241–250 of 320 posts
with devs salaries in 200k+ range is regular startup even possible now?
My family grew up relatively poor and extremely frugal. My dad was formerly a professor in machine learning, but decided to enter the private sector. He didn’t speak much English if at all, and entered the field when it was still immature.
After he was laid off, and with little options left, they decided to use their remaining savings and likely a loan from family & friends to bootstrap a company. My parents never wanted a business, but they had to out of survival. They never discussed the business with us, so I don’t fully understand the operating model behind their company, but it involved with semiconductors/hardware, etc.
What I think about is was this simply a business or during that time a “startup”. It was in a hyper growth period on relatively emerging technology, they were learning as they went, and exited quickly.
Recently, though my dad unretired in his 70s working at a FANG… Amazon warehouse worker. He says he does it for the exercise and $20/hour.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is Berkshire Hathaway a lifestyle business? Because it started out as one. That’s his point. Small businesses can become unicorns - but they need space and time to grow. We need a better environment, and a more nuanced understanding, of them.
> Is Berkshire Hathaway a lifestyle business? Because it started out as one. My skept-o-meter went off-scale upon reading this. Can you point to exactly when BH was a lifestyle business and what they were doing at that point that would classify them as a lifestyle business?
Currently we call them like IndieHackers, bootstrapped startup, life style business.
All not fancy as “unicorn” it is. We need a new PR that makes this kind of business cool for the general public.
In these day if you have a profitable bootstrapped business (<1M$) people say that you should raise capital to grow and become an unicorn and your are not cool or not get PR attention until you raise funds. I think is a PR problem. There is an opportunity for a new media space. Like IndieHackers but without the term “hackers” in the title which reminds something dark for the general public.
It’s a PR problem. I think it matters the name we use to call them and how they are interpreted by general public. Currently we call them like IndieHackers, bootstrapped startup, life style business. All not fancy as “unicorn” it is. We need a new PR that makes this kind of business cool for the general public. In these day if you have a profitable bootstrapped business (<1M$) people say that you should raise capital…
If you're not okay with boring success, then this type of business isn't for you.
Businesses that are shooting for the "middle class" (say, less than $50M in earnings at their peak) are of course possible and healthy and good for the economy. What's missing in this analysis is that those businesses are not going to be "founder-friendly" the way that the prototypical YC-seed-stage startup is. To use the article's definitions: * "Bootstrapped from zero" is, of course, founder-friendly - no investors…
The key is that Mittelstand businesses are much less likely to fail. (This is why PEs on average outperform VCs. I go into these economics in my post.) This can be the Goldilocks deal for founders where you raise And being VC-backed is only great if you're one of the winners. If you're one of the >90% that's written off, you're back to zero. I hit the wall at Series B with my startup Labdoor. We pivoted to profitabil…
Citation needed.
Around half of new businesses in the US fail after five years[0], and it is reasonable to assume the vast majority are small.
Mom and pop businesses fail all the time, we just don't hear about it very often.
Also, one of the key properties of Mittelstand, as I understand it, is that you don't need, or indeed want, an exit. It's (ideally) a cosy, lifestyle business.
I agree that this is a healthy approach and more people should be aware this is a viable option, but I'm not so sure it can be mixed with PE or VC (for the reasons I mentioned).
[0] https://www.lendingtree.com/business/small/failure-rate/
Totally agree with this article. It's not just about funding methods, but also playbooks for these types of businesses, and best practices. I've bootstrapped IPinfo.io to millions in revenue and a team of over 20 - so we're squarely in the "Middle class", and there's a tension between the "bootsrapper advice" (which mostly applies to optimizing for lifestyle and eliminating any risk) and "VC backed advice" (which mos…
Same! I think the middle ground is somewhere between paying dividends or distributions from the revenue and most importantly, becoming comfortable with the idea and ignoring the “growth at all costs” mentality that people (and press) are so attracted to. Where does this community exist?
Traditionally, isn’t this what a bonus was, back in the day?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lifestyle business doesn't mean what you think it means. Supports a persons or family lifestyle (i.e. you need a place to live, food, essentials, and could be more than just that...), rather than being for investors to make equity growth.
That definition is still horrible. Plenty of investors interested in buying equity in a franchise or retail shops. What that has to do with "lifestyle"?
This take really speaks to me and does a great job conveying frustrations that I have felt with the startup world for years.
I could go on and on about the downsides of the different funding models and how none of them have ever really worked for us.
Totally agree with this article. It's not just about funding methods, but also playbooks for these types of businesses, and best practices. I've bootstrapped IPinfo.io to millions in revenue and a team of over 20 - so we're squarely in the "Middle class", and there's a tension between the "bootsrapper advice" (which mostly applies to optimizing for lifestyle and eliminating any risk) and "VC backed advice" (which mos…
> Promote employee stock ownership for American Mittelstands This is crucial. Many bootstrapped companies don't offer much stock ownership from employees. Yes, they can pay a good salary, but these employees are laying down the business brick by brick, but never see a dime of the upside. Mailchimp comes to mind. I'm sure there are others. This basically leaves stock ownership in VC-backed startups as a way to get ric…