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Tiny

tinycapital.com

31–40 of 158 posts

Re: Tiny

#31
post #3
post #2

What's the catch with this, I wonder? If it's so easy to cash out, what does that mean for the price at which you cash out? How does Tiny manage to stay non-interventionist as they claim? It's interesting but I think there has to be more than what's pointed out here going on

The catch is that your business has to be in pretty darn good shape. They won't just buy any company, you have to prove it is stable, profitable, and growing.

> you have to prove it is stable, profitable, and growing.

I just cannot imagine selling my business if everything was pointing upwards like that.. but people are different I guess

Re: Tiny

#32
In case someone from the company is reading, the current background blue color is quite harsh on eyes, especially when reading text.

Please try using #3f51b5 or something similar. Other than that, love the design.

Re: Tiny

#33
post #31
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The catch is that your business has to be in pretty darn good shape. They won't just buy any company, you have to prove it is stable, profitable, and growing.

> you have to prove it is stable, profitable, and growing. I just cannot imagine selling my business if everything was pointing upwards like that.. but people are different I guess

The website gives an example:

> You've got early employees, investors, or a co-founder who wants to leave or cash out. You want to swap them for a friendly new face who can add value and help you grow the business.

This is common in professional groups (like law firms or medical practices) when a partner is looking to retire.

Re: Tiny

#34
Is there a story behind the cruel-sounding "Cap table cleanup" heading? It says:

  > You've got early employees, investors, or a co-founder
  > who wants to leave or cash out. You want to swap them
  > for a friendly new face who can add value and help you
  > grow the business.
It feels like they're insinuating that there's usually a painful process in enabling people to cash-out and leave? Is this because of the whole "golden handcuff" thing and the risk of everyone just wanting to leave immediately? To me that's always seemed like a larger problem in how we arrange early equity. Incentives are malformed.

Re: Tiny

#36

Is there a story behind the cruel-sounding "Cap table cleanup" heading? It says: > You've got early employees, investors, or a co-founder > who wants to leave or cash out. You want to swap them > for a friendly new face who can add value and help you > grow the business. It feels like they're insinuating that there's usually a painful process in enabling people to cash-out and leave? Is this because of the whole "gol…

The wording really creeps me out, it's kinda condescending like, we'll just work our way in and tell you how to run your business.

Re: Tiny

#37
post #9
post #4

Tiny is basically as advertised. A few years ago, I tried to sell one of my businesses to them (Zack) and he was straightforward in his reason to pass back then (profit too low). Took about a day once I had my metrics sorted. The experience was positive and re-enforced my understanding of important growth metrics and product storytelling.

> profit too low > important growth metrics > product storytelling Yup. Everything that's wrong with (predominately US) modern business culture. Product doesn't matter, storytelling is. Nothing matters, inflated growth metrics do. Profit doesn't matter unless it's high (for some definition of high), but even that doesn't matter if you have hyperinflated growth metrics.

Everything that's wrong with (predominately US) modern business culture.

You're confusing "business" with "investment".

Business is the act of making money right now. Buying stuff, selling stuff, providing services, and making enough money to keep the lights on. That's really important stuff. That's how we pay our mortgages and buy food and XBoxes. When you're running a business that stuff should always be front and centre. It's what's important to employees, and the economy, etc.

Investment is the act of using money now in order to increase the amount of money you have in the future. Profit, product, and metrics right now are much less important if you're thinking about what happens in 1 or 2 or 5 years time. A company with a good-but-not-great product today could be the next Apple if they're able to realize the potential of the market - that's what investors are looking for. They don't really care how much a business is making today if they're thinking about where it could be in 5 years time.

Re: Tiny

#39

Is there a story behind the cruel-sounding "Cap table cleanup" heading? It says: > You've got early employees, investors, or a co-founder > who wants to leave or cash out. You want to swap them > for a friendly new face who can add value and help you > grow the business. It feels like they're insinuating that there's usually a painful process in enabling people to cash-out and leave? Is this because of the whole "gol…

It just means you need a liquidity event. Many investors don't want to cash out early stage employees, many PE will only want to buy the whole thing. If the business can't take out a loan or similar, and those staying can't afford it, you need a new investor who's up for this type of restructuring.

Re: Tiny

#40
post #22
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And not actually caring about the problem at hand. "Dude! We could make so much money if we made X!" - but do you actually care about X? Why is money the only reason people are setting up business and solving problems? It should be secondary, a happy side effect of solving hard problems (which people will thank you for with money.)

If someone solves a problem of mine because they're motivated by money instead of the problem domain I don't really care. Are you upset that the gas station operator doesn't have a hobby about gas?

ppl aren't very good at solving problems they don't have. i imagine it's hard to design a good/efficient gas station if you've never used one before. service reps/tech support aren't very good if they don't use the product. software sucks/is slow to use unless the designers also use it on the daily and feel first-hand what the pain points are.
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