from Hacker News

Confessions of a Middle-Class Founder

by caser on 10/25/23, 2:24 PM with 66 comments

  • by ryandrake on 10/25/23, 3:13 PM

    > I could have tried roughing it without venture funding, what the industry calls “bootstrapping.” The venture world has a condescending label for bootstrapped companies without scale potential: a “lifestyle” business, which roughly translates to: Good for you, now back to the sandbox until you’re ready to play with the big boys. Given my professed aim, this could have made sense. But there was so much funding for the taking, and part of me figured that if I was swinging, I may as well swing big.

    From this bit (and honestly the whole first half of the article) it sounds this guy just wanted to gamble on the lottery instead of being a businessman. You could replace this guy's bio with that of a professional poker player and not change many words. Did he even want to run a business, or did he just want to spin the wheel for a low-probability chance to turn as little time as possible into as much money as possible? I know this is heresy on a site hosted by a VC firm, but the world needs fewer of these "entrepreneurs" and their gambles and more of those icky "lifestyle people" and their actual businesses that serve people.

  • by schnable on 10/25/23, 3:04 PM

    The tech version of a successful small to medium business, like maybe a regional restaurant group or car dealership. Seems good to me, both for the owners and the broader culture. These owners are the group that keeps the country stable and common sense alive. We can't all have big exits but lots of people can generate enough value to satisfy customers and make a comfortable living with skin the game of society.

  • by renewiltord on 10/25/23, 3:26 PM

    Actually pretty honest and probably relatable to many. It's interesting to see the shift from the "if you build it, they will come" to the highly refined startup culture now.

    It was inevitable and now there's a bunch of startups around finding someone who has found PMF but not yet executed to capture the market and then copying them with the hope of out-executing them.

    A few YC companies even clone your website to chase the same market.

    It's total shark time out here.

  • by JackFr on 10/25/23, 5:01 PM

    Article could be summed up by "Comparison is the thief of joy."

    The guy has built a successful, profitable company, with satisfied customers and a culture he claims to be proud of. And yet the whole article is him carping.

  • by marklar423 on 10/25/23, 3:22 PM

    Honestly it sounds like this person was a success. Their company is growing and sounds profitable, their customers are happy, and they have a working product. They avoided the "megafunds" and the strings attached to them, and still managed to pay themselves a salary.

    It's not a smashing unicorn success but it's definitely a success.

  • by Solvency on 10/25/23, 4:24 PM

    $6 million in personal wealth is middle class? Woof!

  • by stork19 on 10/25/23, 4:26 PM

    Fabulously written.

  • by vjulian on 10/25/23, 3:04 PM

    Greater social context would be useful. It’s hard to accurately imagine lifestyles denoted simply by “middle” or “upper-middle” class. They are effectively meaningless terms.

  • by mitchbob on 10/25/23, 7:21 PM

  • by j0hnyl on 10/25/23, 7:46 PM

    I liked the story, but I'm not sure what the moral is. I don't think running a company is really what people mean by "lifestyle business". I also think the author seems just as disappointed to not be rich just as many of us are disappointed to be employees that never experienced an exit either.