5 ms·

Couple getting married, creates registry for funding for their startup

43 points by khangtoh 17y ago

Jefft Bar already got AWS hosting for them

timmaah 17y ago
If you check the comments, Amazon Web Services fulfilled their wish for a week in the cloud. Cheap and makes for good publicity.
edw519 17y ago
This was cute for about 7 seconds. After that it was just annoying. OTOH, if they can get people to fund their startup with donations, more power to them. Then I'd say something like, "Gee I wish I would have thought of that."
philwelch 17y ago
This page seems to portray a very cost-inflated idea of what a startup is.
BRadmin 17y ago
Would be interesting to see the breakdown of donators -- wedding attendees vs. non-attendees.
philh 17y ago
So, it's common for people to make a list of wedding gifts they'd like to receive, and these guys are asking people to help fund their startup instead? Do I have that right? If so, is it common for people to spend over $100 on a wedding present for another couple? $420?
- davidw 17y ago
  Yes. OTOH, it's kind of nice to get something that you feel the recipient will remember, IMO.
- Tichy 17y ago
  The gifts seemed very expensive to me on average. That might be different between countries/cultures, though.
- hughprime 17y ago
  How much you spend depends on (a) how close you are to the couple and (b) how rich you are. Rich relatives might easily give a $420 gift, but there's a real lack of gifts in the sub-$100 range there. More to the point, if I'm going to give a couple a $400 gift, I want them to keep it and appreciate it. I want it to be the good silverware which only comes out on special occasions, or the fancy glassware that the children aren't allowed to touch. I don't want it to wind up as a small part of a line item on an accountant's bill.
  - zackattack 17y ago
    There's nothing worse than receiving a gift that the recipient wants you to have but you don't want to use. But this couple seems annoying, and doesn't seem to understand the social process of gifting.
- philwelch 17y ago
  Traditionally, a married couple would need to furnish their new home after moving in together. Modern couples cohabitate before getting married and already have all this stuff, but wedding gift registries are still used to get "better" stuff. As explained in sister comments, much of this stuff will be expensive, impractical things they don't actually use very often if at all, but will provide an expensive and symbolic keepsake that satisfies people's mammalian hoarding instincts until making for an awkward asset-division discussion during the probable divorce or, less probably, will probably either be inherited or bring in some moderate amount of money at the longest-lived partner's estate sale. (You can look at it more romantically than this, but I'm in an existential mood.) More practically, a gift registry prevents a couple from getting ten unique waffle makers when they only need one.
  - tjic 17y ago
    > Modern couples cohabitate before getting married some modern couples cohabitate before getting married
endtime 17y ago
>Give an accountant some love for an hour, a.k.a. avoid "making friends" with the IRS >Price: $420.00 Do accountants really make $420/hour? I'm in the wrong field...
- philwelch 17y ago
  Per billable hour, for a good tax accountant, probably. Per working hour for an average accountant, I doubt it. It's not impossible for a good programmer to make $420 per billable hour (or whatever the equivalent is in "real" hours).
  - endtime 17y ago
    $420 * 8 * 5 * 50 = $840,000. Where can a good programmer get paid that?
    - philwelch 17y ago
      Billable hours for an accountant or lawyer are usually around 1800/yr. (The job also requires non-billable hours.) That's 420*1800 = $756,000, assuming the accountant themselves takes home the whole fee. But they don't, just as a programmer doesn't take home every dollar of value they bring into the company. If they take home roughly 2/3 of it (generous, probably unrealistic) that's $500k. So how does a programmer get $500k per year? One way is to perpetually earn $500k on a 5% rate of return from $10,000,000. That's 33% equity in a startup that's acquired for $30,000,000--probably more rare than a tax accountant. A programmer doing consulting work might make around $420 per billable hour, but probably as a peak rate and not sustainably. You could combine income streams: a high paying software job (that's $100,000-$200,000/yr at the top levels) plus consulting (another $100,000+ worth of contracts in a given year is doable for some) plus some equity as a founder or early employee ($100,000 as 5% return on $2,000,000 in wealth) could get you there. It's not as convenient as putting in hours at an accounting firm, but a lot of good programmers fall into it anyway.
      - shimon 17y ago
mattmaroon 17y ago
Apparently feeding an engineer for a day costs $273. Imagine Google's profits if they didn't have the cafeteria.
- testr4 17y ago
  If you read carefully, this is the annual salary divided by 365 days
youngj 17y ago
pathetic
hughprime 17y ago
"Feed a hungry VC lunch: $291" What kind of VC expects you to buy them a $291 lunch? If I were a VC I certainly wouldn't invest in any company that thought buying me lunch was a good use of their funds.
phatboyslim 17y ago
Have been noticing an reasonable number of articles or advice from executives that emphasize not mixing family and business. Perhaps they didn't get the memo.
joecode 17y ago
Emily Post is rolling over in her grave... but good luck to them, anyway.

43 points by khangtoh 17y ago

Jefft Bar already got AWS hosting for them

If you check the comments, Amazon Web Services fulfilled their wish for a week in the cloud. Cheap and makes for good publicity.

edw519 17y ago

This was cute for about 7 seconds. After that it was just annoying. OTOH, if they can get people to fund their startup with donations, more power to them. Then I'd say something like, "Gee I wish I would have thought of that."

philwelch 17y ago

This page seems to portray a very cost-inflated idea of what a startup is.

BRadmin 17y ago

Would be interesting to see the breakdown of donators -- wedding attendees vs. non-attendees.

philh 17y ago

So, it's common for people to make a list of wedding gifts they'd like to receive, and these guys are asking people to help fund their startup instead? Do I have that right? If so, is it common for people to spend over $100 on a wedding present for another couple? $420?

davidw 17y ago
Yes. OTOH, it's kind of nice to get something that you feel the recipient will remember, IMO.
Tichy 17y ago
The gifts seemed very expensive to me on average. That might be different between countries/cultures, though.
hughprime 17y ago
How much you spend depends on (a) how close you are to the couple and (b) how rich you are. Rich relatives might easily give a $420 gift, but there's a real lack of gifts in the sub-$100 range there. More to the point, if I'm going to give a couple a $400 gift, I want them to keep it and appreciate it. I want it to be the good silverware which only comes out on special occasions, or the fancy glassware that the children aren't allowed to touch. I don't want it to wind up as a small part of a line item on an accountant's bill.
- zackattack 17y ago
  There's nothing worse than receiving a gift that the recipient wants you to have but you don't want to use. But this couple seems annoying, and doesn't seem to understand the social process of gifting.
philwelch 17y ago
Traditionally, a married couple would need to furnish their new home after moving in together. Modern couples cohabitate before getting married and already have all this stuff, but wedding gift registries are still used to get "better" stuff. As explained in sister comments, much of this stuff will be expensive, impractical things they don't actually use very often if at all, but will provide an expensive and symbolic keepsake that satisfies people's mammalian hoarding instincts until making for an awkward asset-division discussion during the probable divorce or, less probably, will probably either be inherited or bring in some moderate amount of money at the longest-lived partner's estate sale. (You can look at it more romantically than this, but I'm in an existential mood.) More practically, a gift registry prevents a couple from getting ten unique waffle makers when they only need one.
- tjic 17y ago
  > Modern couples cohabitate before getting married some modern couples cohabitate before getting married

endtime 17y ago

>Give an accountant some love for an hour, a.k.a. avoid "making friends" with the IRS >Price: $420.00 Do accountants really make $420/hour? I'm in the wrong field...

philwelch 17y ago
Per billable hour, for a good tax accountant, probably. Per working hour for an average accountant, I doubt it. It's not impossible for a good programmer to make $420 per billable hour (or whatever the equivalent is in "real" hours).
- endtime 17y ago
  $420 * 8 * 5 * 50 = $840,000. Where can a good programmer get paid that?
  - philwelch 17y ago
    Billable hours for an accountant or lawyer are usually around 1800/yr. (The job also requires non-billable hours.) That's 420*1800 = $756,000, assuming the accountant themselves takes home the whole fee. But they don't, just as a programmer doesn't take home every dollar of value they bring into the company. If they take home roughly 2/3 of it (generous, probably unrealistic) that's $500k. So how does a programmer get $500k per year? One way is to perpetually earn $500k on a 5% rate of return from $10,000,000. That's 33% equity in a startup that's acquired for $30,000,000--probably more rare than a tax accountant. A programmer doing consulting work might make around $420 per billable hour, but probably as a peak rate and not sustainably. You could combine income streams: a high paying software job (that's $100,000-$200,000/yr at the top levels) plus consulting (another $100,000+ worth of contracts in a given year is doable for some) plus some equity as a founder or early employee ($100,000 as 5% return on $2,000,000 in wealth) could get you there. It's not as convenient as putting in hours at an accounting firm, but a lot of good programmers fall into it anyway.
    - shimon 17y ago

mattmaroon 17y ago

Apparently feeding an engineer for a day costs $273. Imagine Google's profits if they didn't have the cafeteria.

testr4 17y ago
If you read carefully, this is the annual salary divided by 365 days

youngj 17y ago

pathetic

hughprime 17y ago

"Feed a hungry VC lunch: $291" What kind of VC expects you to buy them a $291 lunch? If I were a VC I certainly wouldn't invest in any company that thought buying me lunch was a good use of their funds.

phatboyslim 17y ago

Have been noticing an reasonable number of articles or advice from executives that emphasize not mixing family and business. Perhaps they didn't get the memo.

joecode 17y ago

Emily Post is rolling over in her grave... but good luck to them, anyway.