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Why I Turned Down $5 Million in VC Funding

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Re: Why I Turned Down $5 Million in VC Funding

#41

Post by rfnslyr »

thejosh wrote: post #33
waterlion wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to copy and paste my answer to girvo, but that. I didn't have to take the trouble to give feedback.

Hey, I agree that it's a PITA - I didn't get it when I loaded the page - and I hate pages that do that, Writing "Still completely unacceptable." makes you come across as though you were ripped off in some way..

Are we really at a point where we get deeply offended at some sort of UI change when we visit a page? Inspector it, remove it, read the article, and move the fuck on.

Re: Why I Turned Down $5 Million in VC Funding

#42

Post by mattzito »

draz wrote: post #28
mattzito wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so yes, you are mechanically correct in that if you sold 10% of your shares for $1m, you would get the cash not the company. However, the way funding events work in real life is that new shares are created by the company and then sold to the investors. As a very math-simple example, I have 1m shares in my company, and I own 100% of them. Some VCs want to take a ~33% share of the company for $5m. My "board" (me)…

I think it's more typical to issue, for example, 10M shares, take 3M for yourself, and leave the rest for employees/VCs/whatever (rather than issue new ones, in a first round)

Yeah, you're right, that's often the case, especially when you have cofounders and early employees that you don't want to dilute during the first funding round.

However, I just wanted to keep the example simple, I thought it was easier to talk about creating shares than deal with the "who owns the unissued shares" notion.

But yeah, that's a good clarification.

Re: Why I Turned Down $5 Million in VC Funding

#43

Post by girvo »

waterlion wrote: post #31
girvo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that's entitled. It's his site, he can do what he wants. Even if that does mean that I'll put it through Instapaper to avoid that stuff and not sign up to his mailing list.

It's not. I'm just giving a data point, as is jc4p, as is codegeek. So are the up-voters. What part of what I said gave you the impression of entitlement? I didn't say "I deserve to read this without ads". I said "I stopped reading because you put a massive pop-up that filled the entire screen and prevented me from reading it, I don't find that acceptable, and so closed the tab". Would it be better to have no feedbac…

Before your edit, you had one sentence saying you had an issue, then one other sentence saying it's completely unacceptable.

It's not about your feedbacks content (I agree with you!) it's how you worded it.

Re: Why I Turned Down $5 Million in VC Funding

#44

Post by nhangen »

TLDR;

I turned down 5 million so that I could practically name the investor, get attention for my startup, and still make page 1 of HN.

----

I wonder how investors feel about posts like this. If you are an investor, would it change the way you feel about the CEO or the company?

Re: Why I Turned Down $5 Million in VC Funding

#46

Post by ivankirigin »

waterlion wrote: post #4

I just see a HUGE ad asking for my email address and a passive-aggressive "No thanks, I don't want to grow my business", the rest of the page blacked out. I can tell there's content underneath but screw that, I'm not reading it after that.

Love it or hate it, I bet it drives a lot of subscriptions. This is the service they use, btw

http://bounceexchange.com/

Re: Why I Turned Down $5 Million in VC Funding

#47

Post by flyosity »

thejosh wrote: post #29
waterlion wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW I opened it in a background tab. Still completely unacceptable. (EDIT: as in, your site is giving a value proposition and I don't accept it if it includes a massive popup)

Sorry your hacker news experience was ruined today, perhaps you can ask for a partial refund for your troubles.

That was the funniest HN comment I've seen in months. Nice job.

Re: Why I Turned Down $5 Million in VC Funding

#48

Post by misterparker »

Great writeup. I'm so sick of hearing about VC funding, growth-hacking, hock-sticks, and user-acquisition and all in the name of an exit strategy. I hope to see more and more companies take this more bootstrap-ish approach to building sustainable businesses, solving a real problem for real people.

Re: Why I Turned Down $5 Million in VC Funding

#50

Post by raverbashing »

ivankirigin wrote: post #46
waterlion wrote: post #4

I just see a HUGE ad asking for my email address and a passive-aggressive "No thanks, I don't want to grow my business", the rest of the page blacked out. I can tell there's content underneath but screw that, I'm not reading it after that.

Love it or hate it, I bet it drives a lot of subscriptions. This is the service they use, btw http://bounceexchange.com/

Makes sense, it drives the bounce rate up.
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