271–280 of 521 posts
@shpigford - Are you able to exempt your exit from capital gains under the QSBS tax laws? For those curious, more here: https://www.brownadvisory.com/us/qsbs-tax-exemption-valuable...
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I don't want to make any moral judgements against people making business decisions, in particular this founder for making the best deal possible. Good for him. However, no matter how much money General Catalyst or Bessemer made last year, I would not want to invest with them going forward. I get that this is only money on the margins, and they get a benefit from a write off. Still, how hard would they have had to fig…
I thought the VC was generous here. But there's some benefit to being generous. How many future founders will read that blog? If you were a founder, would it influence your choice of investor, to know if things don't work out, they will be magnanimous, rather than squeeze?
Maybe I'm hopelessly naive here, but $4M cash @ 2.65 ARR, so ~$1.5M ARR. Isn't that a bit low for SaaS at 7 years? Then there is the mention of running at breakeven most of that time. There are solo founder SaaS businesses making more than that with 80%+ margins. As others have mentioned, you'd be better off working at a FAANG. So, did something go wrong here? What is it about this analytics business that makes it so…
The median and modal ARR for SaaS businesses 7 years after founding is zero.
Extremely gross that he pocketed $3.7m but asked his investors to walk away from their $800K, because he needed to meet his financial "goals." This is the flipside of all of the VC deals that completely fuck over the founders.
There is what is for them a teeny tiny pie, and rather than demanding their small slice back they said "you know what? Go ahead without us. Bon Appetit :)"
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> Of course, not everyone can get an offer at a FAANG Note that this is true for many reasons, not all of which are related to technical ability. Not everyone should try to get a FAANG job, either. Factors candidates may consider: * how much time they want to spend interviewing/prepping * what their previous experience has been * where they went to school * where they are willing to live * what type of work they like…
But I'm making the argument that most of the bullet points in your list make no sense to consider because the remuneration at FAANGs is usually so much more, and that money would then give you the freedom to do what you want. I mean "how much time they want to spend interviewing/prepping"?? If a FAANG will average 2-3x payout, it would be insane not to be willing to prep for literally months if that made the differen…
I earn well, so granted I'm not turning down as much as some would, but to drag out a tired old saying, I work to live, I don't live to work. I have plenty of things I want to do - some of them I can do in the right job, many I can't.
Of course one of the luxuries of already earning well is that the multiple of my current salary it'd take to convince me to take a job I don't actively love the sound of is far higher that it otherwise would be.
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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.
From the founder himself:
> We've had carryover losses for years, so from a tax perspective, there was no hit on either side.
I realize that tax losses can differ from cash losses, but are you so sure about that?
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Relevant tweet from the author: https://twitter.com/shpigford/status/1326162432989990912
I see this "HN is toxic" sentiment on tech twitter a lot, particularly from tech folks on twitter with a lot of followers and fans. My own experience on HN has been that folks may be more cynical than average, and sometimes lacking empathy, but I've found most arguments are at least made based on reality, facts and good faith. Those that aren't usually get downvoted and/or flagged pretty quickly. Meanwhile twitter th…
I know there's a trope about the naive founder getting screwed by shifty-eyed VC sharks, but it really sounds like Josh screwed his investors and employees here. > I wanted them to at least get their money back, but ultimately, for the $4m purchase price to work, we’d need to ask them to walk on their [$800,000] investment. He clearly didn't want it very badly, then. Nearly $3 million wasn't enough? That's about $420…
Why are you making moral judgements on a business decision? The investors didn't HAVE to take a write down, they chose to. The early employees didn't HAVE to join this company, they chose to. Why do you deem it immoral for a founder to do what is best for himself within the bounds of the agreements he has made? This kind of calling-out is common in HN and quite distasteful. Comments like this all amount to saying "X…
On what planet are "business decisions" not bound to moral judgements? That's one of the craziest things I've ever heard.
The numbers work out to 7.5% equity owned by 10 employees. Would that be a typical equity share for a company like this?