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Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

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Re: Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

#271

Post by cercatrova »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #231
ardy42 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $130k to pay a single employee for one year. I don't know about you, but it's extremely difficult for most people to save up that kind of runway. I think the idea is that step one isn't hiring a subordinate employee; it's having secure enough finances that you (or you and your co-founders) can work for yourself for a time. Step two is actually working on the business, and step three is growing is revenues to the po…

Co-founders? Why are they co-founding? Profit sharing? That's an excellent way to devolve into squabbling about who gets what. VC also protects against that: the money is for the company, and it's illegal to siphon it out of the company. Unfortunately in practice your suggestion tends to become "You're working for yourself, alone." And sure, I love the idea of a one-person company. Lots of talented devs can sell, if…

They co-found to make money. It's just not as fast paced as the VC option but it's the same thing as any business. The founder thinks that with more than 1 person, each person would make more money than if only the founder worked.

Re: Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

#273

Post by auganov »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #164

I don't think it's a coincidence that Jetbrains has created a beloved product without the help of VC money. The longer I work in tech the more I see VC money as poison to good products. Because VC funded startups are forced to grow fast or die a lot of good, profitable, user focused ideas are trashed because they won't lead to rapid enough expansion. Virtually every VC startup I've worked closely with or learned abou…

A company that makes it to a few dozen employees without much financing is already extremely successful. You're very unlikely to ever work for a poorly run company without financing - they can't hire.

Re: Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

#274

Post by sillysaurusx »

ardy42 wrote: post #269
sillysaurusx wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. You're dodging the question: Why would a cofounder want to start a company with you? No handwaving. People cofound to get rich. Can your company offer that to your cofounder? If you focus on that question, the rest falls into place. Unfortunately a lot of people don't want to focus on that question, because it's at the heart of why bootstrapping rarely works. "Not needing adult supervision" indicates that you pr…

> Hmm. You're dodging the question: Why would a cofounder want to start a company with you? No handwaving. > People cofound to get rich. Can your company offer that to your cofounder? I don't know. Why did Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak start Apple together? I feel like you're laboring under a very limited model of how and why companies are founded and how people behave.

The model happens to be aligned with how and why people actually start companies. It's not my model.

You have to come up with a persuasive answer to "Why should I work as hard as I can on this company, rather than go work for Google?" That question is in fact so hard that it (possibly) almost killed YC in the crib, back in '08. No one wants to work for a startup when they can get paid far more and live an easier life.

What you're proposing, if I understand you correctly, is that someone works extremely hard, for no concrete gain other than perhaps intellectual curiosity. Sure, you can argue that the usual benefits apply: you're free to do as you please, and to self-manage. But that's not a very convincing argument in the face of $RIDICULOUS_SALARY at a bigco.

It's cliche to say "Don't hate the player, hate the game," but I believe it applies here. Neither of us chose to live in a capitalistic society. We were born into one. Why not make the optimal decisions, all else being equal?

Re: Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

#275

Post by shay_ker »

brentm wrote: post #175
shay_ker wrote: post #170

What do Jetbrains customers mostly use? From my understanding, it's mostly Intellij and GoLand, and some PyCharm. At least two of the three are languages that are every difficult to be productive in with Sublime or Vim alone. I guess PyCharm allows you to stop thinking about whitespace? In seriousness, not trying to start another holy war.

RubyMine & WebStorm are both great products.

sure, i'm wondering how many people pay for them though

Re: Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

#277

Post by Baeocystin »

est31 wrote: post #259
vonmoltke wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because VC funded startups are forced to grow fast or die a lot of good, profitable, user focused ideas are trashed because they won't lead to rapid enough expansion. I have noticed that, to some people, "VC startup" is almost considered redundant. That is, if your company is not seeking outside investors, not seeking rapid growth, not seeking an "exit", then it isn't a real "startup". So, in addition to what you m…

Is this lifestyle business stigma a real thing? Or just something the VC lobby put out there? Personally I think anyone leading a business should deserve respect, as running one is hard.

It is, at least in the Valley amongst the get-rich-fast crowd, which is not a small portion of the people working here.

There are a lot of things I don't like about the tech culture in the bay area, and this everything-but-unicorns-is-trash attitude is close to the top of the list.

Re: Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

#278

Post by LukeShu »

vonmoltke wrote: post #187
baron_harkonnen wrote: post #164

I don't think it's a coincidence that Jetbrains has created a beloved product without the help of VC money. The longer I work in tech the more I see VC money as poison to good products. Because VC funded startups are forced to grow fast or die a lot of good, profitable, user focused ideas are trashed because they won't lead to rapid enough expansion. Virtually every VC startup I've worked closely with or learned abou…

> Because VC funded startups are forced to grow fast or die a lot of good, profitable, user focused ideas are trashed because they won't lead to rapid enough expansion. I have noticed that, to some people, "VC startup" is almost considered redundant. That is, if your company is not seeking outside investors, not seeking rapid growth, not seeking an "exit", then it isn't a real "startup". So, in addition to what you m…

> if your company is … not seeking rapid growth, … then it isn't a real "startup"

Isn't that the definition of a "startup"? If you're not seeking/expecting rapid growth, isn't it just a "small business". There's nothing wrong with that, not everything has to be a "startup".

(Wiktionary tells me "A new company or organization or business venture designed for rapid growth", but Merriam-Webster Collegiate 11th ed tells me "a fledgling business enterprise". Of course, the Merriam-Webster only recognizes "start-up" not "startup", so how much could they know?)

Re: Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

#279

Post by est31 »

Justsignedup wrote: post #246
drchopchop wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From first-hand experience, however, bootstrapped companies often don't have a ton of cash in the bank. They can quickly fail if there's an adverse event (COVID, for example). You can also get crushed by well-funded competitors who can innovate faster than you due to larger team sizes, salaries, etc.

The best small companies operate in their direct competitor's blindspot. Stupid example: Tesla. Toyota reverse engineered their car. Can't make a competing product. Not because it is impossible, but because it is not how the entire supply chain / development is set up. It'd take Toyota a major restructuring of the company to be able to compete. That's the idea. It doesn't matter how much cash the other side throws at…

In real electric car markets, other brands than Tesla run the show. In Norway, one of the biggest western electric car markets, Tesla is way at the bottom of sales. Only 95 Teslas were sold in November, while single models of other manufacturers had multitudes of that number in sales.

https://insideevs.com/news/452441/norway-plugin-car-sales-oc...

I think Tesla's main contribution lies in the past, by being an early pioneer of EVs and pushing them in an environment where nobody considered EVs viable. This definitely deserves an entry in the history books. But competitors have waken up.

Re: Jetbrains founders turn billionaires without VC help

#280

Post by vortegne »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #171
baron_harkonnen wrote: post #164

I don't think it's a coincidence that Jetbrains has created a beloved product without the help of VC money. The longer I work in tech the more I see VC money as poison to good products. Because VC funded startups are forced to grow fast or die a lot of good, profitable, user focused ideas are trashed because they won't lead to rapid enough expansion. Virtually every VC startup I've worked closely with or learned abou…

pg wrote a rebuttal to this in 2008: http://paulgraham.com/prcmc.html It seems generally correct, i.e. VC works because the alternative sucks.

Well PG also loves the smell of his own proverbial farts.
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