The lifestyle business bullshit • Hacker News Board

Re: The lifestyle business bullshit

#31

Post by volida » Thu, Apr 23, 2009, 4:25 AM UTC

dhh wrote: post #6

webwright wrote: post #3

Gah, it's honestly the people who RUN lifestyle businesses who make it such a dirty word. It's not, and you should stop being defensive about it. People's dreams vary. Some people want to change the world in a big way and gain satisfaction from herculean effort against incredible odds. Other people aspire to a comfortable living and a life that has lots of room for non-work activities. There's no shame in either.

Another bullshit dichotomy. We want to change the world in a big way. We certainly face hard odds (building a multi-million dollar business is very hard regardless of how you go about it). We just want to do all of that and do other things at the same time. So far that has been going pretty well.

"I’m not saying that you can’t have success by pouring in all your waking hours. Of course you can. I’m saying that you don’t have to. That the correlation between the two is weak."

I still don't get this argument I see afloating the past days from 37signals.

Hard work is hard work. It can occur in 6 hour span. It can occur in a 10 hour span.

First-time entrepreneurs will always commit their whole waking and sleeping hours to hard work. When they are burned they will know they need a balance.

It's about character and experience. When someone has succeeded he will surely happily commit to other stuff to provide a happy balance to their life.

Re: The lifestyle business bullshit

#32

Post by gills » Thu, Apr 23, 2009, 5:16 AM UTC

axod wrote: post #22

dhh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on board with the term "lifestyle business" if we make it imply "very profitable business that continues to grow revenues without adding additional cost". I would think that's the nirvana description of any business, though. "Which is more risky? 1 person earning $10m a year, or 10 people earning $1m each a year within the same company?", that simply doesn't compute. If all those 10 guys are making their $1 milli…

I'd place mine firmly with the web ads ;) I agree @ keep costs low, but I still think the definition of a lifestyle business is one that isn't growing in terms of the business . If you liken it to a house rental. You could have the best house in the world, and be able to rent it out for $5m a year. That'd give you a great lifestyle, but even if you can manage to rent it out for $6m the next year, that's not business…

I know you're not just trolling, because you contribute many insightful comments on HN, but I just don't see why you are so focused on headcount as the measure of business growth.

The low marginal cost of additional customers in a subscription software business makes your argument an apples-to-oranges comparison. You might need to hire additional staff to manage and maintain a growing portfolio of rental properties, but with subscription software you only have to improve your CRM tools and development processes to maintain a growing customer base with near-constant headcount. If better CRM tools happens to be what you are selling anyway, there's a pretty obvious multiplier for growing profits with very low headcount growth.

Re: The lifestyle business bullshit

#33

Post by marcusbooster » Thu, Apr 23, 2009, 5:51 AM UTC

omouse wrote: post #29

hbien wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure Rails was game changing.

Maybe in the way it's encouraged other web frameworks to adopt MVC, but that's not a huge deal. MVC has been around for a long time anyhow.

It did bring Ruby into the mainstream.

Re: The lifestyle business bullshit

#34

Post by axod » Thu, Apr 23, 2009, 7:11 AM UTC

gills wrote: post #32

axod wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd place mine firmly with the web ads ;) I agree @ keep costs low, but I still think the definition of a lifestyle business is one that isn't growing in terms of the business . If you liken it to a house rental. You could have the best house in the world, and be able to rent it out for $5m a year. That'd give you a great lifestyle, but even if you can manage to rent it out for $6m the next year, that's not business…

I know you're not just trolling, because you contribute many insightful comments on HN, but I just don't see why you are so focused on headcount as the measure of business growth. The low marginal cost of additional customers in a subscription software business makes your argument an apples-to-oranges comparison. You might need to hire additional staff to manage and maintain a growing portfolio of rental properties,…

>> "but I just don't see why you are so focused on headcount as the measure of business growth."

Because that's the commonly held definition of "Not a lifestyle business" :/

Re: The lifestyle business bullshit

#35

Post by axod » Thu, Apr 23, 2009, 7:26 AM UTC

axod wrote: post #22

dhh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on board with the term "lifestyle business" if we make it imply "very profitable business that continues to grow revenues without adding additional cost". I would think that's the nirvana description of any business, though. "Which is more risky? 1 person earning $10m a year, or 10 people earning $1m each a year within the same company?", that simply doesn't compute. If all those 10 guys are making their $1 milli…

I'd place mine firmly with the web ads ;) I agree @ keep costs low, but I still think the definition of a lifestyle business is one that isn't growing in terms of the business . If you liken it to a house rental. You could have the best house in the world, and be able to rent it out for $5m a year. That'd give you a great lifestyle, but even if you can manage to rent it out for $6m the next year, that's not business…

Come on. If you disagree, comment. Don't just blindly downmod. I'm not even saying one is good, one is bad. I'm explaining the commonly held definition of 'lifestyle business'.

Re: The lifestyle business bullshit

#36

Post by axod » Thu, Apr 23, 2009, 7:29 AM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #26

axod wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why that would be the case. Profit doesn't really mean anything unless it's sustainable (Apart from providing a lifestyle). To be sustainable, it's worth diversifying, and that means increasing head count. Measuring a company in terms of profit is really short term. How about the long term lasting effect of the company?

I think that headcount is a (n often) necessary evil in growing a business, but keeping everything else equal and increasing headcount alone actually makes your business less likely to be long-run great, IMO. Paying additional salaries and benefits and taking on additional management and coordination overhead are all losses/drags on the business, unless the added body brings in far more money than they cost. Yes, you…

I think you're talking about exceptions rather than the rule.

>> "unless the added body brings in far more money than they cost."

Basic common sense. I never said hiring people who cost more than they produce was a good idea. Obviously it's not.

Re: The lifestyle business bullshit

#37

Post by alanthonyc » Thu, Apr 23, 2009, 7:40 AM UTC

axod wrote: post #35

axod wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd place mine firmly with the web ads ;) I agree @ keep costs low, but I still think the definition of a lifestyle business is one that isn't growing in terms of the business . If you liken it to a house rental. You could have the best house in the world, and be able to rent it out for $5m a year. That'd give you a great lifestyle, but even if you can manage to rent it out for $6m the next year, that's not business…

Come on. If you disagree, comment. Don't just blindly downmod. I'm not even saying one is good, one is bad. I'm explaining the commonly held definition of 'lifestyle business'.

This is probably happening because the same point of fact is being repeated multiple times and you seem to be skipping over the point.

As a rephrase of the statement I was originally going to put:

Why do you not seem to believe that headcount is merely a side-effect of business growth?

Re: The lifestyle business bullshit

#38

Post by derefr » Thu, Apr 23, 2009, 8:11 AM UTC

omouse wrote: post #29

hbien wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure Rails was game changing.

Maybe in the way it's encouraged other web frameworks to adopt MVC, but that's not a huge deal. MVC has been around for a long time anyhow.

It didn't change the whole world just a little bit (which is what most people mean by "change the world"); it changed one tiny segment of the world—webapp programming—a lot. I think that's even more laudable.

Re: The lifestyle business bullshit

#39

Post by axod » Thu, Apr 23, 2009, 8:19 AM UTC

alanthonyc wrote: post #37

axod wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on. If you disagree, comment. Don't just blindly downmod. I'm not even saying one is good, one is bad. I'm explaining the commonly held definition of 'lifestyle business'.

This is probably happening because the same point of fact is being repeated multiple times and you seem to be skipping over the point. As a rephrase of the statement I was originally going to put: Why do you not seem to believe that headcount is merely a side-effect of business growth?

So your hypothesis is:

  * Company grows profits
  * Company decides to spend profit on head count
  * Profit goes down

Why do you believe that's the case? Any hard data?

I'd say it's more usually

  * Company makes profit
  * Company invests in more people
  * Profits rise, company grows.

Re: The lifestyle business bullshit

#40

Post by raleec » Thu, Apr 23, 2009, 8:23 AM UTC

alanthonyc wrote: post #37

axod wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on. If you disagree, comment. Don't just blindly downmod. I'm not even saying one is good, one is bad. I'm explaining the commonly held definition of 'lifestyle business'.

This is probably happening because the same point of fact is being repeated multiple times and you seem to be skipping over the point. As a rephrase of the statement I was originally going to put: Why do you not seem to believe that headcount is merely a side-effect of business growth?

I hate to pile on here,but... I think the parallax here is that axod may be equating headcount with income diversification. i.e. More people mean your company must be expanding its interests or avenues. Income diversification, and the headcount increase usually (necessarily?) associated with it is probably a better metric for the "Lifestyle" moniker.