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The Next Generation Bends Over

37signals.com

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Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#151

Post by gruseom »

condor wrote: post #146
gruseom wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what PG's getting at is that you can't "look beyond" the fiduciary responsibility "mindset" without being fiduciarily irresponsible. Which is basically illegal.

Only if you CHOOSE to ACCEPT outside investors, and CHOOSE a board that doesn't have the same vision for the company as you do. I'm no lawyer, but I'm guessing if you own your own business, your fiduciary responsibility is to yourself.

Yes, that would be the "if you have shareholders" part. Can you find an example of a $170 million sale of a startup with no outside investors?

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#152

Post by whopa »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #115
dcurtis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is sort of fuck you money, but honestly I'm more pissed off that a shitty company now owns one of my favorite webapps. Mint is now going to die. I also think something must have been going terribly wrong. The exit was tiny considering the huge amount of money that was invested.

> Mint is now going to die. Doesn't always work that way (NeXT, Apple).

Apple is an outlier. Intuit is not.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#153

Post by jasongullickson »

fallentimes wrote: post #6

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…

" Fake revolutions are cute and all, but think of how awesome it would be to never ever have to work for the man again. "

Selfish, short-sighted and immature...more words that describe the next generation.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#154

Post by webwright »

shiranaihito wrote: post #113
webwright wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what we don't know here is the dream/ambition of the founders. Maybe their dreams were too expensive to chase or they otherwise didn't feel equipped to chase them. Fuck you money (for a lot of people) isn't "go buy a Caribbean island" money. It's "I can finally build the company I WANTED to build" money. (anticipating response of "Why not just build the company you're passionate about to begin with?") Some co…

I always thought that "fuck you" money meant never having to work again, and thus being able to say "fuck you" to a nasty boss, followed by "I quit".

It was a metaphor. In other words-- The Mint guys might take that FU money to enjoy a life of leisure. Or they might use it to work on what they REALLY want to work on.

And obviously FU money here has a very different meaning than to punt a nasty boss-- given that they people who made the decision to sell here WERE the boss.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#155

Post by whopa »

zackattack wrote: post #47
omgsean wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Facebook had to Facebook was started in some kid's dorm room, and I'm still not entirely clear on what they're selling.

Facebook sells highly targeted ad inventory. They may become the most effective advertising platform on the planet.

Being able to target ads well doesn't do you any good if you don't have the ad inventory to make use of that advantage. That's Facebook's problem: their users aren't apt to click on ads while on the site, so they don't convert very well, hence a lot of advertisers don't bother and their inventory sucks.

I've never seen an ad on Facebook that highly targeted me. I think that beyond a few niches (like engagement rings) Facebook's targeting works out to be a wash. That's why despite having 300 million users and billions of page views they are only barely profitable.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#156

Post by mattm »

heyitsnick wrote: post #59
mattm wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you cite any studies that demonstrate this? This is often stated as fact, and I'm sure 'many' lottery winners are less happy, but I would still assume the vast majority would see massive gains in their quality of life and would report increase in their overall happiness. I'd love to read up on any actual data gathered on the topic if you know of any.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_w...

"Here's two different futures that I invite you to contemplate, and you can try to simulate them and tell me which one you think you might prefer. One of them is winning the lottery. This is about 314 million dollars. And the other is becoming paraplegic. So, just give it a moment of thought. You probably don't feel like you need a moment of thought.

Interestingly, there are data on these two groups of people, data on how happy they are. And this is exactly what you expected, isn't it? But these aren't the data. I made these up!

These are the data. You failed the pop quiz, and you're hardly five minutes into the lecture Because the fact is that a year after losing the use of their legs, and a year after winning the lotto, lottery winners and paraplegics are equally happy with their lives."

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=123...

Act two (This is a very fascinating story)

"This American Life producer Alex Blumberg talks with Ed Ugel, who had a very unusual dream job: he bought jackpots from lottery winners. When you win the lottery, your prize is often paid out in yearly installments. And Ed would offer winners a lump sum in exchange for their yearly checks. He's talked with thousands of lottery winners, and the vast majority, he says, wish they'd never won. Ed is writing a book about his years in the "lump sum industry" called Money for Nothing: One Man's Journey through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions. It comes out in September 2007."

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#157

Post by kscaldef »

nomoresecrets wrote: post #85
abalashov wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

On the other hand, the Mint guys worked for 3 years, earned $170m, and now they can 'enjoy building things they like, their way', for a long ass time without needing to answer to anybody except people who use their product. I'm not sure what's not to like about that. The real question is about what those 3 years were like. If they kind of enjoyed them, that's just gravy. (Of course, I'm aware of Survivor's Bias here.…

> On the other hand, the Mint guys worked for 3 years, earned $170m

No, they didn't. A substantial chunk of that money is undoubtedly going to their investors.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#158

Post by whopa »

fallentimes wrote: post #58
dcurtis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is sort of fuck you money, but honestly I'm more pissed off that a shitty company now owns one of my favorite webapps. Mint is now going to die. I also think something must have been going terribly wrong. The exit was tiny considering the huge amount of money that was invested.

Just use yodlee.com (they power Mint's backend anyway). I've been a happy user for years. I agree with your second statement: to the uninformed observer (me and everyone else in this thread) something does seem off. Bank and credit card leads pay from $50-$200 per pop let alone the riches that mortgage leads bring in. I was in fits of laughter during the initial Mint acquisition HN thread ( http://news.ycombinator.co…

Maybe with the current economy the bank and credit card leads don't pay out as well? And the mortgage stuff is still in total downturn.

Perhaps between the crappy economy and whatever Yodlee is charging for their data, Mint may not be anywhere near profitable. They may have acquired a lot of users, but they have to pay Yodlee for all those users' data, and cover the costs by the fraction of those users who go for the bank/credit card stuff suggested.

During the time I used Mint, none of the financial offers presented were better than my current ones, so I never bit.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#159

Post by dcurtis »

fallentimes wrote: post #78
tjogin wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mint's backend isn't the point, it certainly isn't what made Mint popular —— it's the frontend.

That's partially true, but what also made them popular is exceptional PR, SEO and marketing. Yodlee has some features Mint does not and vice-versa.

No, none of those things made Mint popular. The quality of the product did.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#160

Post by malbiniak »

axod wrote: post #99
jasonfried wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your belief that selling ads is not valid or useful to the user never ceases to amaze me. You sell a few online webapps, and get a full cut. People showing ads, sell them tech, finance, cars, whatever. Anything that's relevant, and get a smaller cut. A smaller cut of a massive pie is often better than a full cut of a very small pie. The website selling directly has a finite (small) number of things they can sell the…

I'm no 37signals, but I work closely with the advertising and marketing world. If I were to extend Jason's comments, I'd be shit nervous of making my primary revenue stream based on an ad model. It signals that the product/service I'm making doesn't provide enough value or utility to a single customer (even 1 out of 100) to compel them to give me some money. That's something to avoid, at least in the context of mitigating risk going to market.
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