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Ask HN: Did anyone's life ever gotten more comfortable after accepting funding?

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Re: Ask HN: Did anyone's life ever gotten more comfortable after accepting funding?

#31

Post by tehayj »

thetmkay wrote: post #29
ak39 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You want a life-style business. Who doesn't? In the end, everyone is choosing a life-style. Life-style decisions should be the first and most important motivating factor for engaging in any business activity - not money, not growth. Life-style. Money and growth and all the tangible business indicators are at least an order of factor away from the real reason folks do business. Folks wanting the venture funded path a…

I think the "life" in life-style is the same "life" from work-life balance: ie, priorities outside of work. Therefore a lifestyle business is one where (supposedly) you sacrifice growth for time outside of work. The problem with the phrase is that it's become an insult in many corners of the startup world, as if bootstrapping a business on your own to survive decades is not ambitious enough. The parallel I thought of…

For us its life work balance. I just started a small game studio because that's what I really like to do. It's already a retirement project, sort of, because I only have to make the strategic decisions for our business and someone else is handling all day to day business and scaling the company. I just dont want to abandon the game studio project now just to make some investors happy. We have positive cash flow anyway.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone's life ever gotten more comfortable after accepting funding?

#32

Post by wslh »

asifjamil wrote: post #10
togilvie wrote: post #2

I think you've answered your own question. Taking outside money will make life busier, increase pressure, and create investor expectations that may be different from your own. Bringing in an investor that would be willing to replace you with a new management team is a Bad Idea(tm). It's also a bad idea to try to mislead your investors and replace yourselves. Outside money can be great if you want to build a really bi…

> But there are tons of businesses that are better off using revenue as funding. Any specific examples?

If you are asking about large private companies take a look at this US list: http://www.forbes.com/largest-private-companies/list/#tab:ra...

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone's life ever gotten more comfortable after accepting funding?

#33

Post by tehayj »

xando wrote: post #19

I've been / I am in similar place right now. Since I don't have anything solid as an answer. Few comments. Please read this. http://www.aaronkharris.com/investors-and-their-incentives As few people noticed, The content of the question displays way of thinking that is incompatible with VC. My approach right now is to find an angel investor who could spend reasonable amount of time with me. Effectively a mentor, to hel…

Thanks, that was interesting.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone's life ever gotten more comfortable after accepting funding?

#35

Post by tim333 »

asifjamil wrote: post #10
togilvie wrote: post #2

I think you've answered your own question. Taking outside money will make life busier, increase pressure, and create investor expectations that may be different from your own. Bringing in an investor that would be willing to replace you with a new management team is a Bad Idea(tm). It's also a bad idea to try to mislead your investors and replace yourselves. Outside money can be great if you want to build a really bi…

> But there are tons of businesses that are better off using revenue as funding. Any specific examples?

Fog Creek is an interesting example partly because it's written up and also because it's kind of a hybrid where they've remained self funded but spun off VC funded ventures in Trello and in some ways Stack Exchange http://www.foundersatwork.com/joel-spolksy.html

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone's life ever gotten more comfortable after accepting funding?

#37

Post by ido »

jacquesm wrote: post #9

Investor goals and founder goals are rarely aligned. If you want to go for world domination and would rather risk everything to achieve that and possibly end up with nothing at all then go the investor route. That will increase your chances of ending up with nothing, but it will (perversely) also increase your chances of success. If you're already happy at your current level just grow it organically and don't look ba…

take note that the slow/"safe" way also has its own risk - that someone will discover your currently-secret goldmine and overtake you due to having more resources/connections/investment.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone's life ever gotten more comfortable after accepting funding?

#39

Post by wslh »

If organic growth is working it says a lot about your startup and you are in a rare position. Plenty of startups can't even exist or run without outside capital. This includes the ones in news you read every day. But if you insist and like hyper growth I would recommend to try YC.

And, as a vendor witnessing a lot of startups for 14 years, I would also recommend to follow the organic route. You can see a lot of geniuses and killer products crash. Even one nine figure acquisition was not so great for the founders and they didn't get that much after working a few years as part of the retention.

If you want to be acquired in the future, follow the growth route too, since your valuation will be a multiplier of your revenue.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone's life ever gotten more comfortable after accepting funding?

#40

Post by eli »

We have great investors who have made the company stronger and allowed us to hire a bigger team faster. But they are more like angels, only gave a relatively small amount, and share our vision and especially our (long, indefinite) timeline for an exit. Very different from traditional VC.
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