

Ask HN: What do you consider "making it"? - vaksel

At what point in your startup adventure would you consider yourself successful?<p>The point where you can get off the ramen diet and start buying all those  toys you promised yourself you'd buy when you "made it"
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pedalpete
Short answer, never, particularly when you are still calling yourself a start-
up. Once you've 'made-it', you aren't a start-up anymore, you're a big
business, and big businesses still need lots of work to keep them successful.

Long answer - when your piece of art is complete. A great book, 'Finite and
Infinite Games' lays out my feelings on this. Your first STEP in success is
when you are really in the game. I've launched a few companies that nobody
cared about. Got no traction. There was very little reason to keep revising
the product/project because I wasn't in the game. Other times you hit on
something that people care about, and that is making a difference. You work
like mad to churn out new products and satisfy the demand. You are in the
game. That is success level 1, and it goes from there.

I think the big problem with saying "how do you know when you've made it?", is
that this isn't a sprint or a marathon. It's a life. You've never 'made it' in
life, if you're done, then you're dead. When do you know when you have
breathed enough? When you have eaten enough? If you stop working on your
product/business, it will go stale and die.

You can 'get out', sell, hire others to take over the day to day tasks, but
what do you do with yourself then? I think some of PG's comments regarding the
'artist' in programmers/innovators is just that. An artist doesn't stop
painting once they have sold one painting. So your current project leads to
the next, etc.

I would say to answer your question, that only you can decide when your
current piece of art is done. If you're making great money, fantastic. If not,
maybe you love this project so much that you'll continue with it anyway.

Basically, have an exit strategy, targets, goals, etc. But none of these are
'finishing lines', they are markers on the coarse. Like aid stations on a
cicuitus marathon coarse. They let you know that you have reached a
significant marker, but don't stop running, 'cause you are still in the race.

There are still things to do, problems to solve, art to build. The journey is
the destination.

~~~
endlessvoid94
Great answer. It's the journey not the destination. In almost everything.

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fallentimes
Having the site/business pretty much run itself and grow slowly but surely. I
don't care about the toys - if I could have 100k a year in passive income I'd
be set. "Making it" for me has much more to do with disposable free time than
disposable income.

Edit: Issuing dividends to our investors would be great, but probably isn't a
requirement.

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petercooper
I have good news for you! You can easily live on $15,000 a year in many areas
of the United States and you would have all the disposable free time you
wanted (if that income was passive, like the $100k you mention).

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vaksel
free time isn't all its made out to be. Boredom sets in after about a week.

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paulgb
It depends if you define "free time" to be "time you don't _have_ to do
anything" or "time you _don't_ do anything".

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fallentimes
Thanks Paul - that's how I was defining it. I'm not going to just sit on my
ass and watch Southpark. I have a whole list of projects I want to work on,
places I want to go, hobbies I want to try.

~~~
netcan
_and_ watch southpark

~~~
woodsier
_swish!_

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Angostura
I'm not a typical HN reader/user. I'm a one-man consultancy outfit, helping
businesses sort out how best to use Internet technologies for internal and
external collaboration. I also help untangle knotty workflow problems, you get
the picture.

"Making it", as far as I am concerned is having a steady stream of people
coming through my door through personal recommendation with really interesting
problems - enough in fact that I can turn the less interesting ones away to
other people.

I get to make money, I get to help people (I know it sounds sappy, but I love
it) and I get to think about interesting problems.

It doesn't get much better than that for me, it really doesn't.

No. I haven't quite "made it" yet, I only started out as an independent a few
months ago, but I've had enough of a taste of it to make me a very happy
bunny.

~~~
bprater
Awesome, you are in a good place if you love your work. And because you love
it, it'll continue to pay dividends for you.

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eisokant
For me it's about making something a success in the eyes of the users. Built
something people love using. Then make it a business that maximizes it's
profits. Then move on to the next venture. I don't want any toy's and I don't
need any recognition but what I do want is the sense of achievement once
you've built a profitable business. Hence I hope to one day have created a
million dollar company not for the money but for having overcome another
challenge.

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DenisM
$15 milllion net worth after tax, or $1 million yearly income, whichever comes
first. Today's dollars, adjusted for inflation.

~~~
bprater
I'd say that is pretty accurate. We need a new version of "wow, he's a
millionaire".

~~~
michaelneale
I have heard the term "deci-millionaire" throws around lately.

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Darmani
No matter where you are, "made it" is always one step above you.

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rms
I see no reason to set the bar lower than National Sovereignty. There are just
so many things you can't do without your own sovereign nation.

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snprbob86
I think you've made it long before you are buying all those toys you promised
yourself. That is, assuming you promised yourself any toys. Me? I just
promised myself that I would be my own boss, have fun, and make just enough
money to not have to argue over who pays the left over dollar after dinner.

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ComputerGuru
At the point where the only thing to describe your feelings is "Content."

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unalone
Once you feel like you can do other things, any other things, without feeling
that you're taking a risk in doing what you feel like.

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mmmurf
I think it's when you are doing it for the love, and it's also successful. The
convergence of pleasure and productivity (in an economic sense).

By this logic, as a founder you may realize you've created something
successful and fun but it's time to bring in different people to do things
that you are no longer economically optimal to do.

Jeff Bezos is a great example of someone who clearly has a fun time every
single day and whose creativity is still vital to Amazon's performance.

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jamesbritt
Never having to wear pants again.

Unless I really really want to.

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kalvin
Having created something that's made life (offline, RL) better for a huge,
broad swath of people.

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icky
"Making it" is a journey of several steps:

1\. Realizing you haven't been checking price tags on food or household items
for a while now.

2\. Making money faster than you can find things worth spending it on.

3\. Being well-off without having to work full-time.

4\. Being well-off through actively-managed passive income.

5\. Being able to sail around the world and come back richer (through passive
income, not sea trade nor piracy nor fortune hunting ;).

6\. Being able to do what you want, where you want, when you want, without the
permission or approval of anybody.

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shiranaihito
I like this list :)

I'd be fairly happy at number four already, because I could just decide to go
hang out in various countries for x months at a time without having to worry
about money.

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markessien
Anybody who does work just so that he can one day not work, will find his
contentment threshold pretty quickly. He will find a satisfactory job with
enough free time and will stop dreaming.

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espadagroup
I have no illusions with myself about wanting to live a comfortable life at
$100,000. Making it would be this:

Financially: $1,000,000/Year in passive income.

Socially: The Espada brand being universally recognizable and associated with
my name.

Automotivally: Lotus Elise, Bentley, the biggest legal monster truck I can
find.

Personally: Having no fear

Some might think this is superficial, though I know precisely what I want and
don't apologize for it.

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mikeyur
Steadily growing business. Steady income that can provide me with the
necessities and a few toys (about $50k/yr after taxes). Free time to deal
start other projects and do what I want.

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incomethax
When I felt I've really changed the world for the better.

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rgiar
convergence; when i cease to have to ask myself which competing urgent task i
will complete, i will finally have peace of mind. is it too much to ask to
lead my own startup _and_ have only one job?

after that, i agree with others that it is nice be able to ignore money -- to
me that again speaks to peace of mind.

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cabalamat
Net worth > $10 million

