Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My sixth year as a bootstrapped founder

mtlynch.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–339 of 339 posts

Re: My sixth year as a bootstrapped founder

#331

Post by borlanco »

elbear wrote: post #329
_xk9i wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For freelancers who want to improve (it was my case years ago), the best book is "The Secrets of Consulting", by Gerald Weinberg. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/566213.The_Secrets_of_Co...

Thank you for making me aware of this author. I see he has several books on topics I find valuable.

I am glad I was able to help you.

If you like "The Secrets of Consulting", the next one for you should be "Exploring requirements: quality before design", by Gause & Weinberg. What an eye opener it was for me!

Re: My sixth year as a bootstrapped founder

#332

Post by paulddraper »

ipaddr wrote: post #304
hinkley wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last startup I was at that sold 'only' made the owners millionaires, when they were hoping to retire. If you're in your thirties or forties, a million bucks won't even get you a school teacher's lifestyle for the rest of your life. A million bucks makes the rest of your work life low-stress, but not non-existent. You still have to work, you just don't have to worry about paying rent, or getting exploited by your…

A million after taxes is worth 20 years at 100k after taxes (50% rate). Investing a million today say in real estate over 20 years will give you money to live on while you rent and a the property can be sold for double in 20 years. Repeat and this strategy would bring increasing wealth for a 20 year old.

No one makes $100k and pays $50k in taxes.

Re: My sixth year as a bootstrapped founder

#333

Post by celestialcheese »

ilamont wrote: post #251
celestialcheese wrote: post #184

Weird to see CC rewards as income. If you're taking cash-back or applying to balance, I'd move to a points-based rewards card ASAP now that you're making money and don't need it to live off of. Our business has a significant amount of cc spend because of ad networks that don't charge processing fees, and high CC limits acting as nearly free lines-of-credit. This generates something like ~$100k annually in points valu…

> Our business has a significant amount of cc spend because of ad networks that don't charge processing fees, and high CC limits acting as nearly free lines-of-credit. This generates something like ~$100k annually in points value for us. Same for us. One of the business cards we use gives 5x rewards on online ad spend, which translated to lots of free flights and hotel rooms over the years. During the early part of t…

> During the early part of the pandemic when points were not usable, we converted them to cash or credited them to existing expenses (the card gave a 25% bonus to use this feature).

Man this was one of the biggest silver linings on the pandemic. Chase allowed groceries and home improvement purchases to be paid for with points. 1.5x redemption. Paid for all the materials for my home renovation with them.

Re: My sixth year as a bootstrapped founder

#334

Post by mtlynch »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #319
mtlynch wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was quite an ordeal! Our hardware engineering partner subcontracted the design to a team of industrial designers they'd worked with in the past. We ordered prototypes of the design from both China and vendors in the US. The Chinese versions were better by leaps and bounds.[0] We iterated a few times from there and eventually landed on a design we liked and worked with the Chinese vendor to produce the first few th…

Was wondering about this is you don’t mind. The post states disappointment with the US manufacturer but for a prototype. Maybe it could have been improved if you’d asked? Perhaps they didn’t know they were in a horse race. I tend to think of a prototype as a rough sketch. Unless of course they told me it was a demo to win the job.

The impression I got was that they really weren't interested in working with me. Most of the sheet metal vendors I reached out to didn't even return my calls.

The one vendor that called back accepted the job, but when it was done, they just handed me the prototype and asked for my money. They never asked whether I was satisfied or if there were things they could improve if given the opportunity.

Re: My sixth year as a bootstrapped founder

#335

Post by mtlynch »

nikisweeting wrote: post #217

So happy for you, thats a wonderful milestone! I love especially that you share all the nitty-gritty details that so many would hold back (e.g. raw revenue/profit numbers, where bootstrapping savings came from, failures along the way, etc.). It's so important for people to share success stories without sugar coating the difficulties, good, undiluted positive feedback provides so more information than generic negative…

Thanks so much, Nick! Really great to hear from you!

Re: My sixth year as a bootstrapped founder

#338

Post by elbear »

borlanco wrote: post #331
elbear wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for making me aware of this author. I see he has several books on topics I find valuable.

I am glad I was able to help you. If you like "The Secrets of Consulting", the next one for you should be "Exploring requirements: quality before design", by Gause & Weinberg. What an eye opener it was for me!

Noted.
Post reply on HN