4 ms·

I could walk away from tarsnap tomorrow (or get hit by a bus) and tarsnap would keep on running and making a profit. I read the article. If you disappear, the

I could walk away from tarsnap tomorrow (or get hit by a bus) and tarsnap would keep on running and making a profit. I read the article. If you disappear, the business dies. It does not keep on running and making a profit. Employees are the most important part in a startup. Especially in a one person startup. A definition of profitability that does not include employee salaries is bogus.

cperciva 18y ago
A definition of profitability that does not include employee salaries is bogus. What if I pay myself hourly for the time I spend keeping tarsnap running?
- deleted 18y ago
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- tptacek 18y ago
  Where's that money coming from? A grant? Then you're not profitable; you have a runway, and you're still waiting to get liftoff.
- staunch 18y ago
  What if you only pay yourself for the time spent actually pressing the keys on your keyboard? Clearly you should only count the time that you're pressing them in, because they bounce back by themselves, so the time the key is going out should not count as billable time.
  - kace 18y ago
    Points to both views. However, I think a big thing that's being neglected is the fact that this is a sole proprietorship. He's an owner not an employee. Big distinction. And, not unusual for an owner to work for nothing while building up a business. You're arguing for "authentic profitability," or some such. You make fair points, but since TFA was quite clear, this really is just semantical masturbation.
tptacek 18y ago
It's not that he isn't profitable, is it? It's that he hasn't provided us with enough information to know whether he is or he isn't. One of his lines of business is currently cash flow positive. If he's got a consulting business that's paying the rent for him, he's profitable, and as reliable, as that consulting business. Is what I think is happening here, is all.
- deleted 18y ago
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  - cperciva 18y ago
    It seems that this is confusing a lot of people. Let me spell things out for you. 1. Tarsnap is profitable. Its revenue exceeds the cost of keeping it running. 2. I am not profitable. My revenue does not exceed the cost of keeping me running. (Well, living. I've never been very good at running.) 3. I could get a job, move to the middle of Africa, and get hit by a bus, and tarsnap would keep on running. Tarsnap doesn't need me on a day-to-day basis; while it is true that I'm still writing code for tarsnap, that is appropriately accounted for as a capital cost, not as an operating cost.
    - tptacek 18y ago
      Unless you've hired someone you haven't told us about, you getting hit by a bus kills tarsnap. Nothing really runs itself on a day-to-day basis without any oversight: * You still have to invoice/bill customers and do the books. * You still have to keep up to date with Amazon web services, which could change out from under you. * You still have to be responsive to bugs in your software, which will inevitably occur. I take your point though; you've architected the business so that it depends very minimally on your own infrastructure and labor, and so its operational costs are very low.
      - cperciva 18y ago
        You still have to invoice/bill customers and do the books. Actually, no. That's all done automatically. You're right about the rest -- but so far "bugs in my code" is very correlated to "new features in my code", so if I get hit by a bus it's unlikely that many new bugs will be found.

cperciva 18y ago

A definition of profitability that does not include employee salaries is bogus. What if I pay myself hourly for the time I spend keeping tarsnap running?

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
tptacek 18y ago
Where's that money coming from? A grant? Then you're not profitable; you have a runway, and you're still waiting to get liftoff.
staunch 18y ago
What if you only pay yourself for the time spent actually pressing the keys on your keyboard? Clearly you should only count the time that you're pressing them in, because they bounce back by themselves, so the time the key is going out should not count as billable time.
- kace 18y ago
  Points to both views. However, I think a big thing that's being neglected is the fact that this is a sole proprietorship. He's an owner not an employee. Big distinction. And, not unusual for an owner to work for nothing while building up a business. You're arguing for "authentic profitability," or some such. You make fair points, but since TFA was quite clear, this really is just semantical masturbation.

tptacek 18y ago

It's not that he isn't profitable, is it? It's that he hasn't provided us with enough information to know whether he is or he isn't. One of his lines of business is currently cash flow positive. If he's got a consulting business that's paying the rent for him, he's profitable, and as reliable, as that consulting business. Is what I think is happening here, is all.

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
- cperciva 18y ago
  It seems that this is confusing a lot of people. Let me spell things out for you. 1. Tarsnap is profitable. Its revenue exceeds the cost of keeping it running. 2. I am not profitable. My revenue does not exceed the cost of keeping me running. (Well, living. I've never been very good at running.) 3. I could get a job, move to the middle of Africa, and get hit by a bus, and tarsnap would keep on running. Tarsnap doesn't need me on a day-to-day basis; while it is true that I'm still writing code for tarsnap, that is appropriately accounted for as a capital cost, not as an operating cost.
  - tptacek 18y ago
    Unless you've hired someone you haven't told us about, you getting hit by a bus kills tarsnap. Nothing really runs itself on a day-to-day basis without any oversight: * You still have to invoice/bill customers and do the books. * You still have to keep up to date with Amazon web services, which could change out from under you. * You still have to be responsive to bugs in your software, which will inevitably occur. I take your point though; you've architected the business so that it depends very minimally on your own infrastructure and labor, and so its operational costs are very low.
    - cperciva 18y ago
      You still have to invoice/bill customers and do the books. Actually, no. That's all done automatically. You're right about the rest -- but so far "bugs in my code" is very correlated to "new features in my code", so if I get hit by a bus it's unlikely that many new bugs will be found.