21–30 of 78 posts
Even for my teeny tiny startup (2008) I had several VCs calling us everyday wanting to invest. I really think if you're in a position where your on the VC's mercy for funding, it means your startup needs more work on the product.
Why can't an SAAS startup have 100% gross (not net) profit? Because they're paying $17 per year for their domain?
> I'm having trouble envisioning what sort of SAAS startup's only operating cost is the price of their domain.
I understand that "operating costs" (also development costs) are deducted only from net, not gross profit?
In other words, if I buy a nail from a wholesaler for $0.25 and sell it to you for $1.00 I've made gross profit of $0.75 (because I subtract what I bought it for.) I thought my operating expenses weren't involved?
By that metric, if I buy a license to resell a "wholesaler's" ebook (proxy product) or software license for $1 and sell it to you for $5, that implies gross profit of $4 (or 80%).
On the other hand, if i had written the ebook or software myself and it costs me $0 to email it to you / email a license, I would make $5 gross profit ($5 from you plus $0 to generate a license key which I can do for free), yielding 100% gross profit.
Isn't that what these words mean?
btw since the comment had read "I'm having trouble imagining" and then got deleted, perhaps they did imagine some examples - could that poster share?
Every clickbait title is different. But. 22 Reasons THIS one will blow your mind.
See what he's trying to say, not how he's trying to say.
[edit: grammar]
Um, MY personnel get to choose who comes into the company that they work at. Thanks.
This alone throws huge red flags about this investor.
I may have a million good reasons for rejecting your "stable boy". Number 1 is: he's a "stable boy". I have NEVER seen a "stable boy" cause anything but problems.
A truly amazing VP is probably already employed somewhere else and I have to crack him loose rather than worry about rejecting him.
> If you don’t take an amazing VP intro I give you. I’m out. Um, MY personnel get to choose who comes into the company that they work at. Thanks. This alone throws huge red flags about this investor. I may have a million good reasons for rejecting your "stable boy". Number 1 is: he's a "stable boy". I have NEVER seen a "stable boy" cause anything but problems. A truly amazing VP is probably already employed somewhere…
Number 12 surprised me given the number of billionaires that would've failed it. Most are hyperfocused and opinionated early on to the point they don't care who they piss off or destroy to dominate the market they're creating. He'll either get the ones that are consistently good on P.C./P.R. at the beginning or filter out the unicorns he might have gotten. That would be my guess based on what I've seen. How many unic…
Yeah, selecting for founders who are PC-compliant seems mildly retarded, to say the least. The charitable reading is that the guy has a way he wishes the world were, and is trying to impose that vision on people he funds; which I mean, go with god dude.
I don't care if someone curses or is blunt about how they think something sucks, but one joke about how a certain person from sales who keeps bringing customers to hostess bars has a "nice but unfortunately expensive hobby", or to refer to engineers as "the autists", or to be glad that "the monkey is gone" when a black person leaves the room (all things I have heard from execs)... That does not show how bold and disruptive someone is, it just shows they are a terrible person. Maybe still a successful terrible person, but I still want nothing to do with people like that.
My last startup we met with an angel investor who was like this. The money isn't worth it, we turned him down, and ended up going with someone more reasonable. Reasonable people attract connections and connections are great for your startup.
And we all did pretty well in the end... without all the unhealthy hyped-up stress caused by working for someone like this. Investors are your boss, make sure you like them. If you have a good idea, hell if you have just an OK idea and can execute... people will line up to give you money.
> I don’t want you in the office 100 hours a week. Actually, I don’t even want you in the office 40 hours a week — I want you out with customers But when you’re home. When you’re out to dinner. When you’re relaxing at the beach. Even (sorry) when you’re with your family. I want you obsessing about your company. My last startup we met with an angel investor who was like this. The money isn't worth it, we turned him do…
Every clickbait title is different. But. 22 Reasons THIS one will blow your mind.
I've followed Jason Lemkin for about a year (mostly on Quora) and he seems like a former successful SaaS entrepreneur trying to figure out the rules of SaaS as a VC (he also organises a major conference), and to share his experience with the world at large. A lot of the stuff he writes is not obvious to me and clearly based on lessons learnt the hard way.
Writing is hard and writing about a fuzzy subject (there are no "rules of business" beyond very broad generalisations) is even harder, especially when the opinions expressed are not going to be much appreciated by the target audience.
He happens to have picked the list format to note down his thoughts of the day. This is very different from clickbait spam.