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Ask HN: Which companies work like Gumroad?

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Re: Ask HN: Which companies work like Gumroad?

#61

Post by gherkinnn »

bastardoperator wrote: post #44
pickle-wizard wrote: post #5

Thanks for asking this. I recently took a job with $MEGACORP after 5 years with start ups. I forgot how much $MEGACORP likes meetings. I found myself thinking about how gumroad has no meetings. I asked myself the same question as the OP.

I work for an ultra mega corp and honestly the amount of meetings would be comical if it wasn't so monotonous. The recent meetings have centered around increasing capacity, I've tried to explain that less meetings would give folks more time to produce value, nobody gives a shit so I stopped caring too.

I have come to the conclusion that those kinds of meetings have nothing to do with exchanging information, finding solutions, or anything remotely related to creating value for the customer (tm).

Though I have yet to figure out what they’re really about.

An easy way to pass the time? People relying on them to validate their salary? The only way a weasly middle manager can get himself heard? Cargo culting? Probably a mixture of all and more.

Re: Ask HN: Which companies work like Gumroad?

#62

Post by offtop5 »

war1025 wrote: post #53
CleverLikeAnOx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an idea called FIRE (Financial Independence / Retire Early). The first half is having enough money to not need to earn again, so you are not dependent on work or others. Once this is achieved, then you can retire early if you would like. The conventional wisdom in this community is that if you invest a sum of money in equities, you can withdraw a certain percentage annually without ever running out of money.…

I'm pretty well versed in the whole FIRE thing, and find myself more or less on that path. One conclusion I've come to is that after people "retire early", they almost never actually stop making money. It just tends to end up being more entrepreneurial stuff that they make money off. You don't "have to" work, but you "might as well", and all the sudden you may even find yourself in a more lucrative gig than you start…

I'd love to have free time to pursue other hobbies like working on video games, and making music. If I had the million dollar cushion, and then maybe I only made like $500 or $600 a month with my hobbies that would be awesome.

Life is too short to do anything else in my opinion. unless I guess I end up with a family but that's not really in my plans

Re: Ask HN: Which companies work like Gumroad?

#64

Post by war1025 »

offtop5 wrote: post #58
bravura wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you retire at forty with a million in the bank, how do you make it if you live till 80?

Move to a country where I can live off the 40k -> 60k a year an interest or whatnot. This basically means either Southeast Asia, or some parts of Latin America. Asian languages tend to be extremely hard, and it might be a lot easier to sort of blend in with the populace in Latin America. The last thing I want to do in my retirement is draw needless attention to myself.

> Move to a country where I can live off the 40k -> 60k a year an interest or whatnot.

You realize the median US household income is like $40k/ year right?

Re: Ask HN: Which companies work like Gumroad?

#65

Post by dbrueck »

blackrock wrote: post #51
dbrueck wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar experience here - lotsa years at startups, then something worked out great and part of the deal was I had to join $MEGACORP for a couple of years. I left as soon as my time was up, and a big part of it was due to the absurd amount of meetings. Now back at another startup (10 people), we have no meetings other than a 20 minute Monday call for some sync-up that otherwise doesn't occur naturally. It's wonderful.

The worrying thing about a 10-person startup is their lack of money. And possibly their unproven business model. Which can lead to managers making petty decisions about money and individual worth. Since not every 10-person startup becomes the next Google. Instead, most of them becomes the next Froogle, that probably shouldn’t have existed to begin with.

Yeah, but that's orthogonal to the question at hand, no?

Sure, startups aren't for everyone, just like big corporations aren't for everyone. For me, working for a /particular/ startup is unstable and risky, while working for startups generally has been extremely stable. Other people find them too risky, and that's fine.

Some people love the perceived stability of a large company. OTOH, big corps are known to do across the board RIFs, independent of how well a particular division is doing. Or killing off a whole department on what seems like a whim. YMMV.

Re: Ask HN: Which companies work like Gumroad?

#66

Post by pickle-wizard »

blackrock wrote: post #51
dbrueck wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar experience here - lotsa years at startups, then something worked out great and part of the deal was I had to join $MEGACORP for a couple of years. I left as soon as my time was up, and a big part of it was due to the absurd amount of meetings. Now back at another startup (10 people), we have no meetings other than a 20 minute Monday call for some sync-up that otherwise doesn't occur naturally. It's wonderful.

The worrying thing about a 10-person startup is their lack of money. And possibly their unproven business model. Which can lead to managers making petty decisions about money and individual worth. Since not every 10-person startup becomes the next Google. Instead, most of them becomes the next Froogle, that probably shouldn’t have existed to begin with.

Stability is why I took the job at $MEGACORP.

In the past 3 years I haven't worked a full year due to the companies I worked for going out of business.

$MEGACORP isn't all bad. The pay is about the same, but I have much better benefits. For the first time in 5 years I have a 401K.

I've decided that I'm not going to work for another startup, unless I'm a founder. That way I have enough potential upside to make it worth the risk.

Re: Ask HN: Which companies work like Gumroad?

#67

Post by offtop5 »

war1025 wrote: post #64
offtop5 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Move to a country where I can live off the 40k -> 60k a year an interest or whatnot. This basically means either Southeast Asia, or some parts of Latin America. Asian languages tend to be extremely hard, and it might be a lot easier to sort of blend in with the populace in Latin America. The last thing I want to do in my retirement is draw needless attention to myself.

> Move to a country where I can live off the 40k -> 60k a year an interest or whatnot. You realize the median US household income is like $40k/ year right?

Yeah but I'm not trying to struggle in America, so cómo estás ¿

Re: Ask HN: Which companies work like Gumroad?

#68

Post by mandeepj »

ryanSrich wrote: post #7

My startup, Haekka ( https://haekka.com ) functions similarly. We don’t deal with office politics and bullshit. We only have two FTEs (founders) and 3 contractors. We’re 100% remote and have no plans on not being remote. My previous company that I sold was remote for 7 years. I don’t believe in building software in an office. We’re very transparent about our financial and business goals. My only scheduled meeting is…

> We don’t deal with office politics and bullshit.

Maybe you meant to say - you don't have office politics. If you are not "dealing" with it then you are creating a bigger problem.

I believe politics are a side product of humans working together. It'll just be there. Just like eating causes you to fart.

Related interesting read but looks good only on paper - https://hbr.org/2016/06/how-facebook-tries-to-prevent-office...

Re: Ask HN: Which companies work like Gumroad?

#69

Post by kondu »

city41 wrote: post #30
whymauri wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting... I went from MEGACORP to startup, only for the startup to have, literally, an order of magnitude more meetings.

I think it depends on the company. I've worked at two megacorps, one where meetings were absolutely nonstop and the other where I had about 2 a week.

Do you mind telling us which one each was?

Re: Ask HN: Which companies work like Gumroad?

#70

Post by ptmcc »

atwebb wrote: post #40
bawolff wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A million in bank is like $35,000 a year in interest. Not an extravagant lifestyle, but certainly possible to live comfortably on that in a low cost of living area if you have low expenses.

Where are you getting low risk 3.5% interest these days?

It's an average inflation-adjusted expected rate of return over time of a balanced portfolio, not a guaranteed rate every year. Some years might be 10%, some years might be -10%.

Historically, about 4% is the safe drawdown rate. FIRE folks tend to be a little more conservative than that, though, because of the even longer time horizon involved with retiring earlier.

Check out a tool like https://www.firecalc.com/ that is designed to run backtested simulations to see if your drawdown rate from your starting assets would historically be safe for your time horizon. The UI is clunky but the math is good.

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