Should add liquidation preferences and allow sales below the last priced round. Seem to be more common these days!
Show HN: Startup funding simulator
51–60 of 168 posts
Re: Show HN: Startup funding simulator
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bootstrapping requires a rare breed of founder who is financially secure enough (or frugal enough) to manage life on a reduced salary, capable of building useful products on a budget, and willing to risk the missed opportunity cost of a cushy Big Co position. In my experience, the hardest thing to master is the actual building - plenty of people are bootstrapping "theoretically useful" inventions in basements/garages…
> Such people can really benefit from VC oversight and business acumen. Would it not be financially more prudent to hire/consult experts, particularly if you can get access to a startup/accelerator program? Even without easy access, there is no dilution of ownership.
It is not easy to hire/consult that level of person though. They are too busy being VCs
Re: Show HN: Startup funding simulator
#53Wow what a great tool! Intuitive and clean interface with realistic default equity investments/option pools. Also I love to see more and more svelte projects popping up. Really exciting seeing its growing adoption :)
Re: Show HN: Startup funding simulator
#54Should put a button that plugs in default scenarios like YC, typical series A, B, etc.
Re: Show HN: Startup funding simulator
#55Looks great! Personally I’d make it so state changes don’t push history into the stack. Users don’t consider those inputs comparable to a page change. It’s more like typing into a form.
wanted to make any simulation shareable by copying the url. but you're right, there has to be a better way ...
As somebody else suggested just a share link would be a good way to allow sharing. Alternatively, for either a share link or as just a way to keep the state in the URL, I'd recommend B64 encoding the data as opposed to just directly escaping it. URLs have a maximum length (forgot off the top of my head, may be 1024 or something), so storing large stringified objects usually results in issues as opposed to just encoding it. It also makes for a more logical URL structure of fundingsimulator.com/{b64}. This is if you wanted to keep the URL as the single source of truth on the state, otherwise you could keep state internally which can be initialized by optional URL state (structured as stated before), and then just encode it and put it in a URL which is copied to clipboard when a share button is clicked.
Re: Show HN: Startup funding simulator
#56Great work! It would be cool if there was an option to "Exit / Sell the Startup" after a SAFE round i.e., before a priced round. This would simulate Jason Lemkin's one round scenario: https://www.saastr.com/venture-backed-theres-a-third-way-jus...
working on this one! thanks
Could you show hypothetical dilution at the SAFE level too? And continue to show it on the graph edges after a priced round?
It'd also be cool to see hypothetical valuation of equity on the line/edges too.
This is an awesome tool, btw! Thank you for putting it together!
Re: Show HN: Startup funding simulator
#57Re: Show HN: Startup funding simulator
#58Bootstrapping a business with my savings to retain full control is both the wisest and hardest thing I’ve done. I don’t understand why people are so quick to start giving up control out of the gate for software companies. Servers are cheap, it’s not like in say, manufacturing where you need a factory. You’re gonna let some VC bro tell you what to do for a SaaS product? Why exactly? Just go to market on the cheap. I’v…
Would you feel comfortable telling a VC-funded business about your market? Or having one find you?
It's a dark forest. They see you, they covet your traction, and then they raise to outmaneuver you.
You might win, but that's a tremendous amount of stress dealing with a better-capitalized foe.
Re: Show HN: Startup funding simulator
#59Well, I can only add founders and get 100/#(founders). It looks bugged.
Re: Show HN: Startup funding simulator
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
It works as long as you don't have funded competition. Especially if they start giving away the thing that you charge for. Then you need to have deep pockets to wait it out.
I presume this would not really apply to "mature" hardware markets with a large number of companies already present and selling?
Entering an established market as a start-up is a completely different ballgame than 'greenfield', both funding wise and how you need to tackle the whole problem.