Sell for half a billion and get nothing (2021)
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Sell for half a billion and get nothing (2021)
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Re: Sell for half a billion and get nothing (2021)
#2"FanDuel founders to receive no cash from sale to Paddy Power Betfair"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17485246
(July 8, 2018)
Shamrock Capital Advisers and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts are the two mentioned investors, I believe.
Re: Sell for half a billion and get nothing (2021)
#3"FanDuel founders to receive no cash from sale to Paddy Power Betfair" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17485246 (July 8, 2018) Shamrock Capital Advisers and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts are the two mentioned investors, I believe.
Private equity firms. I’d never take money from them.
Re: Sell for half a billion and get nothing (2021)
#4If you can’t find investors who will invest at 1x preference, it’s a sign that you should seriously consider shutting down rather than raising more funding.
Re: Sell for half a billion and get nothing (2021)
#5"FanDuel founders to receive no cash from sale to Paddy Power Betfair" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17485246 (July 8, 2018) Shamrock Capital Advisers and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts are the two mentioned investors, I believe.
Gambling company should know the house always wins.
If I read crunchbase correctly FanDuel got $350M in funding by 2015, and sold for $465M 9 years later, for 33% ROI, or about 3%/yr. Founders don't deserve anything just for managing to hold on to investor capital and not lose it. Investing money at below market rates is not an achievement. Founders and employees weren't robbed.
Also, OP is just a bad ad.
Re: Sell for half a billion and get nothing (2021)
#6Liq prefs vanished during the ZIRP and I haven’t seen them return…yet.
But the founders do have some leverage. If there is no incentive to do the deal they can just… not cause the deal to happen (different from blocking it, just not working on it).
This is the same reasons you see big pay packets for the execs when a company is doing poorly or is bankrupt: otherwise they could just go do something else (get a different job). The poor guy on the assembly line may not have the same option.
Re: Sell for half a billion and get nothing (2021)
#7[deleted]
Re: Sell for half a billion and get nothing (2021)
#8I think the perception of raising venture capital has soured. You really are an employee. Many founders of well known companies make far less than you would expect. Generate and own a SAAS business that does 1M in ARR, and you can almost walk away with 5-10M. This can be done in a few years.
Do that with a venture backed business, they will force you to raise a series A and shoot for a 200M+ outcome. If you dont increase revenue, they want you to fail/go to zero trying to shoot for the moon. You might spend the next 5 years at a 200k salary, while you could have reached financial security at FAANG. Also, many companies have less respect for founders than you would expect. Its not the career boost people think it will be. You are building a different skill set thats not as useful inside a high paying tech company, aside from engineering. Which even then, is very different at a startup.
Re: Sell for half a billion and get nothing (2021)
#9I’ve always wondered what it means to be a “founder” when it is done with everyone else’s money. Are they not just effectively employees at that point?
I fear such abuse of such just feeds a narcissistic species that focuses mainly on executive headshots and snazzy websites.
Too many startup websites scream, “look, we have a website, $$$ millions, and an executive board — we’re all grown up now!” without actually having much clue. Medium sized business are more self confident and don’t bother.
The small business founder that starts as employee #1 and grows organically is an entirely different animal and fully deserves the title.
Re: Sell for half a billion and get nothing (2021)
#10of course, hindsight is 20/20, but...
Why did they accept the deal with the investors?? That seems like a horrible deal? Google search shows they only raised $416mio total, roughly speaking anything above that and below $559mio the investors could have accepted, pocketed a quick and tidy profit, screw everyone else, and nobody can do anything about it. Or is that too naive of me?