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Ask HN: How has your life changed after selling your startup?
I just saw a Ask HN post asking about founders who built profitable startups while still holding a day job. While I qualify for that, the comments I read had a lot of selling out stories but none of them seem to give much info on what most of the founders are doing after selling out.
If you built a startup and have sold it, how has life been after that? Did you start another or have you retired? Do you like it now or would you prefer the pre-acquisition life of yours?
- earle 15y agoLearned to surf, and started another!
- cgag 15y agoMaybe it'd be different if it actually happens, but I can't imagine starting a second one without learning to surf and traveling the world first.
- jumby 15y agoresting & vesting & waiting for my 2 year anniversary
- cottonseed 15y agoMoved abroad, traveled a lot, now in a PhD program.
- xrd 15y agoGot married, moved temporarily from Oregon to Georgia with my wife. Got a dog, walking him a lot. Meditating a lot. Writing a lot. Working on three startup ideas. Loving life. Clarified what is important to me: being creative, learning, writing, freedom. Looking at building a new type of startup that has a structure that is additive to life and building fun things. I believe it is possible.
- amackera 15y agoI believe it is possible also, good luck!
- huhtenberg 15y agoGoing from needing to work to not needing to work is a major readjustment, and not always a positive one. A dream fulfilled means there is no more dream and a need to come up with a new one.
- tristan_louis 15y ago"retired"; got tired of being "retired" after a month; started another company; took it public; tried retiring again; failed at that and started another company; sold it; hung around after sale; moved to help turn around another startup; left that and started another company; sold it; hung around a long time with the acquirer; moved to a competitor of the acquirer and hung around for a couple of years there; left the big company world to start another company; preparing for launch soon... I guess not much :) One thing selling did is give me a degree of financial freedom I didn't have before which is a big change. For example, my current startup (Keepskor, currently is stealth mode) is currently completely self-funded and will remain so until we open our doors publicly. I wouldn't be able to do that if I hadn't sold other companies before.
- bvi 15y agoThat's impressive. What were all your startups, if you don't mind sharing?
- javery 15y agohttp://www.tnl.net/who/ http://www.tnl.net/who/
- tristan_louis 15y agoIn order: internet.com (went IPO in 1999, acquired in 2008 (or thereabout, I was no longer involved when it was acquired) Earthweb (went IPO in 1997, acquired by internet.com in 2000) Net Quotient (acquired by Applicom in 1999) Boo.com (crashed and burned in 2000) Moveablemedia (acquired by HSBC in 2001) I then did the Wall Street thing for a while, building cool payment stuff for banks and big tech companies. Last year, I started working on the outline of Keepskor (not fully revealing what it's about except for broad stuff like the fact that it will be in the general space of social, mobile, and include things like localization :) ). Earlier this year, I left the cushy Wall St. job (I felt I was getting overly fat and happy) to focus on this full-time. The core ideas sketched out for Keepskor are still there but the way in which we're interpreting them have radically changed. We've done some market research to validate the core concepts, built a prototype, crashed and burned it, rearchitected and reengineered and are now getting closer to what I consider a solid alpha.
- itmag 15y agoFor those of you who made over a million bucks: did you do two chicks at the same time?
- AznHisoka 15y agoyou dun need a million to do that...
- garethsprice 15y agoWell, the type of chicks that'd double up on a dude like me do.
- kstenerud 15y agoActually, no. While the money will give you the confidence to get what you want, you'll find that it was the confidence, not the money, that did it. "The Game" by Neil Strauss gives an engineer-friendly algorithm, and is a fascinating read overall.
- sp4rki 15y agoI agree 100%. The thing is most of the men pulling stunning threesome one night stands are the type of men who unbutton 3 buttons on their shirt and have no trouble getting to a club alone and socializing with every social group in there. That is wether they arrive in a 100k super car or in a 85' Daewoo. Women like money and power, but they appreciate confidence a whole order of magnitude more. This probably applies to courting VC's and selling your product also. Balls is what give's a guy/gal the edge to succeed...
- itmag 15y agoI run a magazine which counts Ross Jeffries (who was in TG) among its contributors. Check it out :) http://interestingtimesmagazine.com http://interestingtimesmagazine.com Oh, and r/seduction on Reddit is teh shit.
- matwood 15y ago
- brianobush 15y agofinancial freedom, but other than that... no. would like to try it again to see if what happened was luck or skill.
- diego 15y agoRetirement doesn't exist. What happens is that your values change. Money is not the main driver of your daily work. I work to: - make an impact in other people's lives. - earn respect and recognition. - do something interesting and challenging. - learn new skills (I never want to stop learning). I "could stop anytime I wanted to" but I never do. I don't want to.
- jpdoctor 15y ago> Retirement doesn't exist. This. I actually took off but I only lasted 3 months before I was trying out things that turned into my new startup. I'm a failure at lying down with a pina colada on a beach... it drove me up a friggen wall to be honest.
- ChuckMcM 15y agoFor a long time I realized that there was a cognitive disconnect between what I meant when I said 'retire' and what people heard. This captures the 'after you don't need to please someone else in order to fund your daily life expenses' mode that I think of as 'retirement.' I know I'll be hacking new things and reading interesting papers and writing code right up until the point where the EEEG straightlines :-)
- broody 15y ago> I know I'll be hacking new things and reading interesting papers and writing code right up until the point where the EEEG straightlines I haven't started any startups (want to so badly) but this line here resonates a lot with me :)
- jasonkolb 15y agoI now have the freedom to work on what I want to work on. I can take the time to brainstorm and build whatever I think needs to be built, rather than considering deadlines and having other people demand that I prioritize X or Y. I can take the time to explore avenues that I might otherwise have to scrap simply because of time/budget constraints. As a coder, it landed me my dream job :)
- nischalshetty 15y agoNice. But, I've always felt, if there was no time and money restriction, work would move at a lot slower pace than otherwise. Which would in turn impact our ability to launch. Has that happened to you?
- geophile 15y ago1) IPO: I had already left and moved on to my next startup when the IPO happened. I put the money in the bank. 2) Acquisition: Stayed with the company for a year until they changed their minds and discarded what we had built, (this was the dotcom era, but we weren't a dotcom). I put the money in the bank. 3) Acquisition: Again, after I left for my next startup. Money went to the bank. 4) Acquisition: Stayed around for 3+ years until the PHBs took over cmopletely. Went to another startup. Put the money in the bank. I've been amazingly lucky with my startups. Financially, each one made my life more comfortable, built a nest egg, helped pay for my kids' education. I keep saying "this is my last startup", but I keep going back. I am now in a position that I could "retire", but I'm at startup #5. This is my last one, this time for sure. If/when I do retire, I'll still be hacking interesting software, even if it's not for a company.
- nischalshetty 15y agowow! I hope to be able to meet you in person some day :)
- tristan_louis 15y agoOh man. You and I should compare notes (2 IPO, 2 acquisitions here) but I fully agree with you that luck is a big critical factor. People are generally impressed with my background but now on startup 5 or 6 (depending on whether I count my turnaround attempt for boo.com as part of the deal), I still feel that I'm just lucky and need to prove to myself that I can roll out another one.
- geophile 15y agoI'm in the Boston area. If you find yourself in the area, get in touch (jao at geophile dot com)
- tristan_louis 15y agoDarn. Was just up there at Thanksgiving. I'm down in NYC myself. TNLNYC at gmail Ping me if you ever come down in NYC...
- freemanindia 15y agogot into philanthropy went traveling did massage school set up a big art space in LA tried to set up a media incubator in LA made some large burningman structures moved to india worked in a startup as a coder again did another incubator set up another art space ... I find that not being 'hungry' has reduced my tolerance for spending time on activities which don't seem important. This can make me an awkward partner in some situations because the pursuit of money is a very good unifier. Getting clarity on what I feel is important has been a much longer and more rewarding process than I expected.
- scottmcleod 15y agoNice I like what you're up to..Lets set up art spaces :)
- jgilliam 15y agoThe main thing for me was being able to pursue an idea no one would fund. I could self-fund it to the point where it was obvious people wanted it, at which point fundraising is easy. And having done a few startups, I also had the confidence to not need anyone else to tell me it was a good idea. I just needed to build something customers would pay for. Those can be two very different things.
- jpdoctor 15y ago> I could self-fund it to the point where it was obvious people wanted it, at which point fundraising is easy. I fall into the same category, except that I didn't bother with fundraising at all. I knew that not having investors would be a simplification of the business, but I didn't appreciate just how much time it would save.
- bryanlarsen 15y agoYour answers are going to be heavily biased towards those who got back into the game. Anybody that actually retired after their payday are highly unlikely to be reading HN.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- zbruhnke 15y agoIn short my life hasn't changed at all. Though mine was a relatively small exit in comparison to some of these 9 and ten figure behemoths you hear about. I thought I would not work for 3 or 4 years, that did not even last three or four months. But I still made time for fun in there too. I was barely old enough to drink so I spent some time (and money) doing some stupid things (bought a bar once while I was hammered). Then I spent some time helping my dad's company get off the ground and primed for acquisition and now I am on to my 3rd startup. Life only changed for me in the sense that I have less to worry about. As a whole I am still the same person and I still live basically the same. I don't live a lavish lifestyle and I budget and save money like everyone else. I own a modest home and I drive a car which in not special (3 series). I hope that I'll keep working until I am no longer physically capable but the most important thing to me at this point is being happy with what I am doing and spending time with my family and friends.