Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Startup funding simulator

fundingsimulator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 168 posts

Re: Show HN: Startup funding simulator

#141

Post by Draiken »

amne wrote: post #140
mdekkers wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never count options as renumeration. Startups and scaleups may as well promise to pay me with lottery tickets. Cash please, thank you. If you want to talk about using equity to pay me, please come with real shares, and a say in how the business is run, at least in the areas where I have experience and expertise.

You only accept equity as the only pay if you believe in your friend's product and can take the hit when it doesn't work out. Everywhere else I've seen actual cash + options which is a way of saying "we'll pay you for a while and if this works out your options will be your reward for sticking around".

> we'll pay you for a while and if this works out your options will be your reward for sticking around

If it was at least as you describe, that'd be one thing, but not even that is guaranteed. At the time an exit event actually does happen, you might've been diluted out of existence.

I've personally been fucked out of shares once already. It's much, much worse than a lottery ticket. It's basically a dream.

Re: Show HN: Startup funding simulator

#143

Post by cnity »

Draiken wrote: post #141
amne wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only accept equity as the only pay if you believe in your friend's product and can take the hit when it doesn't work out. Everywhere else I've seen actual cash + options which is a way of saying "we'll pay you for a while and if this works out your options will be your reward for sticking around".

> we'll pay you for a while and if this works out your options will be your reward for sticking around If it was at least as you describe, that'd be one thing, but not even that is guaranteed. At the time an exit event actually does happen, you might've been diluted out of existence. I've personally been fucked out of shares once already. It's much, much worse than a lottery ticket. It's basically a dream.

I somehow was _immensely lucky_ to have joined a company that IPO'd shortly after joining. As a mid level engineer I sold my shares for literally $140,000 after tax, in total (as in, from selling all of my vested shares as they vested) despite not staying for all vesting rounds.

This being despite receiving a salary of only around $80-90k. I've never once considered shares to be something to depend on, but man can they be life-changing if you're in the right place at the right time.

Re: Show HN: Startup funding simulator

#144

Post by gempir »

It would be cool if you could "import" companies into this and have like a public library of various companies and better understand what they did.

That would make learning about a company way more interactive. Although I'm not versed enough in startup culture to know how much of this data is even public.

Re: Show HN: Startup funding simulator

#146

Post by not_the_fda »

dmurray wrote: post #138
leetrout wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, no snark, open their eyes to how little their options are worth.

Are there any companies that share with the employees enough information to run this simulator? My standard experience has been -"This offer includes X,000 share/option units" -"great, how much is that worth in dollars?" -"well, we can't tell you, but there are Y00,000 shares in total, and the last investor paid $Z million for W% of the company". "OK, that's very useful. If I assume my shares are as good as the inves…

shares/options are worth the same as Shrute bucks.

Re: Show HN: Startup funding simulator

#147

Post by not_the_fda »

urbandw311er wrote: post #77
risenshinetech wrote: post #70

This is a calculator, not a simulator. What exactly are you simulating? This takes a number of fixed inputs and produces a fixed output over some very coarse, manually controlled time steps. It's like saying using a calculator to add up the last few months of income/expenses is a "financial simulator".

This seems like a rather pedantic objection in my opinion. “Simulation” here likely refers to a potential scenario such as a raise or an exit, or even an entire hypothetical venture.

If it were a "simulation" it would take into account that 99% of startups go to zero.

Re: Show HN: Startup funding simulator

#150

Post by unraveller »

latchkey wrote: post #121
tptacek wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a standardized convertible note instrument, designed to replace convertible debt. Convertible notes are what you raise in a widely syndicated round before you have a firm valuation (ie, in your seed round). It's very easy to "sell" someone a convertible note, whereas an institutional priced round involves huge amounts of due diligence and legal fees. Convertible debt became the sort of default way seed rounds wo…

Great explanation, also link to the documents: https://www.ycombinator.com/documents

there is also a chatbot that has access to all the ycombi docs. it will explain SAFE like i'm five for you.

https://www.spryngtime.com/yc-demo

Post reply on HN