4 ms·
Poll: When is a startup successful?
There are quite a few people here that have done and exited startups - some successful, some not.
But what is a successful exit? Some might think it is selling to google for no less than $20 mill. and some might think that selling to your uncle Jim for $1000 is a success.
IT would be nice to have some datapoints on what people think constitutes a successful exit.
So when would you call an exit a success?
- aflag 19y agoHm, I don't have much economy background, but my intuition says that it depends on how much money you invested in to begin with. How succesful is a sell depends on the interest rate you end up getting. If you start a company with $1k and sell it for $10k in a month, it's certainly success. If you invest $10kk and sell it for $500k, it's a big failure.
- mixmax 19y agoYes you're right, and there are also a lot of other considerations. The idea here is simply to get a basic idea of what people think constitutes a success.
- boucher 19y agoNobody ever succeeded that didn't sell their company?
- mixmax 19y agoYes - Microsoft, Maersk, and lots of others. But this poll is about exits. Primarily because I think it's a good hard measure that we can all relate to.
- moog 19y ago$10.000 == $10,000?
- pchristensen 19y agomixmax, I'm sorry people are hammering your comments (not really deserved), but this just can't be answered on its own. If someone sells for $20 million but wanted to take over the world, it's disappointing. If dilution means the founder gets nothing out of a $5B exit, then it's a failure. It's just too subjective of a question.
- mixmax 19y agoYes, you're probably right. I just couldn't really think of a better measure of success, and I thought the question was interesting. As you rightly point out it quickly gets pretty complex. Guess it didn't fly, but it was worth a try. And thanks for you support :-)