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1. Avoid going public if at all possible. 2. Avoid outside investors if at all possible. 3. Avoid having a board if at all possible. 4. Control the shares or th

1. Avoid going public if at all possible. 2. Avoid outside investors if at all possible. 3. Avoid having a board if at all possible. 4. Control the shares or the shares will control you.

szundi 5y ago
Step one on this road: and you suddenly found a pendrive with 100kpcs of BTC.
_qzu4 5y ago
> 1. Avoid going public if at all possible. This is basically what Bloomberg has done. Despite selling financial terminals to bank traders, the company still hasn't gone public after all these years.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  Valve as well. I believe they also have the highest profitability/employee ratio of American companies.
bluGill 5y ago
That isn't always good advice. Often the money from going public is required to make it. You either go public, or someone else will take your idea, go public and use the money from it to eat your lunch and then you get nothing. Good ideas are easy. Unique good ideas are so rare as to be non-existent. Nearly all good ideas are obvious to anyone who knows the field and what can be done.
- streetcat1 5y ago
  The market today is so big that many competitors can live side by side . At least in B2B. I mean there are hundreds of CRM companies. You can have other companies eat your lunch. All you need is to get into a default alive state. I.e. have 5-10K MRR. The rest is nice to have. It should be possible in any billion dollar market.
  - achillesheels 5y ago
    Also don't sleep on email marketing! :P
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
novok 5y ago
5. Manipulate your employee's equity awards so that %99 of them return them to you, eventually, because you're never going public and thus your company equity is functionally worth $0.
spottybanana 5y ago
Just get born rich so you don't have to do anything. I think it is no-brainer that founders would prefer to have full control and ownership. If you manage to bootstrap a profitable company with zero outside funding, great for you, but that's not the typical case. Most of us need some money to make money.

1. Avoid going public if at all possible. 2. Avoid outside investors if at all possible. 3. Avoid having a board if at all possible. 4. Control the shares or the shares will control you.

szundi 5y ago

Step one on this road: and you suddenly found a pendrive with 100kpcs of BTC.

_qzu4 5y ago

> 1. Avoid going public if at all possible. This is basically what Bloomberg has done. Despite selling financial terminals to bank traders, the company still hasn't gone public after all these years.

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
Valve as well. I believe they also have the highest profitability/employee ratio of American companies.

bluGill 5y ago

That isn't always good advice. Often the money from going public is required to make it. You either go public, or someone else will take your idea, go public and use the money from it to eat your lunch and then you get nothing. Good ideas are easy. Unique good ideas are so rare as to be non-existent. Nearly all good ideas are obvious to anyone who knows the field and what can be done.

streetcat1 5y ago
The market today is so big that many competitors can live side by side . At least in B2B. I mean there are hundreds of CRM companies. You can have other companies eat your lunch. All you need is to get into a default alive state. I.e. have 5-10K MRR. The rest is nice to have. It should be possible in any billion dollar market.
- achillesheels 5y ago
  Also don't sleep on email marketing! :P
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

novok 5y ago

5. Manipulate your employee's equity awards so that %99 of them return them to you, eventually, because you're never going public and thus your company equity is functionally worth $0.

spottybanana 5y ago

Just get born rich so you don't have to do anything. I think it is no-brainer that founders would prefer to have full control and ownership. If you manage to bootstrap a profitable company with zero outside funding, great for you, but that's not the typical case. Most of us need some money to make money.