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My Startup has 30 Days to Live

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Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#71

Post by vidarh »

bsenftner wrote: post #45
mtrimpe wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet every bootstrapped company would grow faster if it took (the right kind of) VC money. (For the record... I'm happily bootstrapping my startup which is a startup as far as I'm concerned. I'd call startups that rely on VC funding "VC startups.")

That is the untrue statement of the decade. In my experience, VC and angels are little more than lucky, but deluded to believe otherwise. Or corrupt, and using you to hide their activities.

Many VC's may very well be primarily lucky, but that does not mean that the companies they put their money on are not more often than not in a position to grow faster with their investment. It's just that they are still also at high, and often substantially increased, risk of failing fast. Not least because an investment is often used to execute strategies that substantially increase the burn rate.

Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#72

Post by davidjgraph »

mtrimpe wrote: post #42
rcavezza wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're wrong. A bootstrapped company can grow just as fast as a company that takes VC money.

Yet every bootstrapped company would grow faster if it took (the right kind of) VC money. (For the record... I'm happily bootstrapping my startup which is a startup as far as I'm concerned. I'd call startups that rely on VC funding "VC startups.")

I know a couple of 3 person startups where one person was pretty much full-time dealing with the funding side. When you're small that's a huge cut away from people focusing on delivering product.

Both went under and said in retrospect the extra person would have been better applied building the product/marketing.

Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#73

Post by obviouslygreen »

joezydeco wrote: post #57
mathgeek wrote: post #3

"This week, I need to speak to the other founder and fire our first employee before he leaves on a planned vacation. He’s a good developer, but I won’t fucking make payroll next week if I don’t clear him and his severance out of the company." Is it wrong that I feel worse for this employee than for the author? He's looking forward to a (probably well-earned) vacation, and he's about to be forced into a job hunt inste…

That's a tough spot and I've been there, as the employee that's on the fence as the management nail-bites over accounts receivable and wondering if they can make payroll. I've since learned that you keep your ears to the ground at all times , in ANY company you work for. You don't sit in your cube with your Dr Beat Headphones on, you listen to office talk. You overhear that phone call from a vendor asking where their…

This is just no way to live. If you find yourself doing this, you're either needlessly paranoid and worrying yourself into an early grave, or you're justifiably paranoid, and you should reconsider the choices you're making regarding employment.

Obviously we don't all have the option to bail at any time and find other work, but if this is the kind of culture you're seeing as normal, I feel very sorry for you.

Anyone in this position should -- for their own good -- at least attempt to take a longer view and see if they have options that don't involve constantly sleuthing to narrow down your job's expiration date. Unless you actually like living like this... in which case, hey, it takes all kinds. ;)

Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#74

Post by hahnfeld »

lakey wrote: post #61
greghinch wrote: post #29

I'm going to say this knowing that I may get down voted to heck. And I don't mean it as a "told you so" to the OP, but rather hopefully some cautionary advice for would-be founders. I have come to the opinion that if you are bootstrapping, you have no business calling your company a startup. You are building a small business. And there is nothing shameful about this. You are among solid companions with your local plu…

Good points, but has any VC in history actually underpinned growth from 100 to 100,000 customers in a month? Users, perhaps, but users are different creatures to customers. What's the value of that kind of user growth? It very much depends on the quality of the user, and the startup's ability to convert users to customers. The Techcrunch effect might give you rapid user growth, but are these the right kind of users f…

This unfairly generalizes and vilifies early stage investors. There are plenty of proper, professional VC's who are sufficiently patient and not focused on faux success. Remember, a typical VC fund has a life of 7-10 years. That's plenty of time to develop a company properly and focus on the things which build REAL value.

Perhaps the devil is in the details here, but OP implies that he took accelerator/angel money -- that's potentially a very different thing than a professionally managed institutional investment.

Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#75

Post by vijaykoogu »

WillieBKevin wrote: post #69
greghinch wrote: post #29

I'm going to say this knowing that I may get down voted to heck. And I don't mean it as a "told you so" to the OP, but rather hopefully some cautionary advice for would-be founders. I have come to the opinion that if you are bootstrapping, you have no business calling your company a startup. You are building a small business. And there is nothing shameful about this. You are among solid companions with your local plu…

I see your point about growth, but I disagree over the term bootstrap. I interpret bootstrap to be about external investment. Its possible to have a high-growth company (a "startup"), that receives no investment, or receives investment by the founders. Mailchimp is a fantastic example. Bootstrapped with 9 figure revenues and crazy profits. http://www.quora.com/MailChimp/How-much-revenue-is-MailChimp...

Pinterest CEO, Ben Silbermann share his xeperience https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JLc2PYyCa0

Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#76

Post by namenotrequired »

calinet6 wrote: post #11

I've been through all of this, it sucks. But this line sticks with me: "Honestly think the only thing that keeps my health and my marriage intact is my running." I gotta start running. That's the one thing I always get wrong. Good luck. Just remember, this happens all the time. For you, it will be a learning experience. In a year's time, you'll be in a new situation with almost a completely new life, and your experie…

I wonder if he meant running literally or figuratively.

Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#77

Post by ansible »

alsostayinganon wrote: post #67

The grass is always greener on the other side. I too am running a startup with a downward trajectory. We have more like 6-12 months of runway left but things aren't looking good. Our path tracks your alternate reality. I started a project several years ago that took off. It wasn't meant to be a business at the beginning but once it started getting traction I slowly devoted more and more time to it. It was "profitable…

> By this time I had added in for-pay features to the free product to augment advertising and was making well over $1000 per day. I started plugging some of this into advertising to accelerate the growth but most of it was being distributed to me as the only shareholder. Things were going peachy until the servers crashed again.

What was stopping you from hiring a couple full-time devs (and devops) at this point? And going full-time yourself? It didn't sound like you need VC / angel investment at this point. It sounds like you had enough money to self-sustain.

Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#78

Post by angersock »

mtrimpe wrote: post #47
bsenftner wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the untrue statement of the decade. In my experience, VC and angels are little more than lucky, but deluded to believe otherwise. Or corrupt, and using you to hide their activities.

By "right kind of" I meant to exclude the ones you're referring to. In general I'd find it hard to believe having more resources available reduces your growth rate.

Erm, the issue here is that defining the "right" type of VC funding as the type of VC funding that is "right" is a bit of a tautology...

Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#79

Post by bilbo0s »

greghinch wrote: post #29

I'm going to say this knowing that I may get down voted to heck. And I don't mean it as a "told you so" to the OP, but rather hopefully some cautionary advice for would-be founders. I have come to the opinion that if you are bootstrapping, you have no business calling your company a startup. You are building a small business. And there is nothing shameful about this. You are among solid companions with your local plu…

"...“Cut out that pesky client that generates 80% of your revenue, they’re a distraction on the road to executing $OUR_BIG_VISION”..."

"...I can't help but ask, what did you expect?..."

I can't help but ask what the VC was thinking???

Serious question. I know we don't know all of the details, but this seems, on the face of it, a very bad idea. I would assume there must have been much better methods of handling that client than to cut them loose. A new free tier to generate growth maybe??? Or a tier on the high end which would serve to satisfy that client???

I just don't understand why "paying customer" and "high growth" have to be mutually exclusive??? They are not mutually exclusive in any other industry I work with. Not in the restaurant industry... see Chipotle. Not in the shoe industry... at least women's shoes. Not even bike components... SRAM. Even in industries that are notoriously difficult... like porn... growth and paying customers can coexist.

I mean if "$OUR_BIG_VISION" has no room for customers who pay you gobs of money? I don't know what to think of that.

Re: My Startup has 30 Days to Live

#80

Post by Arjuna »

greghinch wrote: post #29

I'm going to say this knowing that I may get down voted to heck. And I don't mean it as a "told you so" to the OP, but rather hopefully some cautionary advice for would-be founders. I have come to the opinion that if you are bootstrapping, you have no business calling your company a startup. You are building a small business. And there is nothing shameful about this. You are among solid companions with your local plu…

"Startups are about growth."

Indeed... in his essay, "Startup = Growth", PG wrote:

"A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology, or take venture funding, or have some sort of "exit." The only essential thing is growth. Everything else we associate with startups follows from growth.

If you want to start one it's important to understand that. Startups are so hard that you can't be pointed off to the side and hope to succeed. You have to know that growth is what you're after. The good news is, if you get growth, everything else tends to fall into place. Which means you can use growth like a compass to make almost every decision you face." [1]

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html

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