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Ask HN: What to do after selling startup?

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Re: Ask HN: What to do after selling startup?

#31

Post by bk »

petercooper wrote: post #14

I got out of programming as a necessity and in to doing things for the love of it. Teaching, evangelizing, helping people out, mostly. For me, programming was/is a means to an end, not something I enjoyed doing.. but helping other people to learn and enjoy programming is something I enjoy. (As an aside, I can now sympathize with those professors who teach subjects without having any commercial experience of them. It…

How did you transition? Do you hire programmers now to build stuff, instead of doing it yourself? Or is the nature of your business just much more content/marketing oriented now, so you don't need much (new) technology?

Re: Ask HN: What to do after selling startup?

#33

Post by rw »

wheels wrote: post #20
ams6110 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting viewpoint. The one I've heard is: if you DON'T have an exit strategy, it's just a hobby.

That came across my Twitter stream yesterday, seems it's from Mark Cuban after Googling: http://blogmaverick.com/2008/03/09/my-rules-for-startups/ To me personally, thinking too much about exit strategies in an early phase startup seems like premature optimization. Thinking about what you're going to be doing after you sell a company that's just getting off the ground is bordering on mental autoerotica. It's like deb…

It's the difference between a supergoal and a supergoal.

Re: Ask HN: What to do after selling startup?

#35

Post by jasonlbaptiste »

I've already said I plan on setting aside a certain percentage of my net worth to angel invest back into startups. I want to help people who were like me when I first got started at 18 (clueless but relentlessly passionate on building things that can change the world).

I'd most likely do a startup again (and again) at some point, but angel investing could easily become a full time startup.

I'd also spend a lot of time setting up a non-profit that introduced young kids to technology at an early age. I was pretty lucky that my dad got me onto the computer when I was four. There are a lot of kids in bad areas of the world that aren't that lucky.

I guess in short, I want to help give people the same opportunities I had from people that believed in me. With a good amount of money, you can do that on a much larger scale.

Re: Ask HN: What to do after selling startup?

#36

Post by ALee »

You usually have 3 stages (based on the successful guys I've met before):

A) Vesting period- after the initial sale, you take on the day job of either (a) doing what you were doing before, if you were properly aligned in incentive structure, or (b) doing something different that they bought your team for. For some, they find that they have now reached a state in corporate America that allows them to vault to the upper echelons of management, while others feel these days don't go by fast enough.

B) Soul-searching/vacation period- for those who don't stay after vesting, some people go and soul-search, Entrepreneur In Residence gigs, live 4-hour workweeks, travel copious amounts, become advisors or investors in other companies, or find their original cadre of friends to start hacking on stuff. Some start dating.

C) Next gig- depending on the riskiness of the individual, they may never sell another startup again and become the circling crew of technology professionals, others will compete with much furor with another startup, while others will forget their hacker roots and take $5M from a big VC firm on an unproven idea.

Re: Ask HN: What to do after selling startup?

#37

Post by FredSource »

Having sold my startup, the money gives me flexibility to do what I want!

Personally, I am i. managing an open source project ii. picking up/tasking the kids to school (generally spending time with the kids) iii. biking regularly to get/stay fit iv. lunches with friends v. looking for the next "thing" I want to get involved in

Ahh .. but you can see I am a little older than you!

Re: Ask HN: What to do after selling startup?

#38

Post by moe »

fb wrote: post #9

I'll probably waste some time contributing to open source projects and then invest into hookers :) Really, if your only reason to do a startup is to do something else after that - why bother? If you like contributing to open source projects - contribute now! You like drugs and hookers? What stops you now?

What stops you now?

My credit balance.

Re: Ask HN: What to do after selling startup?

#40

Post by petercooper »

bk wrote: post #31
petercooper wrote: post #14

I got out of programming as a necessity and in to doing things for the love of it. Teaching, evangelizing, helping people out, mostly. For me, programming was/is a means to an end, not something I enjoyed doing.. but helping other people to learn and enjoy programming is something I enjoy. (As an aside, I can now sympathize with those professors who teach subjects without having any commercial experience of them. It…

How did you transition? Do you hire programmers now to build stuff, instead of doing it yourself? Or is the nature of your business just much more content/marketing oriented now, so you don't need much (new) technology?

While I'm not a fan of grinding on code for hours anymore, I still code a little but for the ends rather than the means. I've become content and outcome focused rather than code and technology focused, so I can "outsource" to existing technologies/apps (e.g. a Wordpress install that does 90% of what I want, rather than a custom CMS that does it all).

I've looked into outsourcing to other people but find myself too much of a micromanager to get away with it. No-one deserves micromanagement so I avoid it. Everyone else seems to want to turn trivial tasks into big "projects" with budgets to match ;-) - but that's because they're professional coders with standards, whereas if I can use an off the shelf product or bash something messy together in Ruby in 2 hours, I'll do that instead.

Professional coders tend to gasp in horror at my philosophy and I can't blame them. I'm very much of the "duct tape" mentality when it comes to engineering. Thankfully, you can get away with this on your own non-critical projects.. (it's a bit like the welder who doesn't use a mask when doing his own stuff in the garage) but I don't advise it for career programmers because otherwise you'll end up on The Daily WTF every week ;-)

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