7 ms·

The Startup Story I Want To Hear

139 points by DanielBMarkham 14y ago

duncanwilcox 14y ago
Dude. You won't hear that story from VCs, they want a 100x exit, and a kid with his "brilliant" ideas is their best bet at catching media attention.
jstanley 14y ago
"Not buy a boat you can land a helicopter on. Not conquer the world with iPads. Just make a living." Not to nitpick, but by looking at startup stories you're not likely to hear that. That sounds like more of a Small Business story to me.
- moggie 14y ago
  When you think "startup," what comes to mind? And for "Small Business"?
  - minimaxir 14y ago
    A startup nowadays is a business entity that tries to maximize value in the short-term (i.e. flipping), while a small business is a business entity that maximizes value for the long-term. The problem with long-term stories is that they're usually boring until the business sells or dies.
  - fjk 14y ago
    PG put it best in his essay "Startup = Growth"[1]: "Let's start with a distinction that should be obvious but is often overlooked: not every newly founded company is a startup. Millions of companies are started every year in the US. Only a tiny fraction are startups. Most are service businesses—restaurants, barbershops, plumbers, and so on. These are not startups, except in a few unusual cases. A barbershop isn't designed to grow fast. Whereas a search engine, for example, is." A barbershop is a great example of a small business. A barbershop is obviously different in nature from a search engine because it's not designed for rapid growth. [1] http://paulgraham.com/growth.html http://paulgraham.com/growth.html
    - kristiandupont 14y ago
      I agree but even this definition feels a bit off to me. If, say, you start a new supermarket chain that is designed to grow rapidly, I wouldn't consider it a startup unless there is some kind of innovation in the business model. That may just be me, but I consider a startup to be a business that is designed for rapid growth and that is doing something new in one way or another.
  - jstanley 14y ago
    I'm no expert on the matter, but to me a startup is trying to get big fast, whereas a small business is just trying to make enough money to live comfortably.
- Xorlev 14y ago
  A small business was once a startup. Startup doesn't have to mean explosive growth and a quick sell, it can also mean long-term sustainable growth.
  - devgutt 14y ago
    Well, I agree with the PG's startup's definition. http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - rmrfrmrf 14y ago
      Huh, TIL that I want nothing to do with startup culture. To me, those kind of companies are all about furiously maintaining a mix of smoke, mirrors, and suspension of disbelief until someone throws real-life money at you. Just look at Instagram -- it was created by some guy fishing for a way to game the system, and lo and behold, it worked out for him (after failing with some ridiculous whiskey startup idea). What Zuckerberg did for Instagram was self-serving charity: he essentially used a billion dollars worth of capital to perpetuate the startup bubble (think of how many MBAs are going to flock to California now hoping to become the next Instagram), which only helps Facebook in the long run (once the bubble pops, no one's going to be buying ads from them anymore). Any reasonable businessperson would see a company like Instagram for what it is: a server with some data on it. UI? Number of accounts? That's all irrelevant: the revenue was exactly $0. Even SEO scammers selling private label goods off of Ali Baba are more financially viable than them! The problem of defining 'what a startup should be' is that you end up in a situation analogous to a doctor treating a patient's symptoms rather than the underlying disease. The idea that your company needs to have explosive growth and be reachable by x number of people and have a valuation y dollars means that the CEO is usually running around spamming his product everywhere, taking out huge numbers of ads, and schmoozing with VCs instead of doing what he should be doing -- developing a financially viable product that customers want to use.
      - 14y ago
- tspike 14y ago
  Serious question: is there a community like HN that focuses more on small scale success a la patio11 and other Microconf types? I love the tech I see on HN, but I don't relate at all to the obsession with acquisitions, venture capital, workaholism, and status seeking.
  - nchuhoai 14y ago
    I'd be interested as well. Let me know when you found it (or the closest approximation)
  - c1sc0 14y ago
    dynamitecircle.com
    - MDS100 14y ago
      invitation?
  - bdunn 14y ago
    There are events like MicroConf and BaconBizConf, and information is shared throughout the year via blog posts, tweets, podcasts, etc., but there's not anything directly comparable to HN. The Micropreneur Academy forum is probably the closest thing we have at the moment.
    - tspike 14y ago
      Thanks Brennan. How active is the Micropreneur forum?
  - nandemo 14y ago
    Maybe this? http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/?biz http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/?biz
    - tspike 14y ago
      This is great, thank you!
- PeterisP 14y ago
  If it was originally intended as a startup, then it's a startup story - regardless if it ends up as an IPO, small business or bankruptcy. And the vast, vast majority of startups do end up like that, not in a buyout or such.
bdcravens 14y ago
You said you were at Microconf - Rob Walling's story sounds like that. Personally I get more out of Startups for the Rest of Us than Mixergy (both are in my regular rotation). Also did up all the podcasts patio11 has done - his story is fairly humble. Ditto for Brennan Dunn. Some of these guys are HN rock stars, but if you dig, you'll find some really good stories there.
jaxytee 14y ago
What about the entrepreneur that launches a startup that makes him/her a multi-millionare relatively quickly? No helicopters or yachts involved, just a enough success to live a comfortable middle class life for years to come. Im sure it isn't always Instagram or bust. At the same time though, is this not a Startup story? Why don't we hear these?
- tensor 14y ago
  My question is why we focus so much on the personal income of founders. Someone getting rich is the least important or interesting thing about a successful company. What matters is the impact on the world.
dvt 14y ago
> No business porn for me. I want struggle, not Disney. +1. Even though @jstanley is correct about the latter quote, I do agree that most start-up stories are dominated by these fantastical circumstances and ridiculous buyouts. I think there are primarily two reasons for this: 1. Retention (or lack thereof) in the start-up world 2. The success bar As far as (1) is concerned, I think why we don't hear about people that try, try, and try some more for many years is that once you reach a certain age or once you have kids, you can no longer afford to live on Ramen noodles and Ritz crackers. If you fail once, twice, or three times, it really is very very difficult to try again. Even tough you've (hopefully) gained some valuable lessons by failing, you've lost (a perhaps disproportionate amount of) resilience. Thus, you're much less likely to try again. (2) is moreso culture-dominated than rooted in the real world. As far as I'm concerned, I'd consider myself "successful" if I launched a 1-person start-up and sold it for mid-to-high 5-figures. That's not even close to "Facebook successful" and maybe my success bar has been lowered since I've failed a bunch of times, but most of these books/interviews/talks are written/given by people that have had outstanding exits. No one wants to talk to the tiny 2-man studio that built a company and sold it for $300k (even though I would argue that's a successful exit).
greghinch 14y ago
It's going to be hard to find stories like that, because startups generally take investment to move and grow quickly ("Startup = Growth"). When you have a business that has taken outside investment, you don't have the luxury of taking your time for years to succeed. Anyone who's started along the path you want to hear about, as a "startup" defined as I mentioned above, probably failed. Certainly there's something to learn from those failures, but if you want to hear successes that took that path (investment for rapid growth, but ended up going slowly for many years), there are probably almost none.
madaxe 14y ago
Seven years of slog. A few disastrous false starts, four years living on a floor in a bundle of rags. A diet of rice and spaghetti, plain. Always profitable, even through the doldrums. Decent (seven figure) pile of cash in the company account. Moderate pile of cash in mine. Still have no idea what to do with it. It's a byproduct of creation. I suppose this pointless little anecdote intends to shed light on the fact that we're not all in it for the money, and therefore not all stories are the same. Some of us just need to struggle.
- SatvikBeri 14y ago
  I would love to hear a more detailed writeup, or podcast, of the story of your business. I suspect many other HNers would too.
SurfScore 14y ago
I think this is more a product of selective reporting than it is lack of reporting. Angry birds was something like Rovio's 52nd game when they were on the verge of bankruptcy. If you've ever really read into most of these stories, there's almost no such thing as an overnight success. It is just reported as an overnight success because most people don't want to hear about the 51 games Rovio made before Angry Birds. If you have time, I would encourage you to watch the talk AirBnB founder Brian Chesky gave at Startup School a couple year ago, and see how long it took them to do anything. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L03vBkOKTrc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L03vBkOKTrc
jazzychad 14y ago
I did the first interview on Mixergy with Andrew about a failed startup: http://mixergy.com/etzel-notifo-interview/ http://mixergy.com/etzel-notifo-interview/ - I discuss my struggles and lessons learned, but it doesn't have a happy ending like you are looking for.
kevinpet 14y ago
"That eventually combined the right idea with the right execution in the right market to make a living. Not buy a boat you can land a helicopter on. Not conquer the world with iPads. Just make a living." I think I wouldn't call that a successful startup. When someone says "startup" to me that inherently means the seed of a large business. A software consulting business isn't a startup in my book. Even Bingo Card Creator, though it at least has the technological leverage, is in too small a space to really be a startup. Selling out early or late doesn't change it, and if they transition from startup to small-medium sized business somewhere along the way, they could have been a startup that had a best case failure, but they would cease to be a start up. I'd worked at one of the latter. A good indicator is when you are given 65k stock options ... at a penny a share.
- whatusername 14y ago
  But But But.. If patio11 can corner just 1% of the market (Every teachers and Youth Worker in the world) then Bingo Card Creator will be huge. I'm sure that's a valid pitch. (And I'm sure the BCC has made more profit that most companies who pitch something like that)
graycat 14y ago
In the US, just pick a town, any town, tiny to huge, and walk down its Main Street. There you will see just what you are asking for except mostly the businesses are not in information technology, Web 2.0, mobile apps, etc. Instead the businesses are dentists, pizza shops, Chinese carryout, franchised fast food, auto repair, auto body repair, lawn services, plant nurseries, boutique retailing, kitchen and bath remodeling, roofing, driveway installation, other construction trades, CPAs, general practice lawyers, auto dealers, bakeries -- get the pattern? Can look at an information technology startup essentially the same way. A great example is the Canadian matchmaking site Plenty of Fish -- long just one person, two old Dell servers, ads just from Google, and $10 million a year in revenue. There are some advantages to an information technology startup: First, if connect a server to the Internet and keep it busy sending Web pages with ads, then at common ad rates will get the five figures a month in revenue. E.g., send two Web pages a second, send an average of four ads per page, get the charge per 1000 ads displayed (CPM) average of $2.125 in the KPCB Meeker report, and then get monthly revenue of 2.125 * 4 * 2 * 3600 * 24 * 30 / 1000 = 44,064 dollars. So, the advantage? Sure: The server stands to be something can plug together in an afternoon from parts that cost less than $2000 in total. So, $2000 in capital equipment and $44 K a month in revenue. Darned near a license to print money and totally blows away everything else, legal or not, on Main Street. If the usage keeps growing, fine: Get more servers. Else, the $44 K a month will do fine for providing for a family. Moreover, most of the work is just learning the coding skills, e.g., in the Microsoft world, .NET, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, IIS, system management and administration. Then if the first Web 2.0 site flops, use the skills to bring up another one. But, it might grow, especially if it was carefully planned to from the beginning to grow. So, then, let it grow. Any questions?
- throwaway4544 14y ago
  >send an average of four ads per page Holy shit you sure love raping your viewers' eyes. I can't wait for the day when all the popular browsers(except chrome obviously) gets bundled with ABP by default.
- wensing 14y ago
  Yes! I have one! Where do you plan to get your 5 million PV's per month?
alaskamiller 14y ago
You get the groups that get out of the gate and are just outright lucky. Then the second groups who figured it out. Then you have the third group that worked to get there. Then you have the last group that tried everything and failed to know what that one thing is that could work. You just have to wait. I've been at this for twelve years, since I was in my teens. The struggle stories takes time to mature for that redemption.
MichaelAO 14y ago
I think this story fits the bill... http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/1215873671/bootstrapping-stormpulse http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/1215873671/bootstrapping-stor... His story culminates in presenting to President Obama this past week @ the Capital Factory (Austin, TX). Great guy and a story that has definitely inspired me.
orangethirty 14y ago
Thats my story. Email me. Ill tell you all about it.
alain94040 14y ago
If you want to hear that story (x4), attend our "founder stories" panel at the startup conference in two weeks (May 30, Redwood City). I believe it's at 9:30am.
Mz 14y ago
That's pretty funny to me. (Sort of sitting here wondering how low you would want to go and what measure of "success" you would use to decide who to hear from.)
paul_f 14y ago
A startup differs from a small business in that it is scalable. A restaurant or a CPA firm is not scalable since you can't grow faster than your headcount. The author is asking for stories about the long slog of an eventual breakout success of a scalable startup.
tommaxwell 14y ago
To be honest, most founders dream of big Mark Zuckerberg-like success (who wouldn't?). Reading stories about who just "make a living" isn't very promising or exciting, and I think hope is your strongest asset.
wensing 14y ago
I had my idea in October 2004. In 2006, I quit my job to work on it full-time. In 2007, my co-founder and I finished the MVP. No one came. In 2008, we got a big break and it was used by 4 million people. By 2010, 10,000 companies and 6.5 million people were using it, but we still weren't profitable. In 2012, we finally figured out a business model. This past Thursday, 8.5 years later, I got to show it to Barack Obama in front of the national press: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/05/10/recap-big-day-open-data http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/05/10/recap-big-day-open..., and he mentioned it in a speech later that day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2glCSMxXIF8#t=11m7s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2glCSMxXIF8#t=11m7s We're on the verge of several deals that could take us to profitability with a headcount of 6. It's been an insanely difficult road. I think there are many reasons for that, but here's the chronicle: http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/1215873671/bootstrapping-stormpulse http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/1215873671/bootstrapping-stor... http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/26830276239/bootstrapping-stormpulse-part-2 http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/26830276239/bootstrapping-sto... Part 3 should be out soon. :)
- bluekite2000 13y ago
  In part 3 can you talk about how your wife and kids feel about all this? Would love to hear their take on this crazy venture that is startup life
- tudorconstantin 14y ago
  Congratulations guys...both articles are inspiring - i just couldn't do anything but read every words in them I don't think I'd had the nerves to get through all that struggle
- colemorrison 14y ago
  Wow, this is excellent. Thanks a TON for sharing.
- mailshanx 14y ago
  I remember reading your story on HN. You guys are incredibly resilient. Very happy that it's finally all coming together for you!:S
arohner 14y ago
In August 2008, start working on my startup idea with my best friend who is also a co-worker at the day job. We work nights and weekends. April 2009, I quit full time, start working 20 hours a week, and work on the startup 40-50 hours/week 2009-2011, continue working on startup full time, with occasional part-time contracting (less than 40 hrs/mo). March 2011, my cofounder quits, I give up soon afterwards. We had zero revenue, zero traction, and no plan. I screw around with a couple of ideas, and try to understand how we wasted the last 3 years. I contract some more, realize I can't go back to big corporate life, and start another startup. This time I decide I'll do something "easy", with a clear path to revenue. We're going to charge people early. First line of code gets written in September 2011. We have beta users in December 2011. We turn on payments in April 2012. We sign up 14 paying customers in the first month. We grow steadily, and raise $1.5M in December 2012. There are now weeks that where we add more customers than we did in the first few months. We'd be profitable if we stopped hiring. It's been incredibly difficult, stressful and tiring. You need tenacity, but not too much, as my three-year wander in the desert showed. You need to not give up in your goal to be successful, but be able to give up on individual strategies. You need people to support you, and you need to repay their support. My then girlfriend, now wife nearly left me several times because early on I didn't know how to handle the stress, and I didn't know how to unplug and have a nice night to repay her for putting up with my stress and inattention for the rest of the week. I don't think I could be successful without her. My complete failure on the first startup was caused by not having a clear plan for how the startup was going to succeed. We should have done a better job identifying who the customer is, how we were going to charge them, and how we were going to reach them. Additionally, the first startup had large amounts of technical risk. (It was using some advanced machine learning, when neither of us started knowing machine learning). I'd call myself a machine learning expert now, but that definitely wasn't the case when I started. There's a saying, "in machine learning, you learn, and the computer doesn't". The other major failure was that we didn't evaluate our progress, in terms of business metrics. Each month the product got better, and we understood the algorithms more, but no progress was made on traction of any kind, or customer development. You should read Lean Startup before you write a single line of code in your startup. We should have given up after 3 months, or even a year of no progress. Instead we wasted 3. Unless you're curing cancer, all startups have market risk. For first time entrepreneurs, I'd recommend against things that have both market risk and technical risk. And if you have technical risk, you'd better be an expert at it, before you start.
vishaldpatel 14y ago
For anyone interested in such a story, I highly recommend Richard Branson's autobiography - "How I lost my virginity."
fedor4 14y ago
Here you are: http://37signals.com/bootstrapped http://37signals.com/bootstrapped Lots of such stories. Highly recommeneded.
AndrewWarner 14y ago
If, as he says, he wants stories of people who "Just make a living," then Mixergy isn't the right site for him, and that's fine. I got into entrepreneurship because I was scared of having a life where I just made a living. I feel like there's something great inside me. I haven't fully tapped it, but it's there and I want to learn how to express more of it. I felt alone for most of my life because most people are like Daniel, they just want to make a living. I never felt like there was anything wrong with them. Hell, they're normal. I felt like there was something wrong with ME for wanting more. For feeling like I can do something extraordinary. Doing Mixergy interviews reminds me that I'm not odd. Or at least that I'm not the only one who's odd. My interviewees and my audience are like me. We want something more. We're learning from each other about how to do it. Most people reading this can't relate to that. It's fine. Striving to 'Just make a living' is incredibly honorable and I hope you find the site that tells those stories. I hope there's one person out there who gets it. If you're reading this. I'll see you on Mixergy.

139 points by DanielBMarkham 14y ago

Dude. You won't hear that story from VCs, they want a 100x exit, and a kid with his "brilliant" ideas is their best bet at catching media attention.

jstanley 14y ago

"Not buy a boat you can land a helicopter on. Not conquer the world with iPads. Just make a living." Not to nitpick, but by looking at startup stories you're not likely to hear that. That sounds like more of a Small Business story to me.

moggie 14y ago
When you think "startup," what comes to mind? And for "Small Business"?
- minimaxir 14y ago
  A startup nowadays is a business entity that tries to maximize value in the short-term (i.e. flipping), while a small business is a business entity that maximizes value for the long-term. The problem with long-term stories is that they're usually boring until the business sells or dies.
- fjk 14y ago
  PG put it best in his essay "Startup = Growth"[1]: "Let's start with a distinction that should be obvious but is often overlooked: not every newly founded company is a startup. Millions of companies are started every year in the US. Only a tiny fraction are startups. Most are service businesses—restaurants, barbershops, plumbers, and so on. These are not startups, except in a few unusual cases. A barbershop isn't designed to grow fast. Whereas a search engine, for example, is." A barbershop is a great example of a small business. A barbershop is obviously different in nature from a search engine because it's not designed for rapid growth. [1] http://paulgraham.com/growth.html http://paulgraham.com/growth.html
  - kristiandupont 14y ago
    I agree but even this definition feels a bit off to me. If, say, you start a new supermarket chain that is designed to grow rapidly, I wouldn't consider it a startup unless there is some kind of innovation in the business model. That may just be me, but I consider a startup to be a business that is designed for rapid growth and that is doing something new in one way or another.
- jstanley 14y ago
  I'm no expert on the matter, but to me a startup is trying to get big fast, whereas a small business is just trying to make enough money to live comfortably.
Xorlev 14y ago
A small business was once a startup. Startup doesn't have to mean explosive growth and a quick sell, it can also mean long-term sustainable growth.
- devgutt 14y ago
  Well, I agree with the PG's startup's definition. http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - rmrfrmrf 14y ago
    Huh, TIL that I want nothing to do with startup culture. To me, those kind of companies are all about furiously maintaining a mix of smoke, mirrors, and suspension of disbelief until someone throws real-life money at you. Just look at Instagram -- it was created by some guy fishing for a way to game the system, and lo and behold, it worked out for him (after failing with some ridiculous whiskey startup idea). What Zuckerberg did for Instagram was self-serving charity: he essentially used a billion dollars worth of capital to perpetuate the startup bubble (think of how many MBAs are going to flock to California now hoping to become the next Instagram), which only helps Facebook in the long run (once the bubble pops, no one's going to be buying ads from them anymore). Any reasonable businessperson would see a company like Instagram for what it is: a server with some data on it. UI? Number of accounts? That's all irrelevant: the revenue was exactly $0. Even SEO scammers selling private label goods off of Ali Baba are more financially viable than them! The problem of defining 'what a startup should be' is that you end up in a situation analogous to a doctor treating a patient's symptoms rather than the underlying disease. The idea that your company needs to have explosive growth and be reachable by x number of people and have a valuation y dollars means that the CEO is usually running around spamming his product everywhere, taking out huge numbers of ads, and schmoozing with VCs instead of doing what he should be doing -- developing a financially viable product that customers want to use.
    - 14y ago
tspike 14y ago
Serious question: is there a community like HN that focuses more on small scale success a la patio11 and other Microconf types? I love the tech I see on HN, but I don't relate at all to the obsession with acquisitions, venture capital, workaholism, and status seeking.
- nchuhoai 14y ago
  I'd be interested as well. Let me know when you found it (or the closest approximation)
- c1sc0 14y ago
  dynamitecircle.com
  - MDS100 14y ago
    invitation?
- bdunn 14y ago
  There are events like MicroConf and BaconBizConf, and information is shared throughout the year via blog posts, tweets, podcasts, etc., but there's not anything directly comparable to HN. The Micropreneur Academy forum is probably the closest thing we have at the moment.
  - tspike 14y ago
    Thanks Brennan. How active is the Micropreneur forum?
- nandemo 14y ago
  Maybe this? http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/?biz http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/?biz
  - tspike 14y ago
    This is great, thank you!
PeterisP 14y ago
If it was originally intended as a startup, then it's a startup story - regardless if it ends up as an IPO, small business or bankruptcy. And the vast, vast majority of startups do end up like that, not in a buyout or such.

bdcravens 14y ago

You said you were at Microconf - Rob Walling's story sounds like that. Personally I get more out of Startups for the Rest of Us than Mixergy (both are in my regular rotation). Also did up all the podcasts patio11 has done - his story is fairly humble. Ditto for Brennan Dunn. Some of these guys are HN rock stars, but if you dig, you'll find some really good stories there.

jaxytee 14y ago

What about the entrepreneur that launches a startup that makes him/her a multi-millionare relatively quickly? No helicopters or yachts involved, just a enough success to live a comfortable middle class life for years to come. Im sure it isn't always Instagram or bust. At the same time though, is this not a Startup story? Why don't we hear these?

tensor 14y ago
My question is why we focus so much on the personal income of founders. Someone getting rich is the least important or interesting thing about a successful company. What matters is the impact on the world.

dvt 14y ago

> No business porn for me. I want struggle, not Disney. +1. Even though @jstanley is correct about the latter quote, I do agree that most start-up stories are dominated by these fantastical circumstances and ridiculous buyouts. I think there are primarily two reasons for this: 1. Retention (or lack thereof) in the start-up world 2. The success bar As far as (1) is concerned, I think why we don't hear about people that try, try, and try some more for many years is that once you reach a certain age or once you have kids, you can no longer afford to live on Ramen noodles and Ritz crackers. If you fail once, twice, or three times, it really is very very difficult to try again. Even tough you've (hopefully) gained some valuable lessons by failing, you've lost (a perhaps disproportionate amount of) resilience. Thus, you're much less likely to try again. (2) is moreso culture-dominated than rooted in the real world. As far as I'm concerned, I'd consider myself "successful" if I launched a 1-person start-up and sold it for mid-to-high 5-figures. That's not even close to "Facebook successful" and maybe my success bar has been lowered since I've failed a bunch of times, but most of these books/interviews/talks are written/given by people that have had outstanding exits. No one wants to talk to the tiny 2-man studio that built a company and sold it for $300k (even though I would argue that's a successful exit).

greghinch 14y ago

It's going to be hard to find stories like that, because startups generally take investment to move and grow quickly ("Startup = Growth"). When you have a business that has taken outside investment, you don't have the luxury of taking your time for years to succeed. Anyone who's started along the path you want to hear about, as a "startup" defined as I mentioned above, probably failed. Certainly there's something to learn from those failures, but if you want to hear successes that took that path (investment for rapid growth, but ended up going slowly for many years), there are probably almost none.

madaxe 14y ago

Seven years of slog. A few disastrous false starts, four years living on a floor in a bundle of rags. A diet of rice and spaghetti, plain. Always profitable, even through the doldrums. Decent (seven figure) pile of cash in the company account. Moderate pile of cash in mine. Still have no idea what to do with it. It's a byproduct of creation. I suppose this pointless little anecdote intends to shed light on the fact that we're not all in it for the money, and therefore not all stories are the same. Some of us just need to struggle.

SatvikBeri 14y ago
I would love to hear a more detailed writeup, or podcast, of the story of your business. I suspect many other HNers would too.

SurfScore 14y ago

I think this is more a product of selective reporting than it is lack of reporting. Angry birds was something like Rovio's 52nd game when they were on the verge of bankruptcy. If you've ever really read into most of these stories, there's almost no such thing as an overnight success. It is just reported as an overnight success because most people don't want to hear about the 51 games Rovio made before Angry Birds. If you have time, I would encourage you to watch the talk AirBnB founder Brian Chesky gave at Startup School a couple year ago, and see how long it took them to do anything. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L03vBkOKTrc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L03vBkOKTrc

jazzychad 14y ago

I did the first interview on Mixergy with Andrew about a failed startup: http://mixergy.com/etzel-notifo-interview/ http://mixergy.com/etzel-notifo-interview/ - I discuss my struggles and lessons learned, but it doesn't have a happy ending like you are looking for.

kevinpet 14y ago

"That eventually combined the right idea with the right execution in the right market to make a living. Not buy a boat you can land a helicopter on. Not conquer the world with iPads. Just make a living." I think I wouldn't call that a successful startup. When someone says "startup" to me that inherently means the seed of a large business. A software consulting business isn't a startup in my book. Even Bingo Card Creator, though it at least has the technological leverage, is in too small a space to really be a startup. Selling out early or late doesn't change it, and if they transition from startup to small-medium sized business somewhere along the way, they could have been a startup that had a best case failure, but they would cease to be a start up. I'd worked at one of the latter. A good indicator is when you are given 65k stock options ... at a penny a share.

whatusername 14y ago
But But But.. If patio11 can corner just 1% of the market (Every teachers and Youth Worker in the world) then Bingo Card Creator will be huge. I'm sure that's a valid pitch. (And I'm sure the BCC has made more profit that most companies who pitch something like that)

graycat 14y ago

In the US, just pick a town, any town, tiny to huge, and walk down its Main Street. There you will see just what you are asking for except mostly the businesses are not in information technology, Web 2.0, mobile apps, etc. Instead the businesses are dentists, pizza shops, Chinese carryout, franchised fast food, auto repair, auto body repair, lawn services, plant nurseries, boutique retailing, kitchen and bath remodeling, roofing, driveway installation, other construction trades, CPAs, general practice lawyers, auto dealers, bakeries -- get the pattern? Can look at an information technology startup essentially the same way. A great example is the Canadian matchmaking site Plenty of Fish -- long just one person, two old Dell servers, ads just from Google, and $10 million a year in revenue. There are some advantages to an information technology startup: First, if connect a server to the Internet and keep it busy sending Web pages with ads, then at common ad rates will get the five figures a month in revenue. E.g., send two Web pages a second, send an average of four ads per page, get the charge per 1000 ads displayed (CPM) average of $2.125 in the KPCB Meeker report, and then get monthly revenue of 2.125 * 4 * 2 * 3600 * 24 * 30 / 1000 = 44,064 dollars. So, the advantage? Sure: The server stands to be something can plug together in an afternoon from parts that cost less than $2000 in total. So, $2000 in capital equipment and $44 K a month in revenue. Darned near a license to print money and totally blows away everything else, legal or not, on Main Street. If the usage keeps growing, fine: Get more servers. Else, the $44 K a month will do fine for providing for a family. Moreover, most of the work is just learning the coding skills, e.g., in the Microsoft world, .NET, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, IIS, system management and administration. Then if the first Web 2.0 site flops, use the skills to bring up another one. But, it might grow, especially if it was carefully planned to from the beginning to grow. So, then, let it grow. Any questions?

throwaway4544 14y ago
>send an average of four ads per page Holy shit you sure love raping your viewers' eyes. I can't wait for the day when all the popular browsers(except chrome obviously) gets bundled with ABP by default.
wensing 14y ago
Yes! I have one! Where do you plan to get your 5 million PV's per month?

alaskamiller 14y ago

You get the groups that get out of the gate and are just outright lucky. Then the second groups who figured it out. Then you have the third group that worked to get there. Then you have the last group that tried everything and failed to know what that one thing is that could work. You just have to wait. I've been at this for twelve years, since I was in my teens. The struggle stories takes time to mature for that redemption.

MichaelAO 14y ago

I think this story fits the bill... http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/1215873671/bootstrapping-stormpulse http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/1215873671/bootstrapping-stor... His story culminates in presenting to President Obama this past week @ the Capital Factory (Austin, TX). Great guy and a story that has definitely inspired me.

orangethirty 14y ago

Thats my story. Email me. Ill tell you all about it.

alain94040 14y ago

If you want to hear that story (x4), attend our "founder stories" panel at the startup conference in two weeks (May 30, Redwood City). I believe it's at 9:30am.

Mz 14y ago

That's pretty funny to me. (Sort of sitting here wondering how low you would want to go and what measure of "success" you would use to decide who to hear from.)

paul_f 14y ago

A startup differs from a small business in that it is scalable. A restaurant or a CPA firm is not scalable since you can't grow faster than your headcount. The author is asking for stories about the long slog of an eventual breakout success of a scalable startup.

tommaxwell 14y ago

To be honest, most founders dream of big Mark Zuckerberg-like success (who wouldn't?). Reading stories about who just "make a living" isn't very promising or exciting, and I think hope is your strongest asset.

wensing 14y ago

I had my idea in October 2004. In 2006, I quit my job to work on it full-time. In 2007, my co-founder and I finished the MVP. No one came. In 2008, we got a big break and it was used by 4 million people. By 2010, 10,000 companies and 6.5 million people were using it, but we still weren't profitable. In 2012, we finally figured out a business model. This past Thursday, 8.5 years later, I got to show it to Barack Obama in front of the national press: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/05/10/recap-big-day-open-data http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/05/10/recap-big-day-open..., and he mentioned it in a speech later that day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2glCSMxXIF8#t=11m7s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2glCSMxXIF8#t=11m7s We're on the verge of several deals that could take us to profitability with a headcount of 6. It's been an insanely difficult road. I think there are many reasons for that, but here's the chronicle: http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/1215873671/bootstrapping-stormpulse http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/1215873671/bootstrapping-stor... http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/26830276239/bootstrapping-stormpulse-part-2 http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/26830276239/bootstrapping-sto... Part 3 should be out soon. :)

bluekite2000 13y ago
In part 3 can you talk about how your wife and kids feel about all this? Would love to hear their take on this crazy venture that is startup life
tudorconstantin 14y ago
Congratulations guys...both articles are inspiring - i just couldn't do anything but read every words in them I don't think I'd had the nerves to get through all that struggle
colemorrison 14y ago
Wow, this is excellent. Thanks a TON for sharing.
mailshanx 14y ago
I remember reading your story on HN. You guys are incredibly resilient. Very happy that it's finally all coming together for you!:S

arohner 14y ago

In August 2008, start working on my startup idea with my best friend who is also a co-worker at the day job. We work nights and weekends. April 2009, I quit full time, start working 20 hours a week, and work on the startup 40-50 hours/week 2009-2011, continue working on startup full time, with occasional part-time contracting (less than 40 hrs/mo). March 2011, my cofounder quits, I give up soon afterwards. We had zero revenue, zero traction, and no plan. I screw around with a couple of ideas, and try to understand how we wasted the last 3 years. I contract some more, realize I can't go back to big corporate life, and start another startup. This time I decide I'll do something "easy", with a clear path to revenue. We're going to charge people early. First line of code gets written in September 2011. We have beta users in December 2011. We turn on payments in April 2012. We sign up 14 paying customers in the first month. We grow steadily, and raise $1.5M in December 2012. There are now weeks that where we add more customers than we did in the first few months. We'd be profitable if we stopped hiring. It's been incredibly difficult, stressful and tiring. You need tenacity, but not too much, as my three-year wander in the desert showed. You need to not give up in your goal to be successful, but be able to give up on individual strategies. You need people to support you, and you need to repay their support. My then girlfriend, now wife nearly left me several times because early on I didn't know how to handle the stress, and I didn't know how to unplug and have a nice night to repay her for putting up with my stress and inattention for the rest of the week. I don't think I could be successful without her. My complete failure on the first startup was caused by not having a clear plan for how the startup was going to succeed. We should have done a better job identifying who the customer is, how we were going to charge them, and how we were going to reach them. Additionally, the first startup had large amounts of technical risk. (It was using some advanced machine learning, when neither of us started knowing machine learning). I'd call myself a machine learning expert now, but that definitely wasn't the case when I started. There's a saying, "in machine learning, you learn, and the computer doesn't". The other major failure was that we didn't evaluate our progress, in terms of business metrics. Each month the product got better, and we understood the algorithms more, but no progress was made on traction of any kind, or customer development. You should read Lean Startup before you write a single line of code in your startup. We should have given up after 3 months, or even a year of no progress. Instead we wasted 3. Unless you're curing cancer, all startups have market risk. For first time entrepreneurs, I'd recommend against things that have both market risk and technical risk. And if you have technical risk, you'd better be an expert at it, before you start.

vishaldpatel 14y ago

For anyone interested in such a story, I highly recommend Richard Branson's autobiography - "How I lost my virginity."

fedor4 14y ago

Here you are: http://37signals.com/bootstrapped http://37signals.com/bootstrapped Lots of such stories. Highly recommeneded.

AndrewWarner 14y ago

If, as he says, he wants stories of people who "Just make a living," then Mixergy isn't the right site for him, and that's fine. I got into entrepreneurship because I was scared of having a life where I just made a living. I feel like there's something great inside me. I haven't fully tapped it, but it's there and I want to learn how to express more of it. I felt alone for most of my life because most people are like Daniel, they just want to make a living. I never felt like there was anything wrong with them. Hell, they're normal. I felt like there was something wrong with ME for wanting more. For feeling like I can do something extraordinary. Doing Mixergy interviews reminds me that I'm not odd. Or at least that I'm not the only one who's odd. My interviewees and my audience are like me. We want something more. We're learning from each other about how to do it. Most people reading this can't relate to that. It's fine. Striving to 'Just make a living' is incredibly honorable and I hope you find the site that tells those stories. I hope there's one person out there who gets it. If you're reading this. I'll see you on Mixergy.