4 ms·

At 34 (but with no kids) I agreed with my wife that I could have 4 years with a sanity check at the end of year 2. I also agreed that it would be an ABSOLUTE r

At 34 (but with no kids) I agreed with my wife that I could have 4 years with a sanity check at the end of year 2. I also agreed that it would be an ABSOLUTE rule that I could not put any of my own money into the company. This included the $10 for buying the first domain. I ended up selling 20% of my company to a friend for $5k when it was just weekend hacking with him getting diluted to a $2.5m valuation once I've been full time for 40 months. [Edit] It massively helps that my wife is a partner at a law firm so we can pay bills etc, without having to have saved the cushion in advance. I also arranged to leave my previous employer with a 6-figure exit payment.

bmitc 4y ago
> I also arranged to leave my previous employer with a 6-figure exit payment. How does that even work?
- etothepii 4y ago
  Throughout my career I'd survived 7 redundancy rounds. One time I chose not to survive. When management raised the idea of moving my team to Ireland I negotiated for exit payment rather than making the usual case about how important my role was.
  - pcthrowaway 4y ago
    Were you in fintech or other highly classified work? I've only heard of employers paying (former?) employees for basically a year of their salary on "garden leave", where the employee is kept on the payroll without doing any work in order to prevent them being able to bring trade secrets to a competitor
    - etothepii 4y ago
      I was a data scientist at an insurance company. Was a fairly standard redundancy based payment but with a little bit extra to avoid it being a redundancy and to get a mutual non-disparagement agreement. Basically the bonus for the year, 3 months garden leave, 8 weeks redundancy pay, taxes, pension contribution, and share scheme buyout etc. When I'd avoided redundancies at previous employer (large bank) some really great terms had been offered.
lolinder 4y ago
> It massively helps that my wife is a partner at a law firm so we can pay bills etc, without having to have saved the cushion in advance. I also arranged to leave my previous employer with a 6-figure exit payment. I'm happy for your success, but I feel like this should have been mentioned up front. This kind of massive leg up almost certainly does not apply to OP.
- etothepii 4y ago
  Fair, but there's lots of other things that get missed when trying to give short feedback. I have a degree from a prestigious university and I've built relationships in the area I'm now trying to do business. I joined a golf club and a yacht club, I made friends with a former CEO of an NYSE listed company, I watched all the start-up school curriculum videos, I've been repeatedly rejected by YC (though we got an interview one time) which means I think through what we're doing every 6 months. I made friends with a journalist. There are a lot of things I've done that wouldn't be available to someone with low social or financial capital.
  - 999900000999 4y ago
    At which point is YC not worth the effort. You come off as being well enough connected to organically contact VCs. I've largely given up on the business side. I make small games I hope people enjoy. Not that there's tons of VC money going into video games anyway...
    - Firmwarrior 4y ago
      Hey, what's your gaming niche? I've been trying to hunt down decent iPhone/Android games with decent polish/production values and no sinister monetization, but it just isn't working out.. Not counting Apple/Google/Netflix subscription options, I've only found maybe half a dozen games that are high enough quality that they could make it on a game console or PC. I feel like this is an untapped market again, since some of the most successful and most popular games out there treat their customers with respect. Or at least, did at one point. The issue is that there's no way to discover games like that for customers, and no funding from publishers to make them. (I wish I had some clever idea about what to do to re-energize that market.. I was thinking to make a review site a la TouchArcade, but I have no idea how to get it to take off and there aren't enough games to fully populate a site like that)

bmitc 4y ago

> I also arranged to leave my previous employer with a 6-figure exit payment. How does that even work?

etothepii 4y ago
Throughout my career I'd survived 7 redundancy rounds. One time I chose not to survive. When management raised the idea of moving my team to Ireland I negotiated for exit payment rather than making the usual case about how important my role was.
- pcthrowaway 4y ago
  Were you in fintech or other highly classified work? I've only heard of employers paying (former?) employees for basically a year of their salary on "garden leave", where the employee is kept on the payroll without doing any work in order to prevent them being able to bring trade secrets to a competitor
  - etothepii 4y ago
    I was a data scientist at an insurance company. Was a fairly standard redundancy based payment but with a little bit extra to avoid it being a redundancy and to get a mutual non-disparagement agreement. Basically the bonus for the year, 3 months garden leave, 8 weeks redundancy pay, taxes, pension contribution, and share scheme buyout etc. When I'd avoided redundancies at previous employer (large bank) some really great terms had been offered.

lolinder 4y ago

> It massively helps that my wife is a partner at a law firm so we can pay bills etc, without having to have saved the cushion in advance. I also arranged to leave my previous employer with a 6-figure exit payment. I'm happy for your success, but I feel like this should have been mentioned up front. This kind of massive leg up almost certainly does not apply to OP.

etothepii 4y ago
Fair, but there's lots of other things that get missed when trying to give short feedback. I have a degree from a prestigious university and I've built relationships in the area I'm now trying to do business. I joined a golf club and a yacht club, I made friends with a former CEO of an NYSE listed company, I watched all the start-up school curriculum videos, I've been repeatedly rejected by YC (though we got an interview one time) which means I think through what we're doing every 6 months. I made friends with a journalist. There are a lot of things I've done that wouldn't be available to someone with low social or financial capital.
- 999900000999 4y ago
  At which point is YC not worth the effort. You come off as being well enough connected to organically contact VCs. I've largely given up on the business side. I make small games I hope people enjoy. Not that there's tons of VC money going into video games anyway...
  - Firmwarrior 4y ago
    Hey, what's your gaming niche? I've been trying to hunt down decent iPhone/Android games with decent polish/production values and no sinister monetization, but it just isn't working out.. Not counting Apple/Google/Netflix subscription options, I've only found maybe half a dozen games that are high enough quality that they could make it on a game console or PC. I feel like this is an untapped market again, since some of the most successful and most popular games out there treat their customers with respect. Or at least, did at one point. The issue is that there's no way to discover games like that for customers, and no funding from publishers to make them. (I wish I had some clever idea about what to do to re-energize that market.. I was thinking to make a review site a la TouchArcade, but I have no idea how to get it to take off and there aren't enough games to fully populate a site like that)