Ask HN: Do you regret taking investment? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret taking investment?

#61

Post by jasonkester » Thu, May 04, 2017, 7:27 AM UTC

I feel like I dodged a bullet by not taking VC money for Twiddla back when everybody was fighting to give it to us.

Considering how happy my life is now, and how often you see the Technical Founder get pushed out of his own company in place of a board-approved CTO, I don't imagine it would have left me net happier.

Best case might have been an acquihire, a few years couching it out waiting to vest at a big company, then a medium sized payday. Actual case was a (different) bootstrapped product and a bit of consulting that was a lot more fun and left me in a similar spot financially, 10 years later.

Anything less than best case, I'd be responding to the actual question posed here today.

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret taking investment?

#62

Post by luckydude » Thu, May 04, 2017, 2:12 PM UTC

webmaven wrote: post #60

luckydude wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's me. Maybe I should change my login.

Naw, keep it, it's a cool handle. Maybe just add your name to your profile ( I know who "BitKeeper Guy" is, but there are almost certainly some users on HN who are literally younger than Git).

Wow, way to make me feel old (reality sucks). But you are right, took your suggestion. Thanks.

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret taking investment?

#63

Post by luckydude » Thu, May 04, 2017, 2:47 PM UTC

firebones wrote: post #59

luckydude wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker news hasn't cornered the market on jackasses, my opinion is that this place has one of the least amounts of jackasses. But yeah, I get your point. I'm pretty retired but I'll check out your links. I kinda feel like a useless dinosaur but if there are places where I can help move things forward I'm 100% up for that. I just don't feel like I have that much value to add at this point. Edit: one thing I really wis…

>>>For that matter, I wish drop box was versioned. Same reason. It's always blown my mind that nobody has done a file system that was versioned so you could merge stuff. Maybe that's because BitKeeper merges so much better that the others. It's possible to automerge a lot more if you have the history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Files-11 (A little facetious here...no merging, but come on, it was the 1980s.)

VMS style versioning is not at all what I meant. What I meant is the OS implements the inode just like a versioned file in an SCM.

Consider the /etc stuff. You wack apache's config, so does debian, you do an apt-get upgrade and it either automerges or you get presented with the 3 way merge in $EDITOR or our graphical file merge.

In many cases, the system can just automerge it (BitKeeper has a pretty sophisticated way of doing, it's better than other answers in a lot of cases) and when it can't you get access to the full DAG and can use all the SCM tools to merge.

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret taking investment?

#64

Post by paulmatthijs » Thu, May 04, 2017, 8:20 PM UTC

Never, not for a second. It's the investors that made it possible to go full time with our venture. We couldn't have done it without. Be happy.

I sometimes hear founders regretting it, thinking the returns are too high compared to the initial investment (angel, seed). That's unfair, I think. It reeks of jealousy. You can't put a value on the peace of mind you get, for a while, of being able to do it your way.

FWIW, we only did a large seed round, no need for VC since, so things might be pretty different for Startups in the Series ;)

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret taking investment?

#65

Post by contingencies » Thu, May 04, 2017, 10:15 PM UTC

neom wrote: post #49

jasim wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks very much!

I would caution that the poster has maybe never raised over $5-10MM. This is a very early stage mentality and does not jive with investors as partners, certainly, there is truth in it, but it's not the crux.

I agree that this is not an attitude to take to the detriment of partnerships. However, as an antidote to worrying about potential future demands in lieu of focusing on business development, it is an available and effective if perhaps heavy-handed mental modeshift!

FYI: Our next round is $10M and we are oversubscribed, but I do not claim to be an expert at raising or anything else for that matter.

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret taking investment?

#66

Post by neom » Fri, May 05, 2017, 2:13 AM UTC

contingencies wrote: post #65

neom wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would caution that the poster has maybe never raised over $5-10MM. This is a very early stage mentality and does not jive with investors as partners, certainly, there is truth in it, but it's not the crux.

I agree that this is not an attitude to take to the detriment of partnerships. However, as an antidote to worrying about potential future demands in lieu of focusing on business development, it is an available and effective if perhaps heavy-handed mental modeshift! FYI: Our next round is $10M and we are oversubscribed, but I do not claim to be an expert at raising or anything else for that matter.

Totally fair.

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret taking investment?

#67

Post by Gustomaximus » Fri, May 05, 2017, 5:01 AM UTC

ascendantlogic wrote: post #23

luckydude wrote: post #14

I regret not taking it. Hummer-Winblad really wanted to give us some money but I couldn't figure out what they brought to the table. In retrospect, it was marketing, the money could have paid for marketing. And because they were invested they would have insisted on marketing. Did I mention we needed some marketing? We really needed some marketing. So, while it's very common to ask about taking investment, also look h…

This is a problem that a lot of engineering types fall into. We as technical people think that the best technology will win, but that's not true. The best technology that the most people have heard of for the most reasonable price will win.

I used to think the best product was key. Over the years I've realised I'd prefer a standard product with a brilliant distribution channel than a brilliant product with a standard distribution channel.

Obviously the goal is to develop both!