4 ms·

6 customers at $199 a month is almost $1200 per month. Sure, it's not a fortune, but I wonder why it wasn't enough for "leave it running, work on something else

by bromley 14y ago

6 customers at $199 a month is almost $1200 per month. Sure, it's not a fortune, but I wonder why it wasn't enough for "leave it running, work on something else, cash the checks, see what happens" to at least be one of the options.

9oliYQjP 14y ago
I wish more entrepreneurs would be honest about how they're actually doing with other entrepreneurs, so that they could reveal options that haven't been thought of. Forget amongst fellow entrepreneurs though. Even within business partnerships honesty is hard to come by, lest one partner be accused of being a cynic and not having the faith. Still, I think every entrepreneur should have his or her own personal set of trusted advisors just for discussing topics like this.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  Gotta keep up that bravado. It's in the same vein as HN's steadily inflating estimate of "what salaries do most half-decent new college grads get". I think I heard 120k most recently.
jmonegro 14y ago
That's around $1,800 US when you do the GBP to USD exchange.
- bromley 14y ago
  Crikey, yes, I somehow misread the £ sign as $. Alas too late to edit my post now.
blantonl 14y ago
I suspect it was because he also needed to make a living, in addition to covering expenses for the business. $24,000/year in revenue is tight for any business - even a single employee business.
- josephcooney 14y ago
  The grandparent said: "leave it running, work on something else, cash the checks, see what happens" worst case you go back to your 'day job' and grease the wheels/deal with occasional support in the evening or on week-ends. Given that the original batch of customers where personal contacts re-entering the fray to continue to rub shoulders with these kind of people and evangelize the product when you can and makes sense seems like a great idea. Maybe Ryan is more of a go-big-or-go-home guy, but this is probably what I would have done.
einhverfr 14y ago
Agreed here. The other thing is this. This article is one more illustration of something I tell people when they ask my advice on going into business: "Most businesses that succeed fail first. Be prepared to see failure as a stage on the road to success." At $1200/month, that ought to be enough to cover basic expenses. If you are interested in making this work, you can always get another job somewhere and kick this back to part-time work, or go after investors, or whatever other options you have. Is the basic income enough to keep it running? Probably. But even in the end, even here, failure was a stage on the road to success was it not? I guess that shows how many paths there are given perseverance and inspiration.
ryancarson 14y ago
I think you're underestimating the time suck this would've been. Those customers needed invoicing and collecting (it was automated credit card billing) and hand-holding. Sure, this was fixable, but only with a lot of dev time, which I wasn't sure would move the product forward. It's often better to admit defeat and do something new.
- bromley 14y ago
  That makes sense. I was thinking that supporting the 6 customers might have been easy. Shifting focus fully to other things clearly worked out well for you, and I admire the ballsy decision to do that in spite of the the loss of revenue.
pbhjpbhj 14y ago
We, as ever, need some idea of the costs to consider if this is viable. It looks pretty low cost, but we're looking back so bandwidth costs and such might have been high. Still if 80% of it is available as wages that's going to net (I'm guessing after tax+NICs) about £600 per month. A £1200 per month mortgage means he's living in the South East or in a massive mansion (for 2!) in some other part of the country. I cant see why you couldnt pay a salesperson on results, was the product somehow really low margin??

by bromley 14y ago

9oliYQjP 14y ago

I wish more entrepreneurs would be honest about how they're actually doing with other entrepreneurs, so that they could reveal options that haven't been thought of. Forget amongst fellow entrepreneurs though. Even within business partnerships honesty is hard to come by, lest one partner be accused of being a cynic and not having the faith. Still, I think every entrepreneur should have his or her own personal set of trusted advisors just for discussing topics like this.

sliverstorm 14y ago
Gotta keep up that bravado. It's in the same vein as HN's steadily inflating estimate of "what salaries do most half-decent new college grads get". I think I heard 120k most recently.

jmonegro 14y ago

That's around $1,800 US when you do the GBP to USD exchange.

bromley 14y ago
Crikey, yes, I somehow misread the £ sign as $. Alas too late to edit my post now.

blantonl 14y ago

I suspect it was because he also needed to make a living, in addition to covering expenses for the business. $24,000/year in revenue is tight for any business - even a single employee business.

josephcooney 14y ago
The grandparent said: "leave it running, work on something else, cash the checks, see what happens" worst case you go back to your 'day job' and grease the wheels/deal with occasional support in the evening or on week-ends. Given that the original batch of customers where personal contacts re-entering the fray to continue to rub shoulders with these kind of people and evangelize the product when you can and makes sense seems like a great idea. Maybe Ryan is more of a go-big-or-go-home guy, but this is probably what I would have done.

einhverfr 14y ago

Agreed here. The other thing is this. This article is one more illustration of something I tell people when they ask my advice on going into business: "Most businesses that succeed fail first. Be prepared to see failure as a stage on the road to success." At $1200/month, that ought to be enough to cover basic expenses. If you are interested in making this work, you can always get another job somewhere and kick this back to part-time work, or go after investors, or whatever other options you have. Is the basic income enough to keep it running? Probably. But even in the end, even here, failure was a stage on the road to success was it not? I guess that shows how many paths there are given perseverance and inspiration.

ryancarson 14y ago

I think you're underestimating the time suck this would've been. Those customers needed invoicing and collecting (it was automated credit card billing) and hand-holding. Sure, this was fixable, but only with a lot of dev time, which I wasn't sure would move the product forward. It's often better to admit defeat and do something new.

bromley 14y ago
That makes sense. I was thinking that supporting the 6 customers might have been easy. Shifting focus fully to other things clearly worked out well for you, and I admire the ballsy decision to do that in spite of the the loss of revenue.

pbhjpbhj 14y ago

We, as ever, need some idea of the costs to consider if this is viable. It looks pretty low cost, but we're looking back so bandwidth costs and such might have been high. Still if 80% of it is available as wages that's going to net (I'm guessing after tax+NICs) about £600 per month. A £1200 per month mortgage means he's living in the South East or in a massive mansion (for 2!) in some other part of the country. I cant see why you couldnt pay a salesperson on results, was the product somehow really low margin??