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I sold Baremetrics

baremetrics.com

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Re: I sold Baremetrics

#151

Post by topoftheforts »

vbsteven wrote: post #127
elric wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Belgian, I can't help but look at these numbers in disbelief. 100-200k/annum for churning out code 40 hours a week? Where do I sign up for this? I'm the best paid employee I know, work insane hours, and I'm not even in that bracket. Addendum: it's very rare to make more than twice the average wage in Belgium as an employee. It's a different matter if you're self employed.

As a Belgian myself: self-employment is the key here. It's not that hard to pull in 100-200K annually in the current belgian tech space, I've done it consistently for the past 5 years, with lots of periods where I did not work full time.

Any advice on how to get there? I'm a contractor after having worked full time for a few years. Working with a very few long term clients, just me.

Is your daily rate very high, are you delegating work to other people, or what is it?

Re: I sold Baremetrics

#152

Post by matthewmacleod »

imgabe wrote: post #109
matthewmacleod wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all make moral judgements like this all the time, and it’s totally normal to do so. Morality isn’t defined by what is legally permissible; it’s possible to be simultaneously entirely compliant with your legal obligations, and an absolute raging arsehole who has acted in an immoral manner.

It's not that it's legally permissible, it's that it's within bounds of what all parties agreed to. If I agree to sell you my car for $5,000 then you show up with the money and give it to me and take the car, I don't get to change my mind later and get mad that you didn't give me more and call you immoral.

I don't get to change my mind later and get mad that you didn't give me more and call you immoral.

But on the other hand, if you’d agreed to sell me your car at a price under what you might be able to get elsewhere—maybe because I was financially struggling and you were doing me a friendly favour—you’d probably be pretty miffed if I won the lottery and still demanded you stick to your offer…

Re: I sold Baremetrics

#153

Post by franciscomello »

nxmnxm99 wrote: post #76
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respectfully very much disagree. Even Sam Altman has been arguing that founders should give more equity to startups, mainly because employees who are usually sold on "equity dreams" are all coming to realize those equity dreams are peanuts.

“Even Sam Altman” really, the patron saint of getting credit for other people’s work and risk agrees with that waffley sentiment? Shocker

Curious to know why you think this of Sam Altman...

Re: I sold Baremetrics

#154

Post by relaunched »

This warmed my heart.

>>>General Catalyst’s (who had the lion’s share of that $800k) response showed just how classy they are: “We recognize the work that’s gone into the past 7 years and it sounds like this is a great landing spot for the team. We’re grateful for the opportunity to have supported you along the way.”

Re: I sold Baremetrics

#155

Post by marcinzm »

czbond wrote: post #77
marcinzm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the numbers employees got 7.5% of the payout. There seems to be 5 current employees on LinkedIn and possibly some earlier employees who bought out their equity. That seems roughly a standard equity split for employees which just goes to show you how depressingly low the standard equity grants are for employees. As people say, don't join a startup to get rich unless you're the founder.

Which is true, but so is my phrase of "If you want to go broke, found a startup". It cuts very deep on the south side often for founders - whereas employees do get a paycheck. Founders will go YEARS often with little to no income.

I don't disagree however the paycheck for engineering employees is often a lot less than one could get from established companies. Every startup I've talked to sold equity as a large part of the total compensation and argued it makes up for the cash difference.

So you're being asked to give up $100-200k/year worth of salary by joining a startup which isn't trivial. For a tiny fraction of equity with multiple restrictions (10 year expiration, 90 day window to exercise on leaving, can't sell it, etc.).

Re: I sold Baremetrics

#156

Post by franciscomello »

ccmcarey wrote: post #5

I've always loved the transparency and frank writings by Baremetrics. > As part of the structure of the deal, Xenon guaranteed I’d take home $3.7m, regardless of what came up during due diligence Interesting, I wonder how this is structured - surely there are items that can come up during due diligence that are deal-breakers for Xenon, and surely due-diligence is performed before the contract is closed? > But they we…

Through the investors' eyes, "the proceeds from the sale wouldn't even pay for our time and legal fees in reviewing and signing the transaction documents." That's basically it.

Re: I sold Baremetrics

#158

Post by pwinnski »

falcolas wrote: post #87
howlgarnish wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's an $80k bonus on top of the salaries they got for X years of work, and they're all still employed as well.

We don’t currently know what their salaries are, but it’s pretty common for startup salaries to be 50-60% of normal salaries. The rest is typically LLC stock grants. It’s done this way with the promise of “when we sell” those stock holders will make bank. $80k isn’t ‘bank’. Especially if Baremetrics was following the startup-standard salaries.

All indications are that they were operating on a profit basis, not a growth basis, so I think it's a poor assumption that anybody was being paid a half-salary. As the post states, they're keeping their same compensation going forward, and all are choosing to stay, suggesting it's very satisfactory, and has been all along.

Re: I sold Baremetrics

#160

Post by twox2 »

objclxt wrote: post #141
twox2 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make those figures doing "ad work" at FB or Google you probably have to come in as a VP or higher, which already comes towards the end of a very long career arc.

Not necessarily. Bear in mind Facebook's compensation is heavily performance orientated, the bonuses can rack up. You can easily clear $500k at Facebook as a senior engineer, especially if you're getting high evaluations.

Fair enough, I'm talking about the non software engineering side of ad tech.
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