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I sold TinyPilot, my first successful business

mtlynch.io

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Re: I sold TinyPilot, my first successful business

#231

Post by pc86 »

dhosek wrote: post #144
ThePowerOfFuet wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Family of four, living in Oregon, non-smoking, our premium is ~$1k/month. Granted it’s a high deductible ($12k), but it protects us from the kind of catastrophic emergency that could wipe out our savings. We are fortunate to not have expensive, ongoing conditions. Family of two, living in the EU, non-smoking, our premium is ~€0/month. Granted it's a €0 deductible, but it protects us from the kind of catastrophic em…

Healthcare delivery in the US is — not good.

Absolutely, that's why you hear about rich Americans traveling internationally to have their medical procedures done.

Re: I sold TinyPilot, my first successful business

#232

Post by pc86 »

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #208
lp0_on_fire wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half a million dollars would be a life-changing amount to the vast majority of the American population.

But to an experienced programmer making a fraction of that a year at Google, it's not that much.

For someone being so pedantic about a half million dollar payday I would've expected you to consider that any amount above or below that is technically "a fraction."

Re: I sold TinyPilot, my first successful business

#233

Post by [deleted] »

pyb wrote: post #200
brk wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he took an L at all. He now has successfully built, and sold a company. While being a dev at Google is somewhat elite, the number of people who have executed a successful sale is a tiny fraction of the number of FANG devs (or whatever we're calling FANG now). There is a very high probability he gets offered a CEO position at some company that is looking for an exit path. That type of thing will usually…

Pretty sure indiehackers don't get offered CEO positions. Also 100% sure that his next business will be many times more successful than Tiny Pilot.

[deleted]

Re: I sold TinyPilot, my first successful business

#234

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

consumer451 wrote: post #227
lp0_on_fire wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half a million dollars would be a life-changing amount to the vast majority of the American population.

I would be very curious how life changing that would be for the average HN user.

I don't make FAAANGGGG money, but I'm a pretty well paid programmer for this area and that amount would pay off the balance on my mortgage. Hell, I'd be completely debt-free if someone threw half a million in my direction and have enough left over to buy the wife a top of the line pickup truck or two. So yeah, I'd definitely consider it life changing.

Re: I sold TinyPilot, my first successful business

#235

Post by nunez »

mtlynch wrote: post #217
DougN7 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your personal net income in 2022 was $10,447? That’s not enough to live on so I must be misreading it.

My net income from TinyPilot was $10,447 in 2022, but I had other income from investments (mainly just boring index funds). But I live in Western Massachusetts and own my home (no mortgage), so my cost of living is fairly low.

Incredible!

Re: I sold TinyPilot, my first successful business

#236

Post by apitman »

nmog wrote: post #215
elevatedastalt wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way were their interests aligned with yours? (this is not a snarky question. usually in real estate their interest is to make the deal happen asap, which doesn't align fully with your interests)

Presumably the broker has a fixed % commission, so the broker is definitely incentivized to seek a larger deal.

GP may be referring to freakonomics. One of the things the authors point out is that it can actually be better for real estate brokers to crank out lots of sales rather than spend a lot of effort finding good deals for the seller.

Re: I sold TinyPilot, my first successful business

#237

Post by mickael-kerjean »

paulddraper wrote: post #192

Sold it for less than 1X rev? I understand it's hardware, but that's a bit rough.

Not sure why you're getting downvoted, I had the same reaction. If you have a sustainable and healthy business that is growing year per year, 3 years of today's profit and under 1x the revenue might as well be paid off in under a year 3 years from now if you got PMF and work torward scaling your business. It becomes an opportunity cost calculation which in the case of the author might be ok but definitly not ok for many of us indie hacker who are spending their heart and soul building a sustainable business.

Re: I sold TinyPilot, my first successful business

#238

Post by lapestenoire »

mtlynch wrote: post #224
rlnvlc wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious: to how many hours per week does the 20% of your time map?

I typically worked 30-40 hours per week.

Many people would not count time required to sleep and attend to basic human needs like eating and hygiene as part of available time. It sounds like it took 75-100% of a full-time position.

Re: I sold TinyPilot, my first successful business

#239

Post by hansvm »

talldatethrow wrote: post #51
shooker435 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This mindset assumes that the only measure of success is monetary. If he left Google to try and get richer than staying at Google, then sure, he probably lost. However, he kept trying again before job hunting or returning to big tech. This tells me the monetary factor was smaller than something else. You mention the underrated educational experience in your last sentence, but there's so much more than that. He was pr…

How is healthcare tied to employment? Isn't it available to buy on the open market?

The healthcare available on the open market wasn't good last I checked. The premiums were much higher than what my employer and I pay combined, the max out-of-pocket was worse, the deductible was worse, the coverage for uncommon medications was nearly nil, and so on.

Re: I sold TinyPilot, my first successful business

#240

Post by hansvm »

blehn wrote: post #50
xyst wrote: post #35

Wild. I vaguely remember this founder spending an obscene amount of money on some boutique firm to give homepage a small update. Seems he exited the Google grind about 6 years ago. I guess salaries were between $180-250K during that time frame. Google grinder for 6 years: $1,080,000-$1,500,000 Entrepreneur: “$920k over four years (with sale)”, but doesn’t include the 2 bombs he had prior to successful exit. (None of…

With promotions, equity, and stock price growth (+220% over the last 5 years), probably closer to 2 or 2.5M of Google income.

Stock price growth isn't a huge distinguishing factor unless you're acknowledging that we're looking in hindsight and expect that he would have been one of the employees to leave those equity grants in GOOG shares and never touch them. Anyone can convert realized gains to Google stock (including the slightly better GOOGL shares instead of the GOOG shares most employees get from their RSUs), and the fees for converting unrealized gains to Google stock aren't enormous compared to a 26% annual return.
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