4 ms·

The problem is the opportunity cost of time. If a talented technical founder could make $200K per year working somewhere else, then the opportunity cost of buil

The problem is the opportunity cost of time. If a talented technical founder could make $200K per year working somewhere else, then the opportunity cost of building that company (after 2.5 years and with 3 founders) is $1.5M. It may not be a failure from the ecosystem / societal perspective because a new idea was tested and discovered to have some value to the world, but the company ended up being worth $0. The founders are now saddled with a bunch of debt. It's like you go all-in on a poker hand, and then lose to a better hand. Did you lose? Yes. What if you had fun playing? It's still a loss.

wpietri 13y ago
What debt do you think the founders took on? Their company took investment, but that's not debt, and it's certainly not individual debt. With your attitude, nobody would learn to play poker, because nobody ever wins the early hands. These guys clearly learned a hell of a lot, and that was likely worth more to them than whatever net profit they could have turned on working a different job. That's how I've always felt about my failures, anyhow.
- kapilkale 13y ago
  Re sources of debt: there's the incurred costs from bootstrapping. I quit my job to start a company in August 2010, and didn't start paying myself a salary until June 2011 after we completed our angel round (though we charged expenses to the company from Jan - Jun 2011). I think my co received funding a lot faster than most other YC founders who bootstrapped for longer before getting into YC or raising an angel round.
sejje 13y ago
That's results-oriented, both in poker and in start-ups. How did your hand fare against your opponent's range (and not just the hand they turned over)? If it fared well, you likely had good expected value on the hand. Same principle applies to startups. In poker, though, the stakes are smaller and you get to play many, many more hands to ease out the variance.

wpietri 13y ago

What debt do you think the founders took on? Their company took investment, but that's not debt, and it's certainly not individual debt. With your attitude, nobody would learn to play poker, because nobody ever wins the early hands. These guys clearly learned a hell of a lot, and that was likely worth more to them than whatever net profit they could have turned on working a different job. That's how I've always felt about my failures, anyhow.

kapilkale 13y ago
Re sources of debt: there's the incurred costs from bootstrapping. I quit my job to start a company in August 2010, and didn't start paying myself a salary until June 2011 after we completed our angel round (though we charged expenses to the company from Jan - Jun 2011). I think my co received funding a lot faster than most other YC founders who bootstrapped for longer before getting into YC or raising an angel round.

sejje 13y ago

That's results-oriented, both in poker and in start-ups. How did your hand fare against your opponent's range (and not just the hand they turned over)? If it fared well, you likely had good expected value on the hand. Same principle applies to startups. In poker, though, the stakes are smaller and you get to play many, many more hands to ease out the variance.