
I Sold My Startup for $25.5 Million - ForHackernews
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/06/i_sold_my_startup_for_25_5_million_here_s_how_i_did_it.html
======
mattzito
The really critical point I'd like to highlight is this one:

> Marin’s team sent over a list of hundreds of technical, legal, and business
> questions that we’d need to answer for the deal to go through...Tracking
> down document after document was tedious beyond compare.

Having your ducks in a row as much as possible can make a huge difference in
the complexity, risk, and overall stress of doing a sale/acquisition.

I don't mean Day 1, of course, but once you're starting to have conversations
around acquisitions, it's really helpful to make sure your books are clean,
that you have clearly documented your software stack, all of the third-party
code you use and licenses, all of the contracts and MSAs you might have signed
iwth your customers, employment agreements with contractors, and so on.

It's annoying, but once you have it done it's relatively easy to keep up to
date.

When we sold our last startup, our CFO had done this 10+ times before, and on
the first day of the due diligence, he handed over a URL for a data room with
hundreds of documents, categorized and neatly organized. The acquirer's
lawyers said it was the easiest DD they'd ever seen.

EDIT: I sentence misplaced words in a

~~~
tptacek
Since there's a whole subthread here about how startups should keep their
ducks in a row for acquisition DD, it's worth considering whether this is
extremely premature optimization for most startups.

Even if you do everything right, an acquisition is _astonishingly_ expensive
--- low-mid six figures in a lot of cases.

If a deal is worth doing, it's probably not going to live or die based on how
many tens of thousands of dollars you can whittle off closing costs.

That's not to say there aren't deal-killer sloppy mistakes to be made early on
(vesting! keep cap table clean! get your contracts reviewed as you sign
them!), but a lot of what I'm reading here doesn't sound like that kind of
stuff.

Maybe someone on HN has a horror story about a deal they really wanted dying
in warrants-and-reps DD; I'd love to read it.

 _(Like all my comments, this reads more demonstrative than I really mean it
to; I 'm really asking, more than arguing.)_

~~~
mattzito
Yeah, I'm not suggesting that everyone should optimize right out of the gate
for acquisition, I even thought about making a more detailed set of points on
that, but decided it was overkill.

I think it's like this:

\- There's a base level of prep for acquisition that just falls under the
category of "good operational cadence for a company". This is the basic level
of keeping the books clean, organizing your papers, etc.

\- Then there's a level of prep that it makes sense to do when you think you
are getting close to a term sheet, or planning to start to actively seek
acquisition. This is the much more detailed indexing of contracts, covenants,
tracking down old shareholders, etc. Hopefully if you did the above point,
this is made easier, since you're at least storing everything in one place

\- Then in the DD phase, there's going to be requests that you just can't
prepare for, because they're out of left-field. If you've done #1 and #2, you
can invest most of your efforts on those.

But to your point:

> If a deal is worth doing, it's probably not going to live or die based on
> how many tens of thousands of dollars you can whittle off closing costs.

It's almost never a matter of closing costs. It's a matter of momentum and
risk. Yes, if a company is 100% convinced that they absolutely _must_ have
your technology/customers/IP/whatever, they'll overlook many many flaws.

But, if you go into the due diligence process and things are overly messy, it
throws up red flags and creates delays, neither of which are in the
entrepreneurs favor.

The DD folks and legal counsel for the acquirer are there to be a voice of
reason and caution - the messier things are, the more likely they are to start
cautioning the acquirer. Typically, the corp dev guys are raring at the bit,
since this is what they're there to do. Legal is meant to act as the
countervailing weight to that.

Risk is unlikely to kill the deal outright, but it could delay things and
create uncertainty in the acquirer. All of a sudden they start talking about
putting an extra 10-15% in escrow, or doing an earn-out instead of a straight
acquisition, as a hedge. Or they decide they want to interview a few more
customers before they pull the trigger.

Which is where delay comes in - the longer the interval between term sheet and
deal signing, the worse off for the startup. Not because of the legal costs,
but because:

\- it's disruptive to the business - your whole life becomes dealing with due
diligence, not to mention the stress level

\- it gives the acquirer the chance to rethink their decision or consider
another route

\- business conditions could change - your biggest competitor goes up for sale
at a bargain basement price

So, in the end, you're not optimizing for cost, and prepping for DD is
definitely not worth doing pre-product or at the expense of building your
business. But it does reduce risk and improve the likelihood of deal close
once you get to that point.

~~~
tptacek
This is a pretty great comment.

------
callmeed
_> What you realize, though, is that partnerships are rarely a real thing._

This is tangential to the core of the article but I can't stress enough how
true this is. In the two companies I've co-founded, we've been approached for
partnerships by huge companies (Oracle and Adobe) and tiny, 1-person, pre-
revenue shops. In almost every instance, it's been a net loss in time and
money. The tiny shops just want help making inroads into your industry and
customer base. The huge companies just want to show they have "partners" to
their direct reports or sales leads. They'll ask you to build out some
integrations (on your dime) and scrap the entire project 6 months later (true
story). To them, it's a rounding error but to a startup, the financial and
opportunity costs can really hurt. There's a reason Gail Goodman calls
partnerships a "mirage" [0].

It's great that this call turned into an acquisition for Perfect Audience. I
would advise everyone to take Brad's advice: _take the call and maybe a
meeting–but just one_. Unless the meeting goes well and the strategic fit is
too obvious to ignore, just say "no" to partnerships.

[0] VIDEO: [http://pawel.ch/post/71104054756/the-long-slow-saas-ramp-
of-...](http://pawel.ch/post/71104054756/the-long-slow-saas-ramp-of-death-i-
have-just) [0] TRANSCRIPT: [http://businessofsoftware.org/2012/10/gail-
goodman-the-long-...](http://businessofsoftware.org/2012/10/gail-goodman-the-
long-slow-saas-ramp-of-death/)

~~~
sunir
Nah. You're just letting the people approaching you set your company's
priorities. It would be the same as letting the first salesperson to cold call
you direct which product to buy.

With your limited investible resources, you have to decide and direct where
you will invest them.

Not using partners to extend your offering or distribute your offering means
you are reinventing the wheel trying to meet customer demand or trying to
reaching every single customer in the world with your own people and dollars.
Good luck with that.

~~~
callmeed
I appreciate the counter-point but you haven't said anything to convince me
otherwise. The presentation I referenced and other replies seem to back that
up (if the CEO of Constant Contact says it ...).

My main point was directed at people who are new at this. I've been there and
I can smell a bad partnership right away (and most of them stink). But when
you're new at this, it's an easy trap to fall into. Big companies dangle their
customer base in front of you ( _" Wouldn't you love to get your product in
front of our $HUGE_NUMBER customers?"_). When you're new at this and deep in
the slog of trying to grow your startup, that's a hard thing to resist.

(btw, I don't consider having an affiliate program part of partnerships)

~~~
sunir
Well, let's not redefine partnerships to win an argument. It won't teach
anyone anything. To speak plainly, I will include affiliates, resellers,
system integrators, software integrations, trade associations, and
distributors all as partners.

Distributors have not succeeded with SaaS yet because SaaS is intrinsically
intractable to distribute. If the customer has to come back ultimately to the
manufacturer (aka ISV) who will then insist on controlling the billing and
customer service relationships, then the distributor has no opportunity for
brand or margin.

Also, generally it is not a good idea to work with a "distributor" that has no
experience retailing your type of products.

We talk about this a lot within the trade association (Disclosure: I'm on the
board, as is Constant Contact) if you're interested.

[http://www.thesmallbusinessweb.com](http://www.thesmallbusinessweb.com)

~~~
callmeed
I didn't redefine anything–it was always my definition. I only brought it up
because Olark's partners page is really just an affiliate program [0].
Affiliate programs are _marketing_ –you build out your affiliate program once,
with whatever terms you choose, and others can choose to send customers your
way or not. For tools like Olark that need to integrate into CMS and ecommerce
platforms, affiliate programs make a lot of sense.

But affiliate programs are not strategic partnerships or biz dev. Sorry.

Also, while I agree that distribution partnerships are bad for SaaS startups,
it's not that cut and dry. Not everyone will approach you for a distribution
partnership because they want margin or affiliate fees. Like I said, big
companies often just want to slap partner logos on a web page or brochure. It
is just a nice sounding bullet point for their enterprise sales people ("Look,
we have over 40 integration partners here at Hooli").

Again, the comments here seem to back-up my side of the argument.

[0] [https://www.olark.com/partners](https://www.olark.com/partners)

------
7Figures2Commas
This is a success story no doubt; a $25 million exit in under 3 years and with
just ~$1 million in funding is obviously a better outcome than what the vast
majority of startups will ever realize. But it also highlights just how hard
it is to realize a meaningful windfall as a startup _employee_.

Even if you assumed that the 12 non-founder employees equally split 50% of the
company (which is almost certainly high), likely none would net $1 million
after exercising their options and paying taxes. What's worse: the vast
majority of this deal was paid for in stock. The Marin Software stock chart
over the past two years is not very inspiring, which is especially interesting
given how good the market has been to so many other tech/software companies.
In an all or mostly stock deal involving a public company, you are ideally
acquired by a company with a rich valuation. That's not the case here.

The $2.7 million in equity retention grants, if split equally amongst 12
employees, adds $225,000 for each, but that too is stock and the employees
have to stick around and work for it. I don't know much about the acquirer,
but working for stock that has for some reason languished during one of the
most impressive bull markets in history isn't a very compelling proposition.

This all seems lost on the founder of the company. I can't help but wonder if
it's lost on the employees too.

~~~
ryanburk
really well said. I think too often people think that working at a startup and
getting acquired will be a road to riches. not that $200k isn't a huge amount
of money, but if you look at the payout over the number of years invested for
a non-founder level of options, you are not likely going to get paid
disproportionately to a google or facebook salary.

and this isn't a commentary that people shouldn't get involved in startups,
but mentoring junior folks I just see a lot of $$$ in their eyes thinking they
will hit whatapp type exits when in reality it is in a very good case scenario
similar to what is described above.

~~~
colmvp
If anything, on HN users constantly talk about the fact they'd never work at a
startup unless they were a co-founder or a late stage employee.

------
Osiris
I just started working at my first startup. Given that the employees are so
crucial in building the product that is sold, why is it so uncommon for
significant proceeds from M&As to go to employees rather than founders?

I realize that VCs like to take the lion's share, but even with what remains
most of the stories I hear are of founders taking large payouts while
employees get relatively little.

I applaud Perfect Audience for recognizing the value of employees and allowing
them to participate in the windfall.

~~~
ig1
Founders hold the majority of the stock because they shoulder the majority of
the risk in the early days, employees are largely reward through their salary
rather than their stock option.

That said most employees make out reasonably through a combination of options
& golden handcuffs.

~~~
maaku
No, founders hold the majority of the stock because the standard unequal terms
of silicon valley favor founders over employees (and investors over everyone).
Founders got the ball rolling, but it is the employees that took the company
from rough product to something acceptable for M&A. Employees can and should
be getting a fair shake, but only if we take steps to change the norm
together.

~~~
mrkurt
I don't think it's either of the above, honestly. "The majority of risk" take
is more of a rationalization about _why it 's ok_ for founders to get the bulk
of the proceeds. "The unequal terms of silicon valley" is the flip side to
that. Neither actually explains why this happens, because it's relatively
mundane.

Founders hold the majority of the stock because they "created" the
corporation. When it's time to hire employees, presumably they have some money
as well. If a company wants to hire someone, they offer some combination of
benefits, equity, and salary that the new employee finds reasonably
compelling. Early employees at startups are typically (1) engineers and (2)
relatively inexperienced, thus they don't negotiate very large compensation
packages.

Employees are making the implicit decision to favor salary and a more certain
(not very much more certain) over a disproportionate amount of equity. For
every startup that actually hires multiple employees, there are probably 10
more where the equity is worthless.

~~~
maaku
The reason why founders hold the majority of the company even years after
their role -- important though it remains -- is nothing more than managerial,
custodian, or public face, is because of the non-perishable, non-inflationary
nature of equity. It is the nature of equity, and the legal system surrounding
it, which is the problem.

That's not to say that you can't design more equitable arrangement within the
current system. For example, you can allocate an order of magnitude fewer
shares than are issued, and each quarter do equity "bonuses" of an amount
totaling 1% of the allocated shares so far. In other words, ownership
percentage of the company for founders + employees would decay with a half-
life of about 17 years. (You'd need protections of investor shares against
this dilution to make it acceptable of course.)

You can play with the numbers of course, but the idea is to have long-term
ownership reflect an employees honest contribution (determined by relative
bonus size vs. the size of the company), and eventually over time even out
disproportionate allocations from early on.

Other systems are possible. The fact that founders and investors don't explore
them is easily explained: the current system is heavily weighted in their
benefit, so why bother?

~~~
tptacek
Why haven't you started a company organized on some alternative set of terms?

~~~
maaku
I am ;)

~~~
tptacek
So, first, sincerely: good luck to you, and second: doesn't the fact that you
can do this indicate that founder terms aren't a conspiracy against employees?
If you don't want to accept employee equity, start a company.

I'm not arguing that employee equity valuation can't be abusive. It often is.
Dishonesty is dishonesty regardless of who shoulders the risks. But if you're
a founder and you're transparent and honest, the market does a pretty solid
job of allocating upside.

~~~
maaku
> I'm not arguing that employee equity valuation can't be abusive. It often
> is.

And that's all I'm arguing. It often is abusive, and it shouldn't be. Of
course one of the problems is that young coders just out of college looking at
the startup scene (typically the only people to make the sacrifices necessary
to be first employees, because of a lack of other commitments) _don 't_ know
that they are getting a raw deal.

So I make posts like this on HN, in the hopes they someone might read it and
choose differently.

~~~
tptacek
People who want to make careers in the startup sector need to be taught the
skill of doing simple financial projections --- how to make 3 revenue
forecasts, how to see what multiple of forward revenue results in in what
final deal size, and how to work back from total deal size to employee
outcome.

I agree that because almost all startup candidate employees don't do this,
equity can be exploitative.

But by the same token, most engineers don't know how to negotiate salary, and
will lose even more money as a result.

~~~
hox
Even with revenue projections and being able to work back to personal gain,
employees often aren't privy to liquidation preferences and the variety of
classes of stock that has been handed out. If an employee has 1% of a company
and the company sells for $100m, the employee rarely sees $1m.

~~~
tptacek
Is there any good reason at all for an employer not to tell you about
preferences? It's a simple question: "do I need to subtract more than 1x the
amount of money you've taken from your sale price?"

If a company wouldn't tell me what the prefs were, I'd just assume 2-3x
participating.

------
mattm
Man, that ending is brutal. So the point of building a business and selling it
is so you can post about it on Facebook? Congratulations on all the effort and
succes, nonetheless.

~~~
brandnewlow
I kept asking the editor if it was a funny enough ending. Sorry it fell flat!

I was hoping to end with something a bit silly but that people could relate
to. Who hasn't announced big news on Facebook before?

~~~
bsaul
I found it more honest than funny, but definitely not weird.

A question i have now : now that you've made a company "for the cash and
glory", are you going to make a company that truely interests you ?

I'm not saying you can't find interesting things in online advertising
company, as i've been in one myself. But every day i spent in that company, i
kept asking myself "is this really what i want to do with my skills ? Help
selling credit purchase to poor people searching for "debt" on google ?"

------
sriramk
I once got to meet a bunch of M&A/corp dev people from Google/FB and other
companies together and asked them "What would you do if you were a founder and
wanted to streamline an acquisition?". Across the board, the top response was
"Have all your paperwork in order from day 1 - employment agreements, IP
assignments, every single thing you can think of"

~~~
beat
When I started on my company, I set up an LLC just to have the business
entity, but I don't think it's nearly clean enough or sufficiently separate
from personal finances. Now that I'm moving into the next phase, I'm
reincorporating with a fresh C Corp structure. Since the old entity never hit
revenue generation, it's not a big deal to leave behind.

One of my goals for the new entity is to have a totally clean entity with
perfect notes, for eventual acquisition.

~~~
stevoyoung
You might still want to talk about this with a professional accountant or tax
lawyer. Even though your LLC didn't make money, it made your IP. Your C corp
technically has to buy that IP from your LLC - which cost _something_.

Once you are small, no big deal, if you get big you might have a problem at
hand. Definitely talk with a professional to make sure you are taking
appropriate steps in transferring the IP.

~~~
gamblor956
_Even though your LLC didn 't make money, it made your IP. Your C corp
technically has to buy that IP from your LLC - which cost something._

That's likely wrong (at the federal level, at least). Single-owner LLCs are
disregarded for tax purposes unless they expressly choose to be treated as
corporations, so generally for tax purposes an LLC's owner is treated as
directly owning all of the LLC's assets (and as directly earning all of the
LLC's income). Contributions to a C-corp are generally tax free (see, e.g.,
IRC 351). State tax regimes may differ.

~~~
mbesto
I'm a bit confused here? The OP basically said "your LLC created the IP and
now a C-Corp owns but it never legally transferred it". IANAL, but from what
they've told me, if IP is transferred from one entity to another you _must_
make a transaction. You can't simply say "I made this so wherever I go to
next, that entity owns it"

Source - I've had the same situation and discussed with a lawyer.

~~~
gamblor956
Legally, his comments were partially correct in that the LLC would own the IP
prior to the transfer. But tax-wise, they were completely incorrect--a single-
member LLC generally does not exist for tax purposes, and it is generally
possible (even trivial) to transfer the "LLC's" assets to the C-Corp without
incurring any tax liability. (A transaction occurs in this sort of situation,
but generally it doesn't result in any "costs" or taxes due).

~~~
stevoyoung
Thanks for the clarification.

------
mbesto
_" One thing that did cut through the exhaustion was a task I’d been
anticipating for more than six years: writing the Facebook post in which I
announce to friends, former friends, frenemies, ex-girlfriends, college
roommates, future wives, and family members that I was not in fact an obscure
failure but a new, minor footnote in the annals of Silicon Valley startup
successes."_

Amen. This has been personally the hardest thing for me about being a tech
entrepreneur. My friends all assume that overnight I'm going to be the next
Zuck (I'm not) and wonder why I don't have time for them. Let's take aside the
fact that I'm a fairly privileged person, it doesn't negate the fact that
putting my heart and soul into a startup, means many of my relationships have
taken a back seat. That sucks, but you soon realize the relationships that are
most important to you will ultimately wait.

------
jimmyjohnson12
Yeah huge tech firms reached out to our company. After going out of our way
(many miles) & spending a ton of money to demo they were horribly rude. They
literally took their huge name/foot and squashed us like a bug. They promised
us the moon and the sun and when we arrived it was hell with how they treated
us. Saying things as they showed us to door... "You better run fast the race
is on." This is after they baited us for our secret sauce with promises of
helping us out and or more (we didn't divulge everything). Also, they blocked
our tech from working during our demo (wth?).

Well after that experience when other big tech firms reach out .. one recently
asking let us understand how your technology works. I'm like HA screw you!

Partnerships are a time sink. One that could go nowhere, get you feeling
squashed like a bug or actually provide a win.

Though that's how it all goes with this entrepreneurship game. Game on!

------
Tossrock
How did he go 3 years, ending with a team of 12, on just a $1MM seed round?
Were employees paid entirely in equity?

~~~
solomone
It's funny how this is even a question. Often times a business goal will be to
be profitable, but that seems foreign in tech.

------
jpadvo
So, what should a early startup be doing with "ip assignment"? We hire people
from places like elance and odesk - and a few irl people - is there something
we should have been having them sign?

~~~
graeme
Consult a lawyer if this concerns anything important, but I know at least
elance has standard terms that all IP belongs to the person who hired the
contractor.

[https://www.elance.com/q/sites/default/files/page_pdf/legal/...](https://www.elance.com/q/sites/default/files/page_pdf/legal/independent-
contractor-services-agreement-13.pdf)

You would want to check they're not using code they don't own, of course. The
agreements bans it without disclosure, but in practice I'm sure many elance
contractors use GNU code without mentioning it.

------
bruceb
How did they write an article on the outcome of my startup in 2016. You are
good Slate.

Ok I won't quit the day job(startup). But seriously I wonder how much the
employees actually got. Any guesses?

~~~
ForHackernews
He says:

> Having only raised $1 million in funding, the vast majority of the deal
> proceeds would go to employees. Also, a significant piece of the deal—more
> than 10 percent—had been set aside for restricted stock for them.

It mentions 12 employees, so if you figure ($25.5m - $1m) * 10%) / 12 = about
$204,000/per person in stock. We can only speculate about the non-stock
allocation.

~~~
bruceb
"the vast majority of the deal proceeds would go to employees"

That wording seems indicate over 50%? Or am I missing something?

~~~
spacefight
The founders might count themselves in to the employees.

~~~
maaku
Very misleading.

------
ZanyProgrammer
"a software platform which helps small businesses buy online ads" is worth 25
million dollars? What a messed up world we live in.

------
pyfish
"Unlike a lot of other startups that give options to their employees, we’d
given them actual shares."

Nicely done and congrats.

------
smoyer
"Total strangers on the Internet were speculating on why we sold, how much we
might have made, and what our revenues might have looked like."

This is what the Internet does, and for better or worse, I hope my
(advertised) speculation[1] what taken in the vein it was offered - without
judgement or malice.

Now that we know more about the deal, I'd like to add my congratulations to
you and the employees. I've sold two companies (well ... my part of them) so I
know the anxiety that comes right before and right after the sale. It sounds
like you've made a very wise decision and I wish you the best as part of
Marin.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7837232](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7837232)

~~~
jordo37
No worries! All of us over at PA were more amused/surprised by the analysis
than reading malice into it. Just very strange to have it happen to you!

~~~
smoyer
My item c was clearly wrong ... I also should have mentioned that selling
while you're strong is a fantastic way to gain leverage during negotiations.
If you can't walk away, you _WILL_ lose.

------
bdevine
I haven't heard this term before, but maybe that's just me:

"... it became clear that ad retargeting—in which you show ads to people who
recently visited your website—was where MARKETEERING dollars were going"
(emphasis mine).

That's an interesting turn of phrase: it evokes Disney's Imagineers, who can
be loosely said to be engineers with a heavily creative bent, and applies it
to the act of marketing, thereby implying a more heavily creative and
technically adept form of "marketer". I wonder if "X-eer" is an inchoate
language trend?

~~~
smacktoward
Nah -- "marketeer" is a modern formulation, but the basic form of "X-eer" has
been in use for a long time now. Some examples:

 _Mountaineer:_ first use 1600s
([http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mountaineer&allowed...](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mountaineer&allowed_in_frame=0))

 _Pamphleteer:_ first use 1640s
([http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pamphleteer&allowed...](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pamphleteer&allowed_in_frame=0))

 _Auctioneer:_ first use 1708
([http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=auctioneer&allowed_...](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=auctioneer&allowed_in_frame=0))

 _Profiteer:_ first use 1910-1915
([http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/profiteer](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/profiteer))

There are even earlier examples in English ( _pioneer_ and _charioteer_ , for
instance), but those didn't come from adding "-eer" to an activity; they were
loanwords
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loanword](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loanword))
from other languages, like Old French, which used "-ier", "-eur" and "-aire"
the way we use "-eer" today. (So _charioteer_ , for instance, started out as
_charioteur._ ) Once the words were adopted by English, the spelling migrated
to the form we know today.

~~~
bdevine
Good points all. This is what I get for mouthing off from my phone instead of
taking the time to think about what I'm saying. I will say though that given
the continuing productivity of language, the fact that those earlier examples
exist doesn't necessarily preclude my supposition that "X-eer" could see an
uptick in neologistic usage - although again you're quite right that it
wouldn't be "inchoate" in the sense of not being extant.

------
latj
Why do you have to keep selling a secret from employees?

~~~
bryanh
I would presume because it is a long, distracting and unpleasant process.

------
skkbits
Can we get following information from founder or does anyone know ? 1\. When
perfectaudience was started ? 2\. How much revenue it had at the time of
selling ? 3\. What was rough ( though not exact ) percentage of company
holding by owners at the time of selling ? 4\. What software technologies they
used for this platform ?

------
pbhjpbhj
Bleurgh, interstitials. Yes Slate, I came to read the article, no I'm not
staying around now ...

------
shamdressup
Step one: have money

>Perfect Audience started as an ad design product called >NowSpots, which was
itself spun out of a previous company >called Windy Citizen, a local news
aggregator that I >bootstrapped (entrepreneur speak for self-financed).

~~~
brandnewlow
That'd be a great point if I hadn't started Windy Citizen with $3k to my name
and $100k in student debt. I moved into subsidized housing in Chicago so I
could save money.

~~~
ForHackernews
> I moved into subsidized housing in Chicago so I could save money.

Not sure how I feel about that. Section 8 is supposed to help people who are
struggling, not subsidize early-stage startups.

I guess it's probably a net gain for the economy, but you should strongly
consider giving back and donating some of your money to groups that help
underprivileged families in Chicago.

~~~
dshuang
He had 3k to his name and 100k in debt. That's not struggling?

~~~
ForHackernews
Honestly? No. That's just being a fresh grad from Princeton.

If you're in a position where you could easily go get a high paying job, but
instead you choose to go on public assistance so you can focus on your
startup, I'm not sure why I as a taxpayer should be subsidizing that.

~~~
rwallace
Because as you said yourself it's a net gain for the economy, a good
investment. By now he'll have paid back many times more in taxes than he took
in those early days. Hell, one of the arguments in favor of having some kind
of social welfare safety net is that it encourages people to be entrepreneurs
instead of just staying with the safest job they can find.

------
binofbread
The title is a bit misleading in my opinion, but it was a good success story
nonetheless. Congrats to Brad and the team.

Edit: By title I meant subtitle. I think it was changed on HN.

------
justplay
does that guy/founder is an HN user ? I dont see any of his comment, though he
mentioned Hackernews in his article.

------
joshdance
I liked it. Seemed more honest than many posts about acquisitions I have read.
Congrats to the team.

------
finalight
wonder what the rest of the employees will do...find new job or just relax for
their entire life?

------
green22803
I'd probably have said "We Sold Our Startup", but otherwise, congrats to them!

------
yunfangjuan
Congratulations to Perfect Audience. It's a great outcome!

------
danielweber
Damn, video with audio plays as soon as I go to that page.

------
andywood
Congrats!! That's a pretty big win!

------
fedxc
Well done. No need to read any longer.

------
jw989
Why are there no waffles?

