

Has anyone just completed an exit? - iiijjjiii
http://www.igeejo.com

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iiijjjiii
How would you go about finding co-founders?

We've run a decent company in the past. We're going to start another. We're
looking for 2 or 3 co-founders. We've tried different things, posting on
startup blogs but the responses were generally from people with little
experience or others who were fixed on a pet project they've been working on
after hours. So we created a website with info and posted a link here hoping
for some constructive feedback.

Do you have any other suggestions?

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AsmodeusB
I'm amused that a lot of the comments here have missed the point that this is
their wishlist, not some draconian HR checkbox exercise. They come off as
fairly sane to me, so I doubt they'd go "No previous exits? Don't want you."

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shafqat
What was the actual startup that they exited?

~~~
pxlpshr
porchlight.ca - an ISP.

I don't think a 13-year business with under $3M in revenue is a startup,
sounds more like a lifestyle business. It's also not something VCs would be
interested in. This falls under super-laid back, and not something most people
on HN would likely be attracted either. The serial entrepreneurs I admire have
done 2-4 businesses in 10 years, all with exits well over $50M.

~~~
run4yourlives
I don't think flipping businesses is a model to admire.

They aren't creating any more value than some guy selling a get rich quick
scheme.

And given the amount of attention DHH receives for taking the counterpoint to
your argument here, I'd disagree that "most people on HN" would not be
interested in this.

~~~
iiijjjiii
Generally a business goes through three stages: innovation (create and fine
tune the product), growth (increase market share through marketing), and
harvest (maintain large customer base). We experienced all three stages with
our first company. Each stage is unique. Each requires a different mode of
operation. They require different talents, different ways of thinking, and
different filters for making decisions. Conventional wisdom says this is the
desired course of a business. You start out small, innovate, grow a customer
base into a huge corp and then harvest the rewards.

After reading Paul Graham's "How to Make Wealth" essay, we had an 'aha
moment'. It's not necessary for a business to do all three stages. In fact
it's not efficient and usually not desirable. Some people/companies are good
at innovation, some are good at growth, and some are good are harvest. Each
should focus on their strengths.

The model of creating startups and then exiting is about focusing on the
innovation stage.

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paraschopra
Did anybody understand what the post is about? Are they funding new startups
from the money they got from exit or they are they want to talk to startups to
know if the exit was in the right range? No offense, but I couldn't understand
the motivation of the post.

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steve___
We recently sold our company. Our goal now is to try and meet up with a group
of two or three founders, people in a situation similar to ours, who have have
worked together and founded a successful startup in the past. It's our hope to
work together on a new startup.

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Asa-Nisse
They only work with other people that have exited a startup.

Funny stuff.

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pwnstigator
Note: insisting that your co-founders have "completed an exit" is not going to
make you any friends here, because you're suggesting that you're better than
others less experienced or less fortunate who have not.

Success is obviously preferable to failure, and we all believe that we're
talented to a degree that gives us a high enough likelihood of success for
startups to be worth pursuing. However, this sort of extreme personalization
of results is not attractive.

~~~
iiijjjiii
If you pose a general question to a startup crowd "Are you interested in
joining a startup" you get everyone and their grandmother responding. The
"completed an exit" requirement acts as a filter. We're hoping it will improve
the signal to noise ratio.

~~~
pwnstigator
"Are you interested enough in a startup to be willing to work for X months for
mostly equity, knowing full well that the project has a risk of failure?"

There's your filter.

~~~
iiijjjiii
Yeah, I know what you're saying. However, we often fool ourselves about what
we're capable of. If someone has developed a startup and completed an exit and
they're prepared to go at it again, that speaks much louder than someone who
claims they are willing but has never done it.

~~~
pwnstigator
Of course.

What's obnoxious about "completed an exit" is that talented people can fail to
meet this for reasons that aren't their fault. Possibly the VC wanted to aim
for an IPO, they failed because of the downturn, and now they haven't
"completed an exit". I know of stories like this.

I wouldn't bat an eye if you said you were looking for people with substantial
entrepreneurial experience. I just think the specific criterion of "completed
an exit" is obnoxious. It sounds like you think you're too good to talk to
people who are talented but haven't had their break yet.

~~~
webwright
It's not just about talent.

It's about (among other things, I assume):

\- Wealth (exit = cash = ability to work for equity for an indeterminate
period) \- Availability (recent exit = not currently engaged with another
project)

The first is the biggie. I'd say 99.9% of people on HN can't say "I will
eschew all paying work for up to 2 years and can toss a few hundred grand of
my own money in if we need a cash infusion".

Of course, the recent exit thing is a problem, too. Most buyers lock in the
founders for 1-2 years, so recent exiteers will have golden handcuffs.

~~~
steve___
We had a six month earn out. It ended on July 15, 2009. We took slightly less
money to get out sooner.

~~~
webwright
That's a great deal (makes sense for an ISP)! But if you're looking for
software entrepreneurs who are coming free, it might mean people who sold 2 or
3 years ago, depending on the business.

