentorship opportunities. These were all very appealing to a small startup like ours.

Armed with just a conceptual idea and a few renderings, we boldly entered these competitions. We were obviously not nearly good enough to win any of the competitions, but with our decent presentation skills and a strong technical background, we managed to get into the later stages in some of them and even won some small awards.

Maybe due to the sponsors of these events, one very common prize was cloud computing credit awards; we won a few thousand dollars worth of them. At that time, I really was not impressed. The cash flow of the company was slowly drying up, and these cloud computing credits meant nothing to me. As far as I was concerned, we did not need any cloud computing for our product, and I would gladly exchange the credits for a tenth of what they were worth in cash. Thankfully, we kept them.

In some of the competitions that we did well in, we even got invited to meet a few interested investors. Of course, we were not able to land any funding deals with any of the investors yet, but we managed to secure another government grant — The co-creation fund.

This funding was a direct reward for getting into the later stages of one of the competitions. Unlike a reimbursement grant, this time the fund would be sent to a bank account, and you would be able to use it for research and development and at a later stage, patents and marketing of your products. Like all other fundings, there would be restrictions and audits on the money spent, but at least we would not need to cough up money upfront for our research and development. This helped massively with our cash flow, and I would credit it for the rapid acceleration of the realization of our prototype.

After participating in a few competitions, we were invited to join a few accelerator programmes in addition to the incubation programme we were already in. We gladly accepted them, even though we were unsure how joining these accelerator programmes at that time would help our startup to grow. By then, the power struggle of the company has already been resolved, and we were eager to turn the page and move forwards with the startup.

5 years update

Loads happened in the past 5 years… got married, got a daughter, got an apartment, got into crypto, got into NFT, got slightly rich, and got rug-pulled (thankfully only a small portion of the portfolio), but it’s nothing compared to Florence’s (my dear wife) journey, and I am glad I got to be part of it and had a front-row seat during all this time.

The startup

Florence was pursuing a PhD when we got married 5 years ago, and she took a year off when pregnant with our daughter. During a sleepless night nursing the newborn, she and her friends decided to found a startup, focusing on helping the disabled. (Some background: Florence had been working for nearly a decade as an industrial consultant and industrial engineer before pursuing her PhD in engineering, so it’s not some start-up fads that seem prevalent at that moment.) Thanks to her previous work in a quasi-government organization, Florence was familiar with the funding support available from the government and other agencies, and she was able to secure funding from the Technology Start-up Support Scheme for Universities (TSSSU), amounting to a little more than HK$1 Million (~US$150,000) over 3 years. Of course, like many other government funding schemes, there were pre-defined scopes of funding and the majority of the funding was reimbursement-based, meaning that you would need to spend your own fund first before getting it paid and the whole reimbursement generally takes anything from 6 months to a year. Any funding at this stage is useful, but a cost-reimbursement grant and the subsequent paperwork do limit the impact on the startup. After all, with 2 of the other 3 co-founders in the last year of their PhD and the remaining a Research Assistant Professor at a university, Florence was the only one spending any meaningful time at the startup, and she was looking after a newborn at the same time!

Dealing with government paperwork was a nightmare. Forms after forms after forms; two, three, five quotations required for purchase above arbitrary thresholds; exacting format for the list of expenditures and receipts, emailing a softcopy AND submitting a hardcopy of your accounting documents to the office within one week after the quarter ends, the list goes on. It was and still is, a massive drain on business time, but especially true when it was a one-man team and for a relatively small amount of reimbursement grant.

Things started to go south quickly after the grant was approved.

Long story short: There were 4 co-founders with equal shares and Florence was the only one who spent any time on the company as she took a maternity break from her PhD. 2 of them (one of them was the research assistant professor! OK, it’s really just a glorified post-doc position, but still!) were only interested in spending the funding with laptops, iPads and other gadgets for “research purposes”, whereas Florence and Steve, the remaining co-founder, wanted actually to do something meaningful. An ugly power struggle ensued, but luckily we were able to get hold of some damning evidence against the glorified post-doc, and he left the startup with his tail between his legs. His crony soon followed suit. Unfortunately, capital which would be useful for the company was wasted on legal fees and months were lost.

Lesson learned: I know it’s a cliché, but only work with people with integrity, and never ever go for an equal share split if you are co-founding. Someone needs to take charge when shit hits the fans! Stalemate is bad news, and it can be catastrophic for a startup.

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I am going to use this blog to record what I saw in my wife’s startup journey. The startup is actually more than 2 years old, but we also have a spoilt 3-year-old insisting on “sharing” my laptop whenever I go near it.

I was going to write it in Chinese but then I could not type Chinese fast enough and it was so frustrating!