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Ask HN: Should I take on a side-hustle employee job while I have a startup?
I'm concerned about future revenue during this crunch. Most of our small startup's revenue comes from license sales, which are then essentially "work free", besides occasional updates and routine maintenance. Our solution (for remote browser isolation) is essentially fire and forget, so the support has been able to be handled with 1 full time support analyst, and 2 full time engineers, (as well as myself, although lately I have nothing to do). We also have some additional contract support staff from a outsourcing company who jump on as needed. Even when licensees need customizations it has not required input from me.
I've had two reach outs over the past 12 months about selling the company (from 1 player already in this space who I think wants to shut it down, and another player getting into this space who I think wants to develop it) but I'm not ready to sell. Tho maybe that's dumb.
Our sales revenue trends up over 6 month periods, but I think the slope is flattening. I don't want to have to fire anyone, and so I might "fire myself" (stop taking salary), to build up additional cash reserves, and am considering picking up a some side hustle employee work. I'm not concerned about IP risk because we have everything squared away there, but I'm just worried I'll be needed, or it will be frowned upon by my employees, or by my employer that I own a company even tho I basically don't have any work to do on it right now. I talked it over with my team last week and they say they are fine with it but I'm scared it will ruin morale if I step back like this.
I just think the extra consistent income could really help us (and my family) now.
- brudgers 3y agoThe executive question: is the business failing? If it is, it will probably be less painful to act on that fact now rather than waste away a little at a time. If it isn't, what is holding back sales? If it isn't, why not focus on selling? How can the business find new customers? How can the business provide more value to existing customers? And so on...good luck.
- graderjs 3y agoWe’re profitable and liquid. But all interest has been inbound. When I’ve reached out to cold customers who seem similar to our existing customers they’re already satisfied with the solutions they have. A lot of unlicensed use goes on in undeveloped backwaters of the world but I don’t see that as affecting growth because those poor pirates don’t have the money to pay anyway. As long as we keep up our current rate of sale and don’t hire more we’ll stay profitable and liquid, and I can make a good salary, but I what I really want is growth. But I don’t want VC money. I don’t know what to do.