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I sold Baremetrics

baremetrics.com

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Re: I sold Baremetrics

#371

Post by cercatrova »

IshKebab wrote: post #323
user5994461 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are investment funds that manage billions of dollars. They invested 800k hoping to make 80-800M out of it. It's pretty obvious the business didn't pan out as well as intended. It's not really worth their time anymore. Still. They could have caused troubles and tried to recoup their $800k out of the $4M. They were nice not to. The money will be written as a loss and go through some accounting/tax trick to minimiz…

In what way would it have been trouble? Surely they legally own that bit of the company? Something doesn't make sense. $800k is not a small enough amount for any responsible investment fund to walk away from. I wonder if maybe it was actually worth way less. I think he said they walked away from their $800k investment, but maybe that was at a much higher valuation. If it was only worth $80k I can see them not botheri…

800k actually is small enough to give away when you're dealing at that scale. The lawyers fees and other fees wouldn't even be worth that much from a sale.

The bigger reason is reputation. If Techcrunch posted an article saying, founder screwed out of acquisition by billion dollar VC, it wouldn't work out so well for the next founder considering that VC.

Re: I sold Baremetrics

#372

Post by alex_c »

cj wrote: post #316
alex_c wrote: post #268

I was incredibly confused to read " Investors are writing off their $800,000 investment ". Sure, $800K isn't huge money for a fund, but it still seems... odd... to be so nonchalant about it? Then I checked General Catalyst, they manage multiple funds in the $500M - $1B range[1]. In that context the $800K really is a rounding error, around 0.1% of a single fund's size. It never ceases to amaze me how money stops being…

I imagine there must be a bit more to the story. It's not common for investors to write off $800k out of good will (doesn't seem like something in the best interest of their LPs). Edit: > It’s a really exciting day here at Baremetrics! I’m stoked to announce that General Catalyst has invested $500,000 in Baremetrics, as part of a new fund they’ve created for businesses on Stripe. Turns out there is more to the story.…

Ahh good find, and according to CrunchBase that Stripe fund was $10M total.

That makes a bit more sense now.

Re: I sold Baremetrics

#373

Post by dang »

ffdjjjffjj wrote: post #45

Wait, so your investors lose money, your employees (probably just a few) got at most $80k, and you get to retire? I mean, congrats on the hustle, but I wouldn’t waste your time trying to make it look good for everyone else.

Please review the site guidelines and stick to the rules when posting to HN. Note this one:

Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25045906.

Re: I sold Baremetrics

#374

Post by fairity »

Everyone's talking about how the founder got lucky that his investors let go of their $800K liquid preference.

My guess is that this wasn't all luck.

The VC's in this case knew how transparent this founder was being in reporting his startup journey. They knew that this decision would get publicity.

With this knowledge, the VC firm probably made a calculated decision to forego their liquid pref in return for the good will generated by the founder's transparent PR.

It's cool to see the founder being financially rewarded for his transparency.

Re: I sold Baremetrics

#375

Post by TwoNineFive »

adamzapasnik wrote: post #135
skrebbel wrote: post #97

At the time I write this comment, half my screen is full of people calling Josh not so nice things. Folks, this is a founder who's openly sharing the kinds of things we usually keep hidden. I doubt there's been a startup exit in the last decade where a healthy skeptical HN'er couldn't find some wrongs being done, if the details had been available. It's extremely hard to get everything right, from every perspective. T…

Half screen? I see a comment or two. I think it's normal/human thing to have discussions in comments like this one. Especially, when it's an exit related topic that gets shared on startup/VC related forum-site like this one? Prefer just "good job" comments, or what?

I agree. I read all the comments in this thread and this time and the negativity isn't there. It just doesn't exist. I don't know if those comments were removed, but I just suspect they never existed.

Re: I sold Baremetrics

#376

Post by bluedevil2k »

ceejayoz wrote: post #355
bluedevil2k wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens when he lives 36 years?

> Even if he didn't earn any interest Hopefully he puts some of it in interest-earning stuff prior to that point.

That was more a rhetorical question. The real issue is you can’t predict how long you’ll live so it’s not correct to say “draw it all down evenly over X years”

Re: I sold Baremetrics

#377

Post by TwoNineFive »

skrebbel wrote: post #97

At the time I write this comment, half my screen is full of people calling Josh not so nice things. Folks, this is a founder who's openly sharing the kinds of things we usually keep hidden. I doubt there's been a startup exit in the last decade where a healthy skeptical HN'er couldn't find some wrongs being done, if the details had been available. It's extremely hard to get everything right, from every perspective. T…

Can you please be specific about what "not so nice" things you are/were seeing? I'm not seeing any inappropriate criticisms beyond what I would normally expect.

Re: I sold Baremetrics

#378

Post by kjksf »

treis wrote: post #299
rjyoungling wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, same here. That was such a class act. I really hope that they get some serendipity like deal flow from that good will.

Maybe I'm just the Grinch but some rich dudes giving $800k to one rich dude doesn't warm my heart. Especially as someone who's gotten (relatively) screwed twice now when owners sold out. It also goes to the heart of how messed up our economic system can be. I can be mollified by saying that he worked hard and earned his ~$4 million by building a business. But I can't internally justify the VCs gifting him $800k for A…

It wasn't $800k for nothing.

Every VC investment is a speculative bet on the future success of the company.

If Baremetrics sold for $800 million, they would have made 1000x their money.

If it was their only investment, then it would be a major fail but VC business model works by making 100 bets. Few bets deliver 1000x return but many of them are 100% loss.

The VC knew what they were doing and their $800k got them exactly what they paid for: an option to make a lot of money in case of a big future success.

Re: I sold Baremetrics

#380

Post by Jochim »

Sodman wrote: post #265
karimf wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

HN had the audacity to do something other than shower the subject with unapologetic praise. An actual discussion occurred rather than a congratulatory twitter echo chamber.

I'm actually a really disappointed in Josh's response. I thought that his open stance on what he'd been doing would mean he'd being open to people criticising what he'd done. He doesn't need to agree with that criticism, but dismissing the whole site as toxic based on that disagreement just feels flippant.

From what I've seen and participated in, the discussion mostly centered around whether this was a good deal for everyone involved and whether or not a greater proportion of a company's success should be attributed to it's employees. At least in my eyes very little of it focused on Josh personally.

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