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Good morning HN! John from Ghost here - Thanks for all your support over the last 5 years. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that very first blog post hitting the #1 spot of HN and getting so much attention back in 2012. That was the very first time anyone ever heard about Ghost, and everything we've built since then has been thanks to that.
> How do you pay people if they live in different countries? What about contracts? — The things people ask about most often all have straightforward answers. Really? I just read a comment from the CEO of HashiCorp who has a very different take: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17022563 Unless all remote employees of Ghost are just contractors...
Same with Automattic, Zapier, Buffer - and most of the other big remote companies. In fact, we all use the same set of contracts. They tend to get passed around founders.
All 3 of those other companies are USA based, so for anyone in the US they do standard employment contracts - and anyone outside = self employed contractor on a retainer. We're based in Singapore and don't have any staff in Singapore, so effectively everyone is a remote self-employed contractor.
Our retainer contract looks a lot like an employment contract, practically speaking, and builds in all the same sorts of provisions as you would expect. We also cover expenses, where applicable, for team members to get independent legal and accounting advice to make sure everything is set up correctly for them.
Mr HashiCorp has gone way too far down the rabbit hole, by the sounds of it. It makes sense to set up a subsidiary when you have a larger group of staff in a single location. For instance, Automattic have a subsid in Ireland because they acquired a company there and as a result have a lot of staff based there. But otherwise it doesn't make sense to set up a full blown subsidiary in every country when you're a tiny startup just trying to contract a couple of people.
Good morning HN! John from Ghost here - Thanks for all your support over the last 5 years. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that very first blog post hitting the #1 spot of HN and getting so much attention back in 2012. That was the very first time anyone ever heard about Ghost, and everything we've built since then has been thanks to that.
I'm curious what Ghosts' bylaws are, how is it actually organized? I presume it's not a 501c(3) since it's engaged in commercial space and doesn't take charitable donations. Another question: are there any aspects of your product that are open core? Does the SaaS have any "special sauce?" Thanks.
For one, it's not an American company, is it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand what's absurd about it, you can keep more money if you save on your taxes (both the company's and personal? I don't know how the US system works). I don't argue being a non-profit is a cause for suspicion in case of a saas, I just don't see why would it be noble.
It’s absurd because if you sit down and do the math, you’ll find there are basically no monetary advantages to paying yourself out of a 501c3 vs LLC/SCorp/CCorp. And even if you did find an advantage, there is no way it saves more money than you could make by selling your company. You cannot sell a non profit.
Conversely, there is little to no reason for being setup as a non-profit in Ghost's case.
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That's for a managed WP host. I agree that the $50/mo price comes out of nowhere, but you're still not going to find one for $20/mo as you would with Ghost. Ghost is 20 times faster. And once you add a single WP plugin, it's 100 times faster.
Isn't Dreampress a comparably affordable managed Wordpress host? https://www.dreamhost.com/wordpress/
My biggest complaint is that Ghost doesn't yet have a built in SSL/TLS option (e.g. Let's Encrypt). Their recommendation is to use Cloudflare. It's fine for hobbyist or personal blogs, but as a corporation it's basically prevented us from using SSL.
We're in a regulated industry and need to do appropriate vetting of vendors. Onboarding a blog platform is very, very easy because of the relatively low risk nature of a blog. Onboarding an infrastructure vendor, like Cloudflare, is very complicated. Making it more complicated is we'd have no interest in actually paying for a Cloudflare service so it's impossible to get resources to complete the vetting process. On top of all of that, last year's Cloudbleed incident cast some real doubt on Cloudflare's security practices and ability to properly protect potentially sensitive data.
We will likely eventually self-host so we can get proper SSL support. I'm really disappointed by this since it will be more expensive than paying our Ghost subscription for several years.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s absurd because if you sit down and do the math, you’ll find there are basically no monetary advantages to paying yourself out of a 501c3 vs LLC/SCorp/CCorp. And even if you did find an advantage, there is no way it saves more money than you could make by selling your company. You cannot sell a non profit.
Still don't understand, when your organization pays less tax, you have more money to pay yourself, thus your salary will be higher. Conversely, there is little to no reason for being setup as a non-profit in Ghost's case. [1] https://www.upcounsel.com/llc-vs-nonprofit
But really the important point is you cannot sell your company. How many years of 10% extra salary is worth sacrificing your ability to liquidate all the blood sweat and tears you put into your company?
I didn't realize Ghost was a non-profit. Very noble. The feedback in Github is interesting. Ghost is probably more likely to have issues with demanding users than, say, mongodb. Very cool and inspiring post. That said: - Ghost's marketing materials tend to outright lie to users when making comparisons to WordPress or other platforms. - I dislike OSS projects that hide their OSS nature. Why does a user need to pay $29…
I know people don't want to believe that and it's a difficult thing to accept, which is why most people just cling to the "non-profit" label, but reality is realty, whether you accept it or not.