The godfather test

We have a mentor we affectionately call el padrino: my first boss, and my brother’s, advising us free for months. His superpower is timing: whenever something important is about to happen, a message from Jorge appears ▸ 27:08. This is the story of the time that instinct saved us.

The deal we almost signed

Two lawyer brothers liked a version of the Homigo idea. It mutated: a niche service, direct hiring, and a company founded by all five of us, papers ready for Friday. The red flags, listed with hindsight’s clarity: they only engaged on weekends (“there are only four weekends in a month; this company will never ship” ▸ 31:31), chat messages answered with a like and silence, a marketing plan flirting with illegality, a contract we were never shown, and the sweetest poison: “you’ll be the legal representative, it’s just paper” ▸ 34:44.

Wednesday midnight, out of nowhere, Jorge texted. Thursday he heard the plan and said, in essence: don’t be fools. Nobody funds a startup with five founders; that many egos means war ▸ 33:42. And on the legal-rep gift: “For being legal representative I’d charge eight or ten million minimum. You spend twenty-five years building a reputation and you can lose it in a second” ▸ 35:03. My eyes opened. We declined on Friday.

gracias, padrino →

The epilogue that pays for everything

The flame died again, the same pattern as entry 3-2. But this wreck left cargo: “if we were going to build them a website, why not build websites for anyone?” ▸ 36:38. The entire landing-pages business, the one paying our bills plan, was born as the salvage of a deal we refused. Keep the mentor; mine the wreckage…