131–140 of 216 posts
Please. $170 million is "fuck you" money. Aaron and I'm guessing many of the top founders/executives made enough money to never ever have to work again. Fake revolutions are cute and all, but think of how awesome it would be to never ever have to work for the man again. They can do anything they want...for profit, not for profit, TBD (Y Combinator). This wasn't some BS talent acquisition; this was an absolute shitloa…
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We say don't take money up front. Money up front is the sin: You're entering into a financial arrangement when you have no leverage. It's the worst possible time to do business. Re: Eyeballs... Our problem with action for eyeballs is when you have nothing to sell the brains behind the eyeballs. Just building an audience with nothing to sell (beyond ads) is what we rail against. But building an audience that could als…
Eyeballs... Our problem with action for eyeballs is when you have nothing to sell the brains behind the eyeballs. Just building an audience with nothing to sell (beyond ads) is what we rail against. But building an audience that could also be your customers is something we encourage. Sorry, Jason, I think you're being disingenuous again. Did you come up with the idea of writing Getting Real and then try to market it…
What's the difference?
From what I can see, 37signals came up with the idea of writing a book called Getting Real and marketing it to web developers. But they came up with the idea very slowly and incrementally by starting out with one post on a blog, observing the response, and working up from there.
It's positional chess. Yes, the checkmate on move 37 is caused directly by the pawn move at move 1. But that doesn't mean that the chessmaster planned move 37 all along. The chessmaster started out with a plan to make money ("win this game") and then made strong moves that led in winning directions, refining as the game proceeded.
37signals has had a mechanism for translating developer attention into cash from day one: Selling developer project-management tools. What's disingenuous about that?
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Most of your blog posts strike me as you rationalizing why you aren't a hugely profitable company.
I think it's fair to say that 37 Signals' aspirations are, at best, orthogonally related to profit maximisation. They're there to enjoy building things they like, their way. No, I'm not some sort of Kool-aid drinking acolyte. But ultimately, I'm trying to do the same thing - to have fun and do what I find fulfilling, at the expense of considerably faster and more lucrative routes to making more money - so I can appre…
This notion that working on a fulfilling business can meet all of a person's needs is false.
Working on something fulfilling, for money is good. Having the option of doing something fulfilling that doesn't need to make money is better.
So, back to the OP's point: FU money is better than a happy income (depending on what you have to do to get to the FU stage).
If this was an acquisition fueled completely by a VC or investor, I doubt the founder would be interested or willing to then commit to the Big Evil Company that his revolution is being sold to.
Therefore I think the main premise of Jason's blog post is wrong.
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Yeah but it is counter-intuitive to open a business with the intent on being bought or anything along those lines. This just feeds big companies and will likely cause innovation to happen slowly through common user perspectives and reduce competitive businesses.
Why is it counter-intuitive? If your goal is to make a lot of money, sometimes your exit strategy will be acquisition.
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For me, 10 million dollars would be enough to satisfy all of my personal and family needs: house, vacation money, pay off close friends' debts, tuition, health insurance, etc. More money just means more good that can be done in the world for my larger human family. Also, it is likely that nothing was going terribly wrong. The exit was only small for the later-round investors, who also made a killing on their investme…
> pay off close friends' debts Honorable, but basically flawed. Your relationship with your friends will change because of something like that, it is very very nice of you to want to share the wealth, but someone that has a sense of honour themselves will either have to refuse your offer or they will accept and it will hurt their sense about themselves. Should you ever find such wealth be very careful how you approac…
I also can't imagine taking a heartfelt offer from a close friend as an "intrusion," but then I'm sure it depends on the relationship and the personalities involved.
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For me, 10 million dollars would be enough to satisfy all of my personal and family needs: house, vacation money, pay off close friends' debts, tuition, health insurance, etc. More money just means more good that can be done in the world for my larger human family. Also, it is likely that nothing was going terribly wrong. The exit was only small for the later-round investors, who also made a killing on their investme…
pay off close friends' debts I think it would be a better idea to loan them money to pay off their debts. Of course, your loan should be interest free, shouldn't have any strings attached, should give your friends very long time to repay - otherwise there wouldn't be any difference between your loan and the 'other' loans in the first place.
The borrower is slave to the lender; why would you want that dynamic in your friendship?
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"Fuck You money" is such a myth. More on this soon in another post.
What would have happened if Mint had said no, and then Intuit made a bigger offer to Wesabe (and they accepted)? People who were already used to using Intuit products might be tempted to try out Wesabe instead of Mint, making it that much harder for Mint to convince such users to give them a try. That's not to say Mint did any of us a favor by accepting Intuit's offer, but their decision may not have come as easily a…
I find the Jefferson quote toward the end rather ironic. Jefferson and his compatriots were fond of explaining why anything was worth trading for freedom, yet the author is suggesting that the Mint founders should've passed on the guaranteed "freedom" the acquisition money provides for some trite devotion to slaying Goliath. If you want change, make your own change. It's no one else's responsibility. Even if it were,…
That's being a bit equivocal. You're using the word freedom in very different way than Jefferson ever meant it. In Jefferson's world, the Mint founders are no more or less free now than before selling to Intuit. Otherwise, I agree that it isn't for us to judge. The founders were certainly free to sell their company.
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"lots of homeless people break free all the time and many of them are way happier than those receiving big exits for startups. That is not hyperbole." I'm sure you can find several homeless people who are happier than several people who made FU money in a short amount of time, but I'd be willing to bet that on average, people who started up a company and sold it for dump trucks full of cash are happier than homeless…
I wouldn't be too sure about that. Many lottery winners are actually less happier a year after winning the lottery than before. Many also wish they had never won. Of course, this could be psychological due to them not having done anything to earn the money.
It's kind of surprising how many people are absolute idiots at managing their money. My girlfriend's parents are broke again after blowing over $100,000 in a year on leather couches. Their manufactured home is still not paid off.