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Well written article. In my brief stint with YC and other startup circles, I think one big takeaway I've had is that most (or at least many) people who want to

Well written article. In my brief stint with YC and other startup circles, I think one big takeaway I've had is that most (or at least many) people who want to start a startup or hit it big with a startup actually really want a lifestyle business. Hyper growth isn't the goal of the founders. Their goal is to create a good product that helps people and allows the founders to live comfortably and be happy with their work. Raising VC funding is not counter to many of those goals, but it's not the only (or best) path to them in most cases.

talkingquickly 13y ago
I wish I could upvote this more than once. What's more because of the focus on hyper growth, I think a lot of people are discouraged from working on valid problems which lack immediate potential for that kind of growth.
- byoung2 13y ago
  That sounds like a conversation I just had yesterday with a coworker. We were translating Visio diagrams into user stories in Jira and we thought it would be cool to have a visual project management tool that had an interface like Visio that created tickets and managed dependencies, etc. He joked that he would only invest in it if you could apply Instagram filters to the diagrams and the Jira tickets disappeared after you viewed them.
- janlukacs 13y ago
  Maybe we can all thank WallStreet and their “infectious greed”.
- joelle 13y ago
  Music to my ears. It may not be as sexy to talk about bootsrapped businesses that are profitable and creating great lifestyles for the founders and employees... but that's what I'd choose for myself over the the VC route any day. It's two completely different universes - but one is falsely glorified.
byoung2 13y ago
I think one big takeaway I've had is that most (or at least many) people who want to start a startup or hit it big with a startup actually really want a lifestyle business. I think that's an important question that potential startup founders need to answer before diving in. $20k/month coming in from a lifestyle business sounds less stressful than being CEO of a startup with a billion dollar valuation.
- thaljef 13y ago
  $20k/month coming in from a lifestyle business sounds less stressful than being CEO of a startup with a billion dollar valuation. It is also a lot more likely.
- yesimahuman 13y ago
  You can do a lot more than that even. With a high margin SaaS product, you can make a LOT of money by just being smart about your pricing and pricing model, and learning how to be okay at marketing. Many products have tiny operating costs, often hosting for less than $100/mo. There is a lot of opportunity out there, and VC money seems more unnecessary every day.
  - byoung2 13y ago
    No doubt about it. I wonder how many people give up on promising projects because investors wouldn't be interested in a business that would only attract a 'tiny' market of 1000 people paying $20/month. But if one or two guys can run it and it doesn't take more than a few EC2 instances, why not pursue it?
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    Do you happen to have any examples of those kinds of products? I'd love to see what kinds of small SaaS apps are being run by one or two people as a lifestyle type of business.
    - byoung2 13y ago
      https://openexchangerates.org https://openexchangerates.org comes to mind.
DenisM 13y ago
For anyone wishing to pursue this route I recommend the "Start small, stay small" book - http://www.startupbook.net/ http://www.startupbook.net/
staunch 13y ago
PG represents the growth angle perfectly here: http://paulgraham.com/growth.html http://paulgraham.com/growth.html DHH represents the other side perfectly here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY

talkingquickly 13y ago

I wish I could upvote this more than once. What's more because of the focus on hyper growth, I think a lot of people are discouraged from working on valid problems which lack immediate potential for that kind of growth.

byoung2 13y ago
That sounds like a conversation I just had yesterday with a coworker. We were translating Visio diagrams into user stories in Jira and we thought it would be cool to have a visual project management tool that had an interface like Visio that created tickets and managed dependencies, etc. He joked that he would only invest in it if you could apply Instagram filters to the diagrams and the Jira tickets disappeared after you viewed them.
janlukacs 13y ago
Maybe we can all thank WallStreet and their “infectious greed”.
joelle 13y ago
Music to my ears. It may not be as sexy to talk about bootsrapped businesses that are profitable and creating great lifestyles for the founders and employees... but that's what I'd choose for myself over the the VC route any day. It's two completely different universes - but one is falsely glorified.

byoung2 13y ago

I think one big takeaway I've had is that most (or at least many) people who want to start a startup or hit it big with a startup actually really want a lifestyle business. I think that's an important question that potential startup founders need to answer before diving in. $20k/month coming in from a lifestyle business sounds less stressful than being CEO of a startup with a billion dollar valuation.

thaljef 13y ago
$20k/month coming in from a lifestyle business sounds less stressful than being CEO of a startup with a billion dollar valuation. It is also a lot more likely.
yesimahuman 13y ago
You can do a lot more than that even. With a high margin SaaS product, you can make a LOT of money by just being smart about your pricing and pricing model, and learning how to be okay at marketing. Many products have tiny operating costs, often hosting for less than $100/mo. There is a lot of opportunity out there, and VC money seems more unnecessary every day.
- byoung2 13y ago
  No doubt about it. I wonder how many people give up on promising projects because investors wouldn't be interested in a business that would only attract a 'tiny' market of 1000 people paying $20/month. But if one or two guys can run it and it doesn't take more than a few EC2 instances, why not pursue it?
- gnaritas 13y ago
  Do you happen to have any examples of those kinds of products? I'd love to see what kinds of small SaaS apps are being run by one or two people as a lifestyle type of business.
  - byoung2 13y ago
    https://openexchangerates.org https://openexchangerates.org comes to mind.

DenisM 13y ago

For anyone wishing to pursue this route I recommend the "Start small, stay small" book - http://www.startupbook.net/ http://www.startupbook.net/

staunch 13y ago

PG represents the growth angle perfectly here: http://paulgraham.com/growth.html http://paulgraham.com/growth.html DHH represents the other side perfectly here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY