151–160 of 320 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"millions in revenue and a team of over 20" are not "Middle class"...
That’s about the scale of a single Jimmy John’s franchise location.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should add that you cap founder salaries at $250-$300k/year (if I remember your terms correctly) If you’re a founder looking at TinySeed, what this means is that if your business reaches a level of success you can pay yourself over $250k-$300k through your W-2, you’ll either have to cap it there or pay the rest through dividends. That said, this isn’t really a terrible setup if you plan to go down this route. The…
> IRS takes issue when tightly held C-corps pay themselves large amounts via W-2’s because they would want to reclassify those as dividends Isn’t dividend income taxed less than W-2 income?
I feel like this is just trying to rebrand “lifestyle businesses” or small businesses in general. Where I grew up it wasn’t uncommon for people to have businesses that did a few million in sales and the whole family worked at. While not as sexy as getting angel investment, it sustained a quality of life that met their needs. In order to run a successful business you don’t NEED mass profits or VC dollars.
This is where the term "Mittelstand" gets lost in translation, and speaks to the Author's point that the Americanized definition of start-up has become too polarized and absolute. It is neither a lifestyle business nor a shareholder-driven business.
My (very wrong) opinion on what Mittelstand is: I think of a small-to-medium sized company that manufactures (I've never thought of service providing companies as Mittelstand) one group of things at a very high and competitive level. I think of companies that are pretty much strictly B2B. These are mostly family-owned businesses, but for me that doesnt need to be true. Companies that you only know of, when you need to know. And when you do need to know about them, you most definitely will know about them.
Again, this definitely isnt what most people consider to be Mittelstand. Just my view on it.
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My question is why does everyone with the next CRUD SaaS app think they need to hire the “best people”? I’ve seen plenty of job openings where companies want “ninja rockstar 10x developers” to write what ends up being something that anyone who knows the latest MVC framework with three years of experience can do competently. And most “entrepreneurs” who own franchising are barely middle class and “bought a job”. The a…
> The average fast food franchise, convenient store averages about $70K a year. Where can I find industry stats to explore this assertion?
https://www.mashed.com/178309/how-much-mcdonalds-franchise-o...
7-11 is between $50-$75K.
https://mobile-cuisine.com/franchise/7-eleven-cost/
Subway is about $40K a year
https://www.eposnow.com/us/resources/how-much-do-franchise-o...
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> I think this would be much more healthy than the multi-phase aim-for-the-moon approach everybody takes today. Healthy for whom? - startups founders? - angel investors? - VCs? - national economy? - financial markets? - ...
Hum... I answered that just on the next phrase. But now that you enumerated more, you can add "national economy" too.
Concerning "And quite likely brings better results for both the investor and the founders.":
That "[it] brings better results" for some groups does not imply that it more healthy for this group. Also the other way round: "more healthy for some group" does not necessarily imply "better results for this group".
In this sense I did not think that this phrase was to be considered an answer to my point.
My key takeaways: 1. Remote work, no code, social media, and ecommerce platforms all make it easier to bootstrap new businesses from zero to revenue 2. (From Wikipedia) Mittelstand commonly refers to a group of stable business enterprises in Germany, Austria and Switzerland that have proved successful in enduring economic change and turbulence. The term is difficult to translate and may cause confusion for non-German…
As someone that has been working hard in this domain, there is one major problem to this in software. Initial funding. There is a lot of growth non dilutive capital available but the first 500k are near impossible to get without a network in old money. You used to raise that money through other local mittrlelstands. At the Masons lodge. At the local kiwanis or Rotary. But these have closed to young member decades ago…
I feel like this is just trying to rebrand “lifestyle businesses” or small businesses in general. Where I grew up it wasn’t uncommon for people to have businesses that did a few million in sales and the whole family worked at. While not as sexy as getting angel investment, it sustained a quality of life that met their needs. In order to run a successful business you don’t NEED mass profits or VC dollars.
Also there was a time when "lifestyle business" was getting shade as if it an inferior product for inferior people. I think that was probably just VC shade being thrown at it because they couldn't do anything with the kind of business. That and platforms probably ate away at their core offerings...
As someone that has been working hard in this domain, there is one major problem to this in software. Initial funding. There is a lot of growth non dilutive capital available but the first 500k are near impossible to get without a network in old money. You used to raise that money through other local mittrlelstands. At the Masons lodge. At the local kiwanis or Rotary. But these have closed to young member decades ago…
> The current young people simply are too unstable and too close to poverty to take the risks. One piece of the solution that is very clear to me and contains many other upsides is better access to healthcare. The fact that Americans mostly get healthcare through large corporate jobs significantly ratchets up the risk of entrepreneurialism. A better healthcare safety net would make it safer to leave the safe confines…
If you are an entrepreneur under say 40, can’t you just roll a D10 and hope you don’t get a 1? Surely most people before middle-age won’t need expensive healthcare?