Because to the author, it is a success. They got to build, learn, taste progress, have fun, and then hand it off for some $$$ when their priorities shifted.
Does everything need to be measured in millions here?
Launching a real product, earning a single dollar in revenue from customers and selling a business for >0 are feats most entrepreneurs here are never going to be able to achieve. Just because it wasn't a billion dollar exit doesn't make it a failure.
Exactly, and while it may not have been a massive success, there's a good chance he could parlay that success into something bigger in the future, since he now has a better understanding of how to achieve product-market fit, marketing, growing a business, etc.
>>Different people have different parameters for success.
True, but I would say close to 100% of people who build and business and try to sell it have a pretty singular definition of what success really means - and it isn't 'I learned something doing it'
Because that is the whole idea of a discussion forum? This is not a "Validate me and cheer me up no matter what I did" kind of site, at least not in principle.
Maybe I need to explain what I said, I realize I came across a bit rude. I called it a failure because the emphasis in the article was completely on the sales/“exit” process and not on the product. I wouldn’t have called it a failure if the article was about how they built a cool product, how they marketed it and how much they learned while doing all that.
I believe they are saying that if “success” is measured by the sale, then logically, a successful sale would be one where the founder gets back everything they put in plus more. In this case, the founder didn’t - they sold at a loss.
Because the term “exit” has a different meaning to those that haven’t actually run / managed a startup. Same reason you see kudos to startups for their exit or acquisition, when the reality is they were going under and or where an acquihire. Not that it’s bad, but it’s not the crazy exit they project it to be.
