
Mistakes on Our Way to $88k in Revenue - justingreet
https://beamjobs.com/blog/14-mistakes-our-startup-made
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srameshc
3\. Start your company as an LLC

No matter what anyone tells you, don't start as a C-Corp, unless you are sure
that VC is investing in your company right away. Even the cost of winding down
a C-Corp is substantial.

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dumbfoundded
Unless you're in the Cannabis industry and you don't want to worry about 280e

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cannaceo
How does being a C Corp protect you against 280e?

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dumbfoundded
Pass through tax liability.

Let's say you did your accounting wrong and your company owes a bunch of
money. These accounting mistakes usually account for double digit percentages
of revenue.

If you own an LLC, you get the benefit of only paying taxes once unlike a
double taxed C-Corp. The cost is pass through tax liability. If your company
owes taxes, the owners personally owe taxes.

Let's take a real world example that happened to someone I personally know.
They owned a dispensary, made some money not too much, everything going ok.
IRS comes and says 4 years ago you did your taxes wrong. On revenues of
~$2.5M, she owed $400K that she deducted incorrectly due to 280e. In a day,
she almost had her life ruined. She's back and opened a couple more
dispensaries. She managed to survive others didn't.

If you had created a C-Corp, the business goes bankrupt. IRS collects what it
can. You go on your way.

[https://investinganswers.com/dictionary/p/pass-through-
entit...](https://investinganswers.com/dictionary/p/pass-through-entity)

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npereslu
13 is super crucial. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, making your entire
identity revolve around one thing is always a bad idea.

Growth is all about branching out and trying new things. Maybe some of those
new things are dead ends, but I find trying new things or hobbies always helps
me learn about the things I’m already passionate about. The stress relief and
mental break ain’t bad either!

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justingreet
That's so true. It's probably the point that resonates most with me.

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jenIsOnHN
14 - LOL. One of my friends in SF got locked on the roof of his startup--with
his dog!

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justingreet
Haha that's great. Stephen's dog Lila was right there with us too!

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eahm
While those points can be seen as very subjective points it was still a good
article with real life experience behind, thanks for that and good luck!

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ThrowMeAwayOkay
I really liked #8. Don't Engineer Too Early.

If customers are asking for features, processes, (your time), etc...then don't
give that to them. Sell that to them. They'll pay if they really want it.

If a restaurant owner is asked why a certain thing is not on their menu enough
times, the smart ones will get that on their menu. Is that new menu item free?
Hell no.

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zarro
What about IP agreements? After reading "Venture Deals" you get the idea that
if you to talk about your project and bounce ideas off of them during the
development phase they could have implicit "rights" to IP. What do you have to
have everyone you talk to about developments sign an IP agreement?

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justingreet
That's honestly something he haven't considered. We generally tend to believe
that ideas aren't worth much on their own, so we're happy to talk about our
company/experience with anyone.

At our size, the downsides to protecting most of our ideas are outweighed by
the value we get from practicing our pitch.

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mac_was
Great article, thanks!

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Exuma
Use a Retina logo!

~~~
alexdumitru
I'm pretty sure most logos are retina.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina)

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whsheet
Click-bait. Imagine you made a way to make 88k a month and keeping growing,
why tell anyone?

Exactly: You tell once growth has stopped and you need a quick fix.

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ganeshkrishnan
88k a month is absolutely nothing.

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benburleson
I'm happy to take your 88k/month "nothing" from you, that would be life-
changing for me.

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ska
Don't forget it is quite easy to end up losing money on 100k MRR.

