poor guy, only making millions since 19. let me get my violin out.
Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company
241–250 of 380 posts
Re: Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company
#242I was basically alone. I didn’t have a team, nor an office. And San Francisco was full of startups raising gobs more money, building amazing teams, and shipping great products. Some of my friends became billionaires. Meanwhile, I had to run a “measly” lifestyle business. It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but I had to keep the ship from sinking. There's that term again, "lifestyle business." Uttered like a dirty word, wh…
I agree 100%. I'm a big fan of just calling them businesses.
Re: Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company
#243I was basically alone. I didn’t have a team, nor an office. And San Francisco was full of startups raising gobs more money, building amazing teams, and shipping great products. Some of my friends became billionaires. Meanwhile, I had to run a “measly” lifestyle business. It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but I had to keep the ship from sinking. There's that term again, "lifestyle business." Uttered like a dirty word, wh…
I also use Gumroad and also used to think lifestyle business is bad. But really it just means “business that supports a lifestyle”. Which a “startup” does not. In that light, startup is the bad word when you think about it. What, you run a business that can’t even support your lifestyle? LooooooL And yes if I’ve learned anything about silicon valkey in the past 4 years of living here is that people are elitist as fuc…
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Re: Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company
#244Why would KPCB sell back their stake for $1? Why not just hang on to the stock just in case it turned around? The explanation that they didn't want the overhead of appointing a board member sounds strange. If you don't like the company, send a junior person who can learn board membering in an unimportant firm.
tax loss harvesting
Re: Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company
#245I was basically alone. I didn’t have a team, nor an office. And San Francisco was full of startups raising gobs more money, building amazing teams, and shipping great products. Some of my friends became billionaires. Meanwhile, I had to run a “measly” lifestyle business. It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but I had to keep the ship from sinking. There's that term again, "lifestyle business." Uttered like a dirty word, wh…
I also use Gumroad and also used to think lifestyle business is bad. But really it just means “business that supports a lifestyle”. Which a “startup” does not. In that light, startup is the bad word when you think about it. What, you run a business that can’t even support your lifestyle? LooooooL And yes if I’ve learned anything about silicon valkey in the past 4 years of living here is that people are elitist as fuc…
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Re: Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah it appears this is a perfectly fine and successful business... it just went through an odd route for someone to figure that out. Those charts and numbers, all pretty good IMO. If someone came to me and said "Hey I (or we) made this thing here is what it does and the numbers." I'd be all about high fives and such. And yet at times they didn't think so based on the route they went, very interesting. I always wonde…
>I always wonder if there is value lost in companies that are shuttered because something isn't the next big hit, or some private equity decides they want to cash out / break up a company that otherwise... would be just fine and would have continued contribute. Of course there is, but you have to compare it with the opportunity cost of working at something world-changing.
For the individual maybe I get that.
But even from an individual perspective, I gotta think there are folks who would be fine working at a more ... not world changing business too. But these companies sometimes get shutdown or torn apart because they're not something else.
Re: Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's interesting how Lambda School was able to capitalize on investors pumping cash into and hyping up Gumroad. It's a smart move to capture some of that VC money without having to pitch anything to them.
Not sure that entirely follows; Gumroad may have existed whether VCs pumped money in or not, but I hear what you're saying. In a way every time you ride in an Uber or Lyft you're capitalizing on investors pumping cash into companies. Luckily the winners make enough to pay for all the losses of the losers.
I'm starting to think that you can't achieve anything these days unless you're riding some kind of well capitalized trend.
Re: Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company
#248It's sad building a sustainable "lifestyle" business isn't good enough in go go go Silicon alley culture. At the end of the day, our communities do not need dozens of Amazons who grow too big to actually participate in a meaningful way in the local community and motivated by stock price and not impact.
The country would work a lot better if everyone who wanted to could build a lifestyle business. And sustain themselves, their families and maybe a couple of employees.
Re: Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company
#249I was basically alone. I didn’t have a team, nor an office. And San Francisco was full of startups raising gobs more money, building amazing teams, and shipping great products. Some of my friends became billionaires. Meanwhile, I had to run a “measly” lifestyle business. It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but I had to keep the ship from sinking. There's that term again, "lifestyle business." Uttered like a dirty word, wh…
He's talking about switching from vc rocketship to bootstrapped. In that context the pejorative makes sense: he's describing how he felt at the time.
Furthes, he ran this "lifestyle" business with outside investors.
He's written a nuanced, heartfelt essay, and this comment seems to have missed all of that to nitpick on a word.
Re: Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
Intentionally being provocative here, but by that logic, why does your effect on other people matter? You are unlikely to leave a lasting legacy, and the generation you do affect, will die as well.
> You are unlikely to leave a lasting legacy, and the generation you do affect, will die as well. By this logic, culture and society would die every generation, and have to be rebuilt from scratch each time. We all leave behind a "small" but far-reaching legacy that ripples out from our short lifetime. Each of the thousands of interactions we have with with other people and our general environment have a tiny but rea…
I completely agree that wanting to make a positive impact on the world is important, although, and I don't want to sound too nihilistic here, the actual magnitude of that will probably be small for most people, therefore I think that personal satisfaction in life should be important and isn't meaningless, which was what OP claimed and the reason why I asked that question.