Thanks for the comments - this was my first HN post. I hope you didn't see it as being pessimistic - As someone who has started companies in the past and wants to do it again, I am trying to understand this new movement.
I love the thought of building a self-running business. Is that realistic? Is that realistic statistically? $12,000 profit per month after taxes is not livable in the US, and probably not Canada. Continuing to grow past $1000/month doesn't mean you are going to win; it could mean you win for a little bit and then lose all at once when something goes wrong, or someone else decides your idea is good and scoops it up. Maybe, maybe not. Again, I don't know. I do know that you can live frugally and without a cushion for only so long if your dream involves a family.
Pulling out of a phd program may be the right choice, but you are giving up on a tangible asset before you cross the finish line. Education isn't the be-all end all, but it still means something to a lot of people and that's a nice back up if your company doesn't work out.
I noticed you live in Thailand now which was apparently your dream. That lowers your costs significantly. Congratulations on that and the success you've had!
For me, living in a first world country changes the calculus. I'm not promoting the "big vc" route and I don't think YC invests in companies so the founders can make $20k/month and take vacations when they want. Your final point I'll assume wasn't trying to rub my face into the fact that you have this freedom that perhaps I don't have.
Again, congratulations on your success, and I think I'm going to try out your web meeting product.
$12,000/month after taxes is $144,000/year for a single founder company. U.S. median family income was $45,018/year before taxes in 2003. Even for programmers working in Silicon Valley, $144,000/year after taxes is pretty decent.
For comparison purposes, if you sold your company for $3.6 million, invested the money at 4% above inflation, and lived off the real interest, you'd earn $144,000/year.
Now, that's clearly not as nice as an $8.5 billion acquisition by Microsoft, but it's still pretty sweet. If nothing else, you can comfortably feed your family while working on a new startup. :-)
$1,000/month is great beer money. How much work goes into day to day operations?
One of the things to keep in mind that if something 'only' makes $1,000/month but only takes two or three days out of your time a month its "effectively" paying you $15K - $20K/month because you have those other days to do something else. People who set up linkbait pages (I'm looking at you content farms) which bring in 4x their operating cost just replicate the crap out of them.
Just for the record, I was not one of the people who down-voted your comment. I personally think that your perspective is interesting.
"$12,000 profit per month after taxes is not livable in the US, and probably not Canada."
It seems to me that $12,000 per month is an eminently livable wage. Did you mean to write $12,000 per year there instead of $12,000 per month?
(Just a quick HN related tip. Something that helps me is to review a post carefully after I've posted it. It has helped me to catch myself saying some strange things a few times.)
In reference to your original post, Octopart is currently getting half a million unique visitors per month - and still growing. Given that they have low overhead, it is reasonable to believe that they are probably profitable at this point (including hefty owner's salaries).
I am currently in the process of bootstrapping a company in a similar way to the process that they took. I am not doing it because I was "sold someone else's dream of \"starting a company is the best thing in the world to do\"".
I saw a potential market opportunity (and something that I would enjoy working on) and I took action to meet what I saw as a need. Some people are just pre-programmed to want to own their own business. I know that it is something that I have been trying to do for a little over a decade.
I've had a few rough starts and a few no starts, but then that is how the learning process often goes. I realize that I would probably have been further ahead at this point financially if I had just taken a "normal job", but how much would that financial "security" have been worth with that constant feeling nagging me in the back of my head that I should have started my own business.
I love the thought of building a self-running business. Is that realistic? Is that realistic statistically? $12,000 profit per month after taxes is not livable in the US, and probably not Canada. Continuing to grow past $1000/month doesn't mean you are going to win; it could mean you win for a little bit and then lose all at once when something goes wrong, or someone else decides your idea is good and scoops it up. Maybe, maybe not. Again, I don't know. I do know that you can live frugally and without a cushion for only so long if your dream involves a family.
Pulling out of a phd program may be the right choice, but you are giving up on a tangible asset before you cross the finish line. Education isn't the be-all end all, but it still means something to a lot of people and that's a nice back up if your company doesn't work out.
I noticed you live in Thailand now which was apparently your dream. That lowers your costs significantly. Congratulations on that and the success you've had!
For me, living in a first world country changes the calculus. I'm not promoting the "big vc" route and I don't think YC invests in companies so the founders can make $20k/month and take vacations when they want. Your final point I'll assume wasn't trying to rub my face into the fact that you have this freedom that perhaps I don't have.
Again, congratulations on your success, and I think I'm going to try out your web meeting product.
cheers.