4 ms·
I disagree. It depends on how sticky it is with the customers. I recall a small mortgage data vendor who owned a tiny niche of the market. They had ~3-5mm in
by mathattack 8y ago
I disagree. It depends on how sticky it is with the customers. I recall a small mortgage data vendor who owned a tiny niche of the market. They had ~3-5mm in revenue and 7 employees, several of which who were admins. Most made better money than in comparable jobs. The founder did extremely well on a cash basis. He didn’t need expensive salespeople because he had saturated the market.
He couldn’t retire young, but I’m pretty sure he owned his house and could send his kids to whatever school he wanted.
This is just one too of mind data point.
- B0btheBuilder 8y agoThe parent comment wrote one sentence. How did you miss the "working for a low wage" part?
- codingdave 8y agoThat parent comment also is the only person who has mentioned "working for a low wage". It was not part of my original comment, and not the scenario I intended to describe. It is a valid point, though. Working for a low wage at any company is a fundamentally different story than an above average wage at a bootstrapped success that can afford to pay good salaries.
- sanderjd 8y agoI read that comment as adding a new dimension to the discussion: the wage dimension. I think it is an important part of the discussion. In my experience it is well known that startups pay poorly and make up for it with a lottery ticket, and many companies piggy-back on that widespread knowledge to pay similarly poorly ("competitive pay" where the competition are startups) despite not actually having that lottery ticket to include in the deal. Don't get me wrong, I feel for these companies. They are in a bind. There is no way they can pay salaries competitive with big corporations, and they've made a (wise, IMO) decision to avoid funding and grow organically, which precludes them from compensating through a seat at the exit table. Personally I think the solution for companies like this is employee ownership and dividends. This seems to align incentives properly. I don't see this being done much (at all?) though, which makes me wonder whether there are ugly pitfalls I'm unfamiliar with.
- intellectronica 8y agoTo me it seems that the problem is the definition of "startup". Not every new/small business is a startup. A profitable, no/slow-growth small business can be a great place to work at. The article is about a particular kind of startups - ones that aren't delivering on their promise of fast growth.
- ghaff 8y agoIt seems there's also an implication that if you're not maximizing your expected income you're doing something wrong. People can make a reasonable choice to work for a smaller business (or, indeed, any type of organization) that doesn't pay the highest salaries for other reasons.
- intellectronica 8y agoLow wage means less than you can earn for doing exactly the same thing elsewhere. Of course people often compromise on wage to do something they are particularly interested in. In the case of unpaid internships or volunteer work people forego any monetary compensation. All other things being equal, though, you should seek to maximize your income.
- ghaff 8y agoWell, sure. If every attribute other than salary is absolutely identical, of course there's no reason to accept a lower wage. But everything else is pretty much never going to be equal when it comes to professional jobs.
- intellectronica 8y agoStartups, or companies pretending to be startups, usually offer lower wages for doing essentially the same technical work.
- dasil003 8y ago