
Startup Death Clock - g0atbutt
http://thestartupfoundry.com/deathclock/
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elbrodeur
We have a death clock on our company dashboard. Cash on hand/burn rate/revenue
are updated a couple of times a month manually. We have yet to figure out a
way to get the data programmatically.

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buro9
What do you use for accounting?

If you use something like Xero.com then you can use their API to poll for the
data whenever you want (though likely daily unless you're also performing
reconciliation via the API).

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laaph
Last time there was noise about startup death clocks (let me find the link to
the last discussion later), I thought it was a good idea but not at all what I
wanted. What I wanted was to be able to plug in the actual income/outgoing for
individual months/days and be able to see when the trend lines change, or
choose which time frames to calculate over, and not just to determine "when
will I run out of money?" but also "when will I become rich?" using the trend
of the last month, six months, year, total, what have you. Not only that, but
early in a startup, in/out costs can be highly variable month to month.

So I implemented some basic java scripts to record and update incoming and
outgoing transactions and I realized as I was starting to put data in, that I
would much rather not input all transactions but just get the data from my
bank.

Then I realized that this would be much better as a plugin for a ledger/budget
balancer program, or for something like mint.com. And I kind of abandoned
progress on it there, as I don't use mint, and I started looking at various
programs to help me track money but realized that keeping a spreadsheet of
"money at start of month, money at end of month", still works fine for me, and
with some macros I can determine what I want to know.

So... for some one who does use these programs, would a plugin (or just a
script on exported data) be worth it? Should I learn to use mint or gnucash or
whatever for this?

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chime
I posted my app here last week and lots of people liked it:
<https://zetabee.com/cashflow/> \- I use it for my personal expenses but you
should be able to use it for a small business.

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jacques_chester
Neato. Feature suggestion: add a waterfall chart.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_chart>

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vtail
Try entering anything with monthly revenue >= monthly expenses.

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WillyF
Bootstrapped, profitable, and proud!

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borism
try entering monthly revenue == monthly expenses

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fabiandesimone
$2000 in revenue a month and I'm 37 signals? I'm flattered :)

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Jabbles
Please don't superscript the "1/2".

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g0atbutt
P.S. Little easter egg - Watch the clock as you plug in your numbers.

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jedsmith
If you accidentally mouse down on the page and begin selecting things (I do
this habitually), Chrome will begin scrolling right, and then you're unable to
scroll back without doing the same in the inverse. Weird.

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fairlyodd
Meh. All I get is "37Signals?".

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27182818284
Yeah I don't really follow either.

    
    
        if(revenue >= expenses && expenses != ''){
            $("#time").html("<span class=\"white\">37</span>signals");

~~~
ludwig
This might explain it for you: <http://www.quora.com/Is-37signals-a-lifestyle-
company-Why>

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mikiem
Oooooooh! I get it now. According to this death-clock, my larger than small
but smaller than medium company that is making very good money is a lifestyle
company, like 37signals is. Actually, that's true! But do me a favor, don't
tell anyone that. Please don't tell my hard-working and talented employees,
for whom I am very grateful. Please don't tell my friends and siblings or my
vendors. Let's just keep this between you and I. Thanks!

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DarkShikari
Apparently since we're earning money, we're 37signals.

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xbryanx
I'm working on a death clock right now. It's called the yearly budget for our
non-profit grant funded project.

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MattGrommes
Is this an ad for 37Signals? They're the only startup with revenue exceeding
expenses? I don't get it.

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katieben
Haha this is hilarious! Reminds me of the death clock that was so popular
forever ago - oh man, it's still alive and kicking!
<http://www.deathclock.com/>. Wonder how much that guy made all these years.

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iM8t
If you type in enough 9's in the "cash on hand" slot, the "middle box" will
get out of bounds. Should add some JS to make the fonts a bit smaller when
there are too much symbols in the row ;)

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g0atbutt
I noticed this too but I figured if you have enough "9's" in the bank, you
probably don't need to use a Startup Death Clock :)

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Jacquass12321
I just amused myself by figuring out when rounding would kick in, I set the
delta of cash in and cash out to 100 and put in 99.99 then just began
appending 9's to the end until it switched from 'now' to 'one month' never has
.000000000000009$ mattered so much.

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doctororange
We've been using a similar death clock in a spreadsheet, but it calculates the
date that we go broke. Nothing to fire you up like impending doom!

Not sure why a break even company == 37signals though...

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Keyframe
This doesn't work for me in any browser at all.. clock just spins around and
message says: is your startup 37signals? Or I have missed the joke.

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g0atbutt
You might have caught me mid-upload on a script. Sorry about that it's working
now.

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Keyframe
You're most probably right, works now!

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beck5
200 revenue, 200 expense, 5 in bank == 37 signals?

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kingsidharth
o.O It says ours is dead "Now?" hah. nope money ain't the only factor.

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zspade
If only it were this simple.

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dpcan
Please elaborate.

If you aren't making enough money to cover your expenses, and you have no cash
on hand, how are you still in business?

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leftnode
Because if you spend $100 a month and make $200 a month, you're profitable,
but by no means living off that money (at least in the US).

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reitzensteinm
Sure, but if you absolutely need to take a salary, why not just include that
in the expenses?

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mkramlich
Color.com

revenue: 0

expenses: $100k/mo (who knows, but let's err on high side)

cash: $41m

dead in: 34 years

nothing at all wrong with their raise. nothing at all.

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po
$100k/mo is high? They have 7 founders and a 400k domain name.. I bet they
burn more than that.

 _Edited: I should add that yes, 100k/mo is high for a normal startup. :-)_

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shareme
dead in 1 years?

Is that Julia Allison grammar?

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ashleyw
Fixed :)

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blantonl
Is this another sign that we are entering a Web 2.0 bubble? You bet it is!

37 signals is sending an awesome message to the community; one that emphasizes
that you don't need millions of funding and that net income is your #1
objective as a business owner. Make more money then you spend. End of story.

I love the message.

