If you were unemployed and saw $14M on the sidewalk would you pick it up?
I suggest you do that.
Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?
181–190 of 336 posts
Re: Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?
#182Would you mind sharing your contact info?
You can reach me at thisanonguy1@gmail.com
Re: Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?
#183It sounds like it's time for an ICO... all the cool kids are doing it.
But in all seriousness one in the hand is not worth two in the bush in these scenarios it's worth a thousand in the bush.
Re: Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?
#184Re: Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?
#185Learn from my mistake. Unless you're already financially secure (meaning you could stop working and live your current lifestyle for several years) then my advice is to take the money while you can OR to leverage that valuation to pocket a few million $ (by selling equity). I'm doing great with my current startups now but several years ago I founded a very promising startup which almost immediately got many acquisitio…
There is a lot of advice on the thread saying: take the money. Given your personal situation etc. this may very well be the right choice. But you need to realize that just because you've been approached for acquisition and even if somebody tells you straight up "we want to acquire you", it sounds like you are far away from actually getting acquired. The road from casual interest to money in the bank is long and bumpy…
Definitely. I've been at startups who got signed letters stating the acquisition will go through from the other company, the other company spends months in due diligence learning every secret we had, then they just stop working on it and leave the deal dead.
Re: Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dined once with a billionaire and a couple of multimillionaires. The billionaire owned a jet. The multimillionaires were envious of him because they only owned jet timeshares . (If you own your own jet, it's always where you want it, you can decorate it the way you want, and you can leave your stuff in its bedroom and living room. It's like having a pied-à-terre in a city instead of renting a hotel room each time y…
Such hideously wasteful extravagance, and how sad that these people who are already absurdly rich are still greedy for more.
> Such hideously wasteful extravagance
You're moralizing the issue, which points to the fact that most of what you said is nothing more than a personal subjective judgement. For someone with that wealth, it's not usually going to be a wasteful extravagance at all.
Billionaires are like large corporations unto themselves. Their business interests are of the scale of small companies in the S&P 500.
Take Patterson Companies, an S&P 500 company, among the smallest with a $3.4 billion market cap. $3.4 billion in wealth isn't enough to get you onto the Bloomberg global richest 500 list.
By contrast, Henry Kravis of KKR fame, is worth $5.x billion (merely #345 on the billionaire list). It makes perfect sense for someone with his large business interests to utilize a personal jet for optimization of time. It's about as wasteful as an average person in the developed world owning a car. Oh those average people in the developed world, living that luxurious extravagant life in which they own a car (or a home, gasp!).
Re: Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really. Buffett bought a jet, after calling it indefensible for years, and actually named it The Indefensible. I reckon it is a good investment for many CEOs. There time is worth FAR MORE to their companies than whatever a jet costs to run, the saved time is invaluable as is the clarity that comes with better conditions when flying.
How much time does owning a jet actually save?
It's not just door to door time, but schedule flexibility. Not every route has a direct flight, multiple flights per day, etc.
Many people schedule meetings to end right before they have to leave for the airport and catch the last flight back home for another important meeting the next day. Would prefer that someone making decisions impacting the livelihoods of thousands of people each day is focused on the issue at hand, not catching the next flight.
Re: Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't even remotely true. Years ago I signed up for AL, and the situation was exactly as the OP described in "real life": you had to be connected to get connected. Revenue does not matter. Or rather, did. I don't know if it's any better now, but I doubt it.
Same here. If you don't already have a well-connected lead investor or a well-connected board member/advisor then AL will be a ghost town for you.
This +10. AL has not been worth any of the time I'd put into it, attempting to locate potential investors.
Wasn't in a "hot" space. High performance unified (file, block, object) scale out storage and compute hardware. Most of the VCs and angels we spoke with were saying "hardware? Why? Everyone just runs everything on Amazon". Which isn't correct, or even nearly correct. One VC who saw us compare ourselves to Nutanix (way back in 2013), decided to then speak to Nutanix and help them. Nice of them to do so.
Early in my processes I learned that things like "growth capital" meetings, where you get to pay to present to VCs/investors are a complete waste of time and capital. AL is sort of like that, though you don't have to pay money, just time.
Raising capital is all about who you know, and who knows you. There's a mixture of pedigree and other intangibles, and relatively uncorrelated with actual results things in there. Which dominate the "hey, we pulled in $3.3M in revenue at 50%+ gross margin with no external investment, how about some love" discussions. Even funnier to hear them say "but we want to see more traction". Yes, really.
Sorry about letting the bitter leak into this.
Learn from my many failures. Try not to make them yourself.
Re: Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?
#189Happy to talk through your options on a phone call if you'd like. You can email me: justin.kan@gmail.com Relevant experience: sold a couple companies, raised a lot of money
Wow, thanks Justin. Done.
Re: Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?
#190i can give you a warm intro. email me :)
edit: you should def. explore all your options and choose the best one. don't discount any yet though