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A Former Tesla Staffer Became an Internet Millionaire in His Spare Time

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Re: A Former Tesla Staffer Became an Internet Millionaire in His Spare Time

#41

Post by protonimitate »

sorenjan wrote: post #23

Why are we singing his praises here? He sells a hangover drink, and in order to not have to get FDA approval he calls it a dietary supplement. Chances are this does not work at all, and he's selling something with false promises and no regulation. Are we praising snake oil salesmen for their businesses acumen now? The Tesla connection seems like nothing more than click bait since it's not related, except maybe gave h…

I think that's an overly negative view of the article.

People are more interested in how he got where he is, not the product itself.

Just because it's not FDA approved yet, doesn't mean its garbage. Not to mention the countless harmful and down right useless products that are pushed and approved by the FDA every year.

Tesla connection is important because people have been on an anti-Tesla tear lately, and this paints them in a pretty good light as far as big companies go.

He is being praised for his cautious and systematic approach to building a start-up, versus the rockstar/reckless founder meme that is prevalent these days.

Re: A Former Tesla Staffer Became an Internet Millionaire in His Spare Time

#42

Post by Retric »

sorenjan wrote: post #23

Why are we singing his praises here? He sells a hangover drink, and in order to not have to get FDA approval he calls it a dietary supplement. Chances are this does not work at all, and he's selling something with false promises and no regulation. Are we praising snake oil salesmen for their businesses acumen now? The Tesla connection seems like nothing more than click bait since it's not related, except maybe gave h…

There are a wide range of thing you can do that reduce or eliminate Hangovers. If he was using Gatorade it would 'work' which IMO is a step beyond the classic snake oil.

Re: A Former Tesla Staffer Became an Internet Millionaire in His Spare Time

#43

Post by dragontamer »

protonimitate wrote: post #41
sorenjan wrote: post #23

Why are we singing his praises here? He sells a hangover drink, and in order to not have to get FDA approval he calls it a dietary supplement. Chances are this does not work at all, and he's selling something with false promises and no regulation. Are we praising snake oil salesmen for their businesses acumen now? The Tesla connection seems like nothing more than click bait since it's not related, except maybe gave h…

I think that's an overly negative view of the article. People are more interested in how he got where he is, not the product itself. Just because it's not FDA approved yet, doesn't mean its garbage. Not to mention the countless harmful and down right useless products that are pushed and approved by the FDA every year. Tesla connection is important because people have been on an anti-Tesla tear lately, and this paints…

FDA approval is actually relatively lax as it is. To pass the FDA, you pretty much have to do better than a placebo.

There's no comparative studies, there's no cross-drug studies, there's no major side-effect studies. FDA testing is almost purely Drug vs Placebo.

So if things aren't FDA approved or otherwise are avoiding FDA studies, you need to be cautious with those products.

The reason why so many "harmful" products get past the FDA is due to the lack of testing btw. Its a known problem, but no one wants to make FDA testing harder for some reason. I guess the drug lobby has done a good job at making people distrust the FDA.

For more details, look up "Phase IV Clinical Trials", which are the studies people want to standardize that go above and beyond the FDA minimums. (Including cross-drug interactions, better studies into side-effects, comparative studies, cost-benefit studies, patient-centered surveys, etc. etc. There's a LOT of studies that simply aren't done)

Re: A Former Tesla Staffer Became an Internet Millionaire in His Spare Time

#44

Post by oakejp12 »

henrypray wrote: post #11
joncrane wrote: post #3

Seems like this guy hedged his bets every step of the way: - kept his day job while working on startup - did fake campaign on FB to gauge demand - got friends to try product - croudfunded the first batch This is a really risk averse guy who is making it big. Sort of the opposite of the bombastic risk-it-all founder we often see in SV hero stories.

One thing that Adam Grant writes about in his book, "Originals", is how it's a bit of a fallacy that founders often dive head first and risk it all when starting their companies. Could be somewhat of a confirmation bias but he gives some great examples of how risk averse many founders actually are when starting their companies (Warby Parker was the main example if I remember correctly). http://www.adamgrant.net/origi…

I came to say just this! He goes on to say that the great startup risk takers are confused with great "risk mitigators" who often hedge these risky bets. One example he gave was Woz who was working with HP when focusing with the creation of Apple.

Re: A Former Tesla Staffer Became an Internet Millionaire in His Spare Time

#45

Post by thevardanian »

BigCatStuff wrote: post #16
mrkurt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of those things make a company worth more than $1 million. It's only wealth on paper, but it's legitimate to call a person a millionaire who owns a company who's done one of those.

I would disagree, and I believe that others would as well. A 'millionaire' in my mind is someone with liquid assets of at least one million dollars. The company isn't worth more than $1 million until someone else exchanges shares or money for it for over a million dollars. VC funding does not make someone a millionaire, except in rare cases where founders are allowed to sell shares to 'take money off the table'. VC m…

Value comes before an exchange. How can you buy something without an established value? So, yes something can, in fact MUST be worth something before an exchange happens. In this case the company itself has raised $8 million in capital with a worth of $33 million.

Now we don't know the exact nature of the share distribution, but since this is such a lean company I'm willing to wager that the found is still in the vast majority.

Re: A Former Tesla Staffer Became an Internet Millionaire in His Spare Time

#46

Post by BigCatStuff »

mrkurt wrote: post #28
BigCatStuff wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would disagree, and I believe that others would as well. A 'millionaire' in my mind is someone with liquid assets of at least one million dollars. The company isn't worth more than $1 million until someone else exchanges shares or money for it for over a million dollars. VC funding does not make someone a millionaire, except in rare cases where founders are allowed to sell shares to 'take money off the table'. VC m…

That's pretty much the age old debate about wealth. But the actual definition of millionaire is "someone whose assets are worth more than $1 million". A VC investment is literally the exchanging shares for money. No it doesn't make someone liquid. Yes it does set something sorta like a market value, though it's usually really high. In more meaningful terms, that company now has $8 million in cash. There's almost no s…

I agree with all of your points. However, the 'company' having $8 million in the bank does not mean that the 'founder' has or will ever have $1 million.

The expectation of funding is that it is spent growing the company (employees, inventory, etc), not immediately paid out to the founders.

Re: A Former Tesla Staffer Became an Internet Millionaire in His Spare Time

#47

Post by ryandrake »

maxxxxx wrote: post #38
danso wrote: post #17

Kudos to Tesla for not only being OK with this guy having a sidegig but also not trying to be a jerk in demanding a cut. I know that seems like status quo for companies not to demand control over what employees create outside of work, but seems like that line can be blurred when there's enough money involved. (edit: not just having a sidegig, but being able to launch and run his startup for ~1 year while employed at…

"Kudos to Tesla for not only being OK with this guy having a sidegig, but also not trying to be a jerk in demanding a cut. " Please don't give them kudos. This has to be normal behavior. Being employed by a company doesn't mean being owned by them.

Sadly, I think the bad behavior is relatively common. Two of the last three SV companies I’ve worked for assert ownership over everything you do or invent, even on your own time and on your own equipment at home. I don’t know if this is super common or not, or whether or not it’s legal, and I’m certainly not going to spend $XXX,XXX on a lawyer to find out!

Re: A Former Tesla Staffer Became an Internet Millionaire in His Spare Time

#48

Post by sincerely »

maxxxxx wrote: post #38
danso wrote: post #17

Kudos to Tesla for not only being OK with this guy having a sidegig but also not trying to be a jerk in demanding a cut. I know that seems like status quo for companies not to demand control over what employees create outside of work, but seems like that line can be blurred when there's enough money involved. (edit: not just having a sidegig, but being able to launch and run his startup for ~1 year while employed at…

"Kudos to Tesla for not only being OK with this guy having a sidegig, but also not trying to be a jerk in demanding a cut. " Please don't give them kudos. This has to be normal behavior. Being employed by a company doesn't mean being owned by them.

Or, more realistically, since societally we are ok with companies doing pretty much anything that is within the bounds of the law and this behavior seems to be legal, maybe we should be giving them kudos?

Re: A Former Tesla Staffer Became an Internet Millionaire in His Spare Time

#50

Post by vonmoltke »

maxxxxx wrote: post #38
danso wrote: post #17

Kudos to Tesla for not only being OK with this guy having a sidegig but also not trying to be a jerk in demanding a cut. I know that seems like status quo for companies not to demand control over what employees create outside of work, but seems like that line can be blurred when there's enough money involved. (edit: not just having a sidegig, but being able to launch and run his startup for ~1 year while employed at…

"Kudos to Tesla for not only being OK with this guy having a sidegig, but also not trying to be a jerk in demanding a cut. " Please don't give them kudos. This has to be normal behavior. Being employed by a company doesn't mean being owned by them.

Unfortunately, there are quite a few "abnormal" companies in that regard.
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