Blows my mind what we all do now would have been absolute voodoo magic by comparison.
If we had gone back in a time machine and shown HDR 4k video upload, available to stream all around the world off peoples phones, live chat alongside, across devices / platforms.
> My wife and I have a profitable business here in SF that would be perfect as a startup
Keep doing what you're doing.
Being VC funded shouldn't be the holy grail - the holy grail is having a business you enjoy doing, that's making you the life you want.
For some the life you want is pitching, raising, getting the kudos of the big numbers, onto the next raise etc.
For some the life you want is the complete opposite and bootstrapping it.
For some it's just all about the technical aspect, coding the next crazy thing.
There's no wrong or right answer in how you get to the 'happy place'.
You know in your heart of hearts what drives you, and what you'll be happy doing.
Me :
I'd been with the money men for a period of years and it's super stressful, board reporting, projections, market analysis etc.
Now I've got my little B2B SaaS startup that's blended a life long passion with my software chops, and our clients love us, we get to work with the absolutely best people in our industry, we're making a difference in their lives, and they in turn pay us money.
It's hard, rewarding, graft. At the end of the week when the money lands in stripe (for me..) there's nothing artificial, there's no projections, there's no-one to pay back, it's a 100% value exchange of 'heres my(our) hardwork, here's a product and you're giving me money for it'.
Sure - could I potentially have gone the VC route (maybe!). Would it be different, hell yes. Would I (probably) earn more ultimately 5 years down the line (sure?). That 5 years would be very, very different...
I really appreciate this comment. Service offered / payment received is irreplaceably wholesome and satisfying :) especially when they come back as repeat customers or become regular clients. Repeat business and gradual growth gives us both an exciting feeling about the future that I never quite felt at a startup. I've found too often a venture-backed startup is really a lifestyle business in disguise for the founders, not really about serving customers, so it's hard to truly get excited about them anymore. Where running a business that solves a problem for paying customers feels more like changing the world:
> we're making a difference in their lives, and they in turn pay us money
We've felt this too in our community, it's the real meaning of "Make something people want" (and why we haven't had a day off in like 62 days or something lol). It's strange to refer to our business as a "startup", but it is one, moreso than most VC-funded ones and I bet we have more customers, higher revenues, and a better growth outlook than the average local seed-funded startup. For us, a loan or VC route would just let us expand nationally right now to other major cities, instead of focusing first on the Bay Area and expanding nationally over the next several years which feels inevitable.
The amount a VC might pressure us to go in the wrong direction is another worry, and because it's just capital we'd need (not advice), they might just get in the way and throw off timing or team structure.
Thanks for your comment! I needed the reminder of how rewarding it is compared to conventional employment as today has been exceptionally hectic!
I fully agree with you. I witnessed numerous small & stable companies that decided to go with the "startup" route and pick VC money because "that was the way". As soon as the first funding tranche arrived, once stable business suddenly became a hectic mess of hires and crazy projects, and, ultimately, they ended up with MBA managers installed by the VC board to salvage things as much as possible. Won't mention founders that usually go from very happy, loving persons to coke/alcohol/xanax junkies.
While (I don't even need to read it) yes it's more than likely clickbait, but having any car where the backup mechanical door releases in all seats of the car aren't blindingly obvious is an incredibly stupid design decision. For some Tesla models the rear door releases have actual manuals on how to release (https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-AAD769C...)
In a proper accident, where power is likely cut, and the occupants are disoriented (anyone who's been in a rollover will know this), the last thing you want to be is fumbling around trying to get out of the car.
I don't understand how they got approved in NZ. If you were to scratch build a car here with the same door release, you'd fail certification.
Older Model 3s have no rear door mechanical door releases at all [1]. That is a video from 2023, but I do not know how old the vehicle itself is. You have to crawl out through the front door if you want to exit the vehicle in the event of power loss such as during a fire.
It's ragebait, but for your information, the "Ticktocker" knew how to manually release, she choose not to because the power was on and she did not want to damage her Tesla, as Tesla say to not use the manual release while the power is on. It was her choice to stay in the car and to avoid damaging it.
But 40 minute for a software update, hopefully during that time they execute test batteries, else it is shameful. Rule of thumb: if your update take as much time as compiling GCC does, its too long.
I can totally see some uninformed staff member contributing what they're paying for things, and landing their employer in deep, deep, trouble with their suppliers.
I've found in competitive price analysis there's some companies that do very, very, well at hiding their pricing. If they've worked that hard, that long, to protect/hide pricing they're not going to take it lying down.
This. Imagine my suprise growing up on NZ Marmite, to open a jar of British Marmite and go 'wtf is that slightly gooey stuff'.
There's 3 very distinct camps in NZ.
Love Marmite - what's wrong with you Vegemite people
Love Vegemite - what's wrong with you Marmite people
None of the above - what's wrong with the lot of you
The 'American Dream' is very similar in a lot of the OECD nations.
NZ'er checking in. Late 40's - a good portion/most of my peer group bought houses in their mid 20's to 30's. Now the same age range can't unless they've got mega inehitances or very, very, good jobs.
Ditto UK/Australia/Canada etc.
All countries to a greater or lesser degree have the same cost of living crisis (arguably NZ is one of the worst at the moment).
I guess there's degrees of lock-in. I.e. using some parts of AWS you know push comes to shove you could write a different alternative/use a different library. It's a bunch of building blocks. There's various alternatives out there for components.
Without reading too much of Partykit + Cloudflare, if you base your whole architecture on the way one company works and perhaps the pricing is too good to be true, you're setting yourself up for a rude shock in future.
Everytime I've looked at Cloudflare's pricing I've gone "that's bonkers cheap" for what you're getting, which sets off alarm bells that once a PE company gets their hands on it, it's not going to be that cheap any more.
"While systematically removing the unskilled job categories at the company"
The robot missed out that sentence for some reason.