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Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?

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291–300 of 336 posts

Re: Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree disagree. Live anywhere near Silicon Valley and tell me 300-400k/yr is rich. You'd be lucky to get a nicely located condo at that income level.

I live in the Bay Area, and $300-400k/yr is an unfathomable amount of money. Get a grip! You're talking about the top 1% of incomes in the country.

I live here too. We looked at a condo, near Mountain View two weeks ago and the mortgage would have been 10k/month.

You need a minimum of 120k, just for your house. Pre tax you’re looking at a minimum viable salary of 300k.

How is this unfathomable?

The entire row of condos sold in less than a week.

Re: Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?

#293
post #289
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say $100k post-tax to make it easy. - Housing $34k annually - Car $16k annually - Food $20k annually - Stuff $20k annually - Vacation $10k annually

A more realistic one Housing + utilities 50K Medical insurance + deductible exp. 16K Food 20K (will not be good food) Cell service/internet 2k So no car no vacation and around 1K/ month for stuff and all other expenses

$20k annually on food and it won't be good? I'm not sure what groceries you buy and where you eat out, but my family is pretty happy with our food. $400 per week is quite reasonable. Heck, you can shop at Whole Foods with that budget. Sometimes, anyway. The Asian market has much better prices, but they don't sell milk.

But yeah, forgot medical.

If you're doing half your discretionary on housing, that's going to be tough. I suggest moving.

Re: Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?

#294
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without any relevant startup experience to back it up my opinion, I concur. It's a hard pill to swallow, but unless you are working at the top of your software area with mostly theoretical bits that you've worked out, it's not really all that hard to copy most things in software (unless you have contracts in that give you an advantage, sort of like a mini monopoly). It's bad enough that a few years ago here people we…

> It's bad enough that a few years ago here people were complaining that they would do a Show HN submission, and find a few weeks after that someone had taken their mostly completed idea, assigned a whole team of cheap developers to it and executed on it not only faster, but better. Is this still a problem? Don’t PG and others say not to be afraid of others stealing ideas, and that ideas are worth little, and that it…

Yeah, I used to be really afraid of sharing my ideas until I finally started my own company.

Ideas are cheap. Building a company is hard work. It takes a good idea and a passionate team to create something great. Sure you run a chance of someone taking your idea. But are they more dedicated and passionate about it than you? If so, you're in the wrong business. Better to find out sooner, tbh.

Re: Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?

#295

I'm a seed stage VC. If you want feedback on your pitch or cold email, please email me at leo@susaventures.com. I'd be happy to help. My fund might be a fit as an investor. If not, then I might be able to suggest a few firms that could be a fit. Also, 4% is a low open rate, but that might be misleading. For example, I set gmail to not open images by default, which could affect emails that use tracking pixels. Finally…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?

#296
post #293
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A more realistic one Housing + utilities 50K Medical insurance + deductible exp. 16K Food 20K (will not be good food) Cell service/internet 2k So no car no vacation and around 1K/ month for stuff and all other expenses

$20k annually on food and it won't be good? I'm not sure what groceries you buy and where you eat out, but my family is pretty happy with our food. $400 per week is quite reasonable. Heck, you can shop at Whole Foods with that budget. Sometimes, anyway. The Asian market has much better prices, but they don't sell milk. But yeah, forgot medical. If you're doing half your discretionary on housing, that's going to be to…

How did this become about me :)? The discussion was about quality of life in SF with 160K a year.

Re: Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?

#297
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I suggest you read this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window Fuel and depreciation is simply wealth being destroyed.

No, I don't believe fuel and depreciation are being destroyed. I think that is the difference between this situation and the broken window parable. They are simply being traded for a service to arrive at destinations swiftly. If we judge purely off opportunity cost the billionaire's time is worth a lot more than the average layman. The extra cost in the goods and services of a private jet may very well be worth the e…

Renting a jet to get from A > B is no slower. But, it's a lot cheaper and the difference in costs is not a net economic benifit.

Re: Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the Bay Area, and $300-400k/yr is an unfathomable amount of money. Get a grip! You're talking about the top 1% of incomes in the country.

I live here too. We looked at a condo, near Mountain View two weeks ago and the mortgage would have been 10k/month. You need a minimum of 120k, just for your house. Pre tax you’re looking at a minimum viable salary of 300k. How is this unfathomable? The entire row of condos sold in less than a week.

It's not just $300K/yr of W-2 income being discussed; it's that combined with a net worth of $10MM. You could pay cash for that ~$2 million condo and still have $15K/mo to spend after tax. No need to save for retirement (that's what the $8MM is already covering) or college (break off a bit when that time comes).

If that situation feels "minimum viable" to someone, I don't think their primary problem is money-related.

Re: Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?

#299
I'm not a business owner, so this advice might be naive, but is there a reason you couldn't get a business loan from a bank instead of VC money? If you've got a strong enough business (which it sounds like you do), I'm confident they'd be interested, and it's not like they don't have the cash to invest.

Re: Ask HN: Sell my startup for $14M because I can't raise $2M?

#300
post #47

Learn from my mistake. Unless you're already financially secure (meaning you could stop working and live your current lifestyle for several years) then my advice is to take the money while you can OR to leverage that valuation to pocket a few million $ (by selling equity). I'm doing great with my current startups now but several years ago I founded a very promising startup which almost immediately got many acquisitio…

It's a gamble and it's easier to manage the risk of gambling if you're rich already.

Is this the chance of a lifetime? Or is it just a good idea that may make a lot of money?

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