4 ms·

I never understood why people bother with such tiny amounts of money. 1) It's the amount you can borrow from your family most of the time. Or just make it work

by ye 13y ago

I never understood why people bother with such tiny amounts of money. 1) It's the amount you can borrow from your family most of the time. Or just make it working in IT and saving like mad. 2) It's barely useful. $150K is not enough to hire even one great developer for a year.

newsum 13y ago
My thoughts exactly. Just save, bootstrap, launch and raise a large Series-A round. $150K for most companies is still not enough.
- midnitewarrior 13y ago
  I wonder if Amazon would have existed today if Bezos had waited another 2 years while he worked a day job to scrape together $150k. Time = Money
  - newsum 13y ago
    Time = Money only for ideas that are easily reproducible. if you truly found a niche it's nearly impossible for another business to execute it the same way.
    - marcamillion 13y ago
      Except that most of the "best investments" that VCs make are not in companies in a niche that are not hard to reproduce. Twitter & FB are easily reproducible, and they provided awesome returns for their investors.
jarjoura 13y ago
It's a seed round meant for founders to get an initial product working enough prove the idea.
pallandt 13y ago
You're overestimating and underestimating a lot of things at the same time. $150k is not 'tiny' by any measure, raising this much from family alone would mean you have a pretty well-off and trusting, loving family to begin with, not all developers reside in SF, U.S.A to demand or even need such a yearly salary etc. etc. I don't want to start tearing too much into your argument because I kind of like it that people are still able to think so...rosily on average.
jber 13y ago
1) - Never borrow from your family when you're launching a company. You have more chance to fail and will never be able to reimburse. - You need to have a rich family if you want to do that. Did you already borrowed 150K to your family to launch your startup? 2) -We are investing in team when at least one founder is a developer if not all... So $150K is not to hire people. -All developers are not in the Silicon Valley. You can find developers at much lower price in many countries and we are investing everywhere.
mikeg8 13y ago
I'm sorry but I absolutely hate your response because it seems to come from such a high and privileged position. In my opinion, 150K is quite bit of money, especially if the team has technical founders or can find a "mediocre" developer. Some people have financial obligation or living situation where they could save like mad and it would still take them years to accumulate 150k. Barely useful? This is that SV bullshit mentality. There are thousands of great entrepreneurs all over the world who could turn 150k into a profitable little company. Might not make millions in the first few years (or ever) but if they love it and people love their product/service, that is very useful. Surviving off very little is an admirable characteristic, you don't need millions to build something meaningful and if that's the way you think, I would never work with or invest in you.
- kika 13y ago
  > There are thousands of great entrepreneurs all over the world who could turn 150k into a profitable little company. Alas, VCs are not after profitable little companies. They just plainly would not allow you to become a little company, profitable or not.
  - jber 13y ago
    Not in our case, we love startups reaching profitability by just raising a seed round. It's most of the time the best way to confirm that the business model is right. It's also easier to raise a big round after that, invest a lot and grow.
    - kika 13y ago
      Okay, how do you suppose to exit then? I take $150K from you, create a small SaaS service a la @patio11 and then start slowly crank up customer base, showing stable 10-25% y/y growth. I see no exit for your 15%
      - jber 13y ago
        We sold Sparrow to Google with this model and the founders are now millionnaires. but this is not what I'm saying. You're reaching profitability first and you're building a big company just after. Market Size is the most important but it's not because your market size is big that you have to take risk and hit the wall without enough cash to survive. Profitability/Breakeven is giving you the time to raise as much money you need/want

by ye 13y ago

newsum 13y ago

My thoughts exactly. Just save, bootstrap, launch and raise a large Series-A round. $150K for most companies is still not enough.

midnitewarrior 13y ago
I wonder if Amazon would have existed today if Bezos had waited another 2 years while he worked a day job to scrape together $150k. Time = Money
- newsum 13y ago
  Time = Money only for ideas that are easily reproducible. if you truly found a niche it's nearly impossible for another business to execute it the same way.
  - marcamillion 13y ago
    Except that most of the "best investments" that VCs make are not in companies in a niche that are not hard to reproduce. Twitter & FB are easily reproducible, and they provided awesome returns for their investors.

jarjoura 13y ago

It's a seed round meant for founders to get an initial product working enough prove the idea.

pallandt 13y ago

You're overestimating and underestimating a lot of things at the same time. $150k is not 'tiny' by any measure, raising this much from family alone would mean you have a pretty well-off and trusting, loving family to begin with, not all developers reside in SF, U.S.A to demand or even need such a yearly salary etc. etc. I don't want to start tearing too much into your argument because I kind of like it that people are still able to think so...rosily on average.

jber 13y ago

1) - Never borrow from your family when you're launching a company. You have more chance to fail and will never be able to reimburse. - You need to have a rich family if you want to do that. Did you already borrowed 150K to your family to launch your startup? 2) -We are investing in team when at least one founder is a developer if not all... So $150K is not to hire people. -All developers are not in the Silicon Valley. You can find developers at much lower price in many countries and we are investing everywhere.

mikeg8 13y ago

I'm sorry but I absolutely hate your response because it seems to come from such a high and privileged position. In my opinion, 150K is quite bit of money, especially if the team has technical founders or can find a "mediocre" developer. Some people have financial obligation or living situation where they could save like mad and it would still take them years to accumulate 150k. Barely useful? This is that SV bullshit mentality. There are thousands of great entrepreneurs all over the world who could turn 150k into a profitable little company. Might not make millions in the first few years (or ever) but if they love it and people love their product/service, that is very useful. Surviving off very little is an admirable characteristic, you don't need millions to build something meaningful and if that's the way you think, I would never work with or invest in you.

kika 13y ago
> There are thousands of great entrepreneurs all over the world who could turn 150k into a profitable little company. Alas, VCs are not after profitable little companies. They just plainly would not allow you to become a little company, profitable or not.
- jber 13y ago
  Not in our case, we love startups reaching profitability by just raising a seed round. It's most of the time the best way to confirm that the business model is right. It's also easier to raise a big round after that, invest a lot and grow.
  - kika 13y ago
    Okay, how do you suppose to exit then? I take $150K from you, create a small SaaS service a la @patio11 and then start slowly crank up customer base, showing stable 10-25% y/y growth. I see no exit for your 15%
    - jber 13y ago
      We sold Sparrow to Google with this model and the founders are now millionnaires. but this is not what I'm saying. You're reaching profitability first and you're building a big company just after. Market Size is the most important but it's not because your market size is big that you have to take risk and hit the wall without enough cash to survive. Profitability/Breakeven is giving you the time to raise as much money you need/want