71–80 of 168 posts
SAFE raise $750k, cap $4m
Series A raise $8m, val $40m, options 10%, pro-rata
Series B raise $20m, val $100m, options 10%, pro-rata
Exit $300m
Single founder keeps 49% of equity which is $147m. Three founders each keeps 16% and $49m.
Was totally expecting this to be a snarky game.
Hahaha I’m glad I’m not the only one. I can’t find it now, but I’m sure I’ve seen a snarky PM game here on HN before. Thought it might be the sequel
Bootstrapping 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…
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…
I don't have a clue what a "safe" is... but I made 36 million dollars in 3 steps. I'm a happy camper.
Broadly syndicated convertible note seed rounds are a relatively new innovation; what preceded them was "friends and family" rounds of $50-100k followed immediately by an A round, which was a galactic pain in the ass for founders trying to get their companies up on their legs. A seed lets you confirm your hypothesis about PMF without doing board meetings.
The C.W. is that seed rounds today, no matter who's doing them, are done with SAFEs.
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> PMF-Scale: VC Fund if you can show 100% growth each year and forward. If the market is big enough (TAM etc), This can become a billion dollar company and for this to happen fast enough, you will need funding. Also, the reason you need funding here is because it is very tough to scale a business slowly. Either you grow fast from here or die/stay average growth. This makes sense, but I wonder how truly "necessary" fu…
The thing with Funding is that you shouldn't really need it but it's more of a fuel when there already is fire (aka PMF). Once you have the fire (most people fail to get to this point anyway), then you decide if fueling that fire with VC dollars make sense or not for your goals. The problem is that lot of entrepreneur need funding to even start because they don't have enough resources to start something (may be they…
> They fund because you are able to convince them somehow that you are building a unicorn.
I'm admittedly very naïve about this, but do they really expect this all the time? (Especially in physical and non-digital markets?) If you have a healthy growth and projection but no plans to say exceed 100M are you limited by how many VCs are interested?
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".
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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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> PMF-Scale: VC Fund if you can show 100% growth each year and forward. If the market is big enough (TAM etc), This can become a billion dollar company and for this to happen fast enough, you will need funding. Also, the reason you need funding here is because it is very tough to scale a business slowly. Either you grow fast from here or die/stay average growth. This makes sense, but I wonder how truly "necessary" fu…
The business risk is that another company with more money and therefore resources will see your PMF and will move faster to capture the market.
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> 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