<story><title>No Venture Capital Needed, or Wanted</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/business/smallbusiness/no-venture-capital-needed-or-wanted.html?src=me&amp;_r=0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dreyfan</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ll share our story and current situation:&lt;p&gt;We bootstrapped with time (evenings &amp;amp; weekends) until we had enough revenue to keep the lights on, at which point we quit our full-time jobs and pursued it 100%. We&amp;#x27;re in our fifth year now and we closed 2015 with $2M in revenue. Excluding compensation, our operating costs (servers, professional services, supplies, t&amp;amp;e, taxes, etc) are about $125k.&lt;p&gt;While things are great, growth has also slowed due to sheer bandwidth available from only 3 people. We&amp;#x27;ve definitely struggled with hiring. When a new employee&amp;#x27;s salary directly comes out of your own compensation, you tend to become very particular about people pulling their weight, so we&amp;#x27;ve churned through 10 people so far. I&amp;#x27;ve had a very difficult time competing for top talent.&lt;p&gt;At this point I think the networking and advice would be the most valuable thing a VC could bring to the table, as we have an abundance of cash and technically a very easy business to scale. Just need capable people who like to be well-compensated.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pjc50</author><text>&lt;i&gt;When a new employee&amp;#x27;s salary directly comes out of your own compensation&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are you a limited company or a partnership? If you&amp;#x27;re an LLC, it&amp;#x27;s not your own pocket, it&amp;#x27;s the company&amp;#x27;s. This feels pedantic but is very important both legally and psychologically.&lt;p&gt;Remember it works the other way round for your employees. Their extra work goes into your pocket, not theirs (unless they&amp;#x27;re on commission!)&lt;p&gt;If you had 1,000 employees, would you see every last one as taking from your pocket? Come to think of it, maybe this is why so many business owners nickel-and-dime employees into misery.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;you tend to become very particular about people pulling their weight&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;re a founder. They&amp;#x27;re not. They are never, ever going to be as committed as you. They&amp;#x27;re going to do the 9-to-5 and then go home and think of other things. This is fine, because their compensation has a bounded upside and yours doesn&amp;#x27;t. Unless you&amp;#x27;re giving them a huge equity stake, which doesn&amp;#x27;t sound like the case. You have to reconcile yourself to this. Trying to make the whole company out of founder-level committed people is like the old joke about &amp;quot;you know the indestructable aircraft black boxes - why don&amp;#x27;t they make the whole plane out of that stuff?&amp;quot;</text></comment>
<story><title>No Venture Capital Needed, or Wanted</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/business/smallbusiness/no-venture-capital-needed-or-wanted.html?src=me&amp;_r=0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dreyfan</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ll share our story and current situation:&lt;p&gt;We bootstrapped with time (evenings &amp;amp; weekends) until we had enough revenue to keep the lights on, at which point we quit our full-time jobs and pursued it 100%. We&amp;#x27;re in our fifth year now and we closed 2015 with $2M in revenue. Excluding compensation, our operating costs (servers, professional services, supplies, t&amp;amp;e, taxes, etc) are about $125k.&lt;p&gt;While things are great, growth has also slowed due to sheer bandwidth available from only 3 people. We&amp;#x27;ve definitely struggled with hiring. When a new employee&amp;#x27;s salary directly comes out of your own compensation, you tend to become very particular about people pulling their weight, so we&amp;#x27;ve churned through 10 people so far. I&amp;#x27;ve had a very difficult time competing for top talent.&lt;p&gt;At this point I think the networking and advice would be the most valuable thing a VC could bring to the table, as we have an abundance of cash and technically a very easy business to scale. Just need capable people who like to be well-compensated.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>djrobstep</author><text>&amp;quot;If you have a problem with one or two people, maybe it&amp;#x27;s them. If you have a problem with everyone, maybe it&amp;#x27;s you.&amp;quot;</text></comment>