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Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company

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2101 points jamesjyu | 3 comments | 07 Feb 19 15:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.844s | source
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austenallred ◴[07 Feb 19 17:38 UTC] No.19106780[source]▶
I’m incredibly grateful for Gumroad - Lambda School (YC S17) wouldn’t exist without it.

We threw up a my book on Gumroad because why not/it was easy, and now I believe we’re sitting north of $100k in sales. I don’t think we would have put it anywhere else - wasn’t worth the effort. I often think about how important it is to remove even the slightest amount of friction as a result.

I also find the move from KPCB admirable. They gave up their interest in the company (it was a loss for them anyway) and allowed the company to flourish. Hats off for that.

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jondubois ◴[07 Feb 19 19:31 UTC] No.19107763[source]▶
It's interesting how Lambda School was able to capitalize on investors pumping cash into and hyping up Gumroad.

It's a smart move to capture some of that VC money without having to pitch anything to them.

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austenallred ◴[07 Feb 19 19:43 UTC] No.19107872[source]▶
Not sure that entirely follows; Gumroad may have existed whether VCs pumped money in or not, but I hear what you're saying.

In a way every time you ride in an Uber or Lyft you're capitalizing on investors pumping cash into companies.

Luckily the winners make enough to pay for all the losses of the losers.

replies(1): >>19109214 #
1. jondubois ◴[07 Feb 19 22:23 UTC] No.19109214[source]▶
I'm starting to think that you can't achieve anything these days unless you're riding some kind of well capitalized trend.
replies(1): >>19111062 #
2. austenallred ◴[08 Feb 19 02:47 UTC] No.19111062[source]▶
Or, alternatively, every trend will be well capitalized
replies(1): >>19112368 #
3. jondubois ◴[08 Feb 19 08:13 UTC] No.19112368[source]▶
I think that cause and effect reinforce each other but I think that social connections and capital are stronger forces.

Following the money is the most popular overarching trend. I know this because I used to not follow the money at all and it was a big financial mistake for me.

I've worked on many trends that were not well capitalized and not given due attention. Especially in open source; there are so many great solutions which are ignored completely. When there is no money, 99% of people leave; the ones that stay are the smartest, most critical-thinking type of people but they're not the kinds of people who can create hype and drive trends towards newsworthy goals because news only cares about money.

I work in cryptocurrency now (after a decade of free open source work) and I can attest that it's not the same kind of people.

A product without capital almost never gets attention. Capital without a product is what 99% of successful ICOs are. To some extent this is also true for many startups too.