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Comment by mdnormy | Hacker News Reader

Define "successful startup"?

Countless of people have started small and stayed small. I think it always been like that traditionally. You start a business, you grow it till its big enough to serve your niche market, and you pull in few million every year for the rest of your career life without much effort.

I used to work in manufacturing industry and this model is more prevalent in their whole supply chain. You could own 1 factory with less than 20 staff, producing 1 type of component(bolt/glue/bracket etc) and be done with it.

However, if you define successful startup, as multi-million dollar revenue organization, that's another story.

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I suspect the original poster may have meant a startup that is on a mission. Perhaps not necessarily to build a business.

See: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html - the essence being that a startup is designed to grow fast, and have an impact beyond simply enriching the founders (not that that is a bad outcome either).

Seriously, what is better than that? Having a cashcow that will generate you a few million a year, so you can actually live/enjoy life?

Some people are not happy with just a few million, they want more.

Being someone who owns a company with no investors that makes money (ie sort of a cash cow) I can say its not that you want more money....

Its something more disgusting that comes with success... you want more success.

Its the same with athletes like Tom Brady that could easily retire but don't. They keep playing because they like the challenge and they like to win... not the paycheck.

Power

Power does not only come from money, though (but is obviously a part of it). Having, say, $50m in the bank does not by default give you power. In most cases, you will still need to run in certain circles and be accepted by certain people.

You have it backward, you get access to those circles with money.

Its a chicken and egg scenario. Money confers a certain level of power. Power, however, does open doors to opportunities to make money.

An example of money granting power would be Donald Trump. Do you really think Trump would be where he is politically if he wasnt wealthy?

An example of power opening doors to money is Barack Obama. He and Michelle were nowhere near wealthy 10 years ago. Now, after several book deals, speaking engagements, and much more, they are financially in a financial position that many Americans would consider to be wealthy - albeit nowhere near Donald Trump level.

Revenue != Income. Gross profit (before paying any taxes) will probably be a fairly small percentage of turnover in manufacturing - you have to pay employees, purchase supplies, etc...

EDIT: just looked it up and most of "industry weeks"'s Top 50 manufacturing companies seem to have profit margins in the 10% range: http://www.industryweek.com/resources/iw50best/2015/48

I'm talking about a few million in after tax profit, not revenue.

Say $3mil in net income means a company doing between $20mil to $40mil in revenues. Which typically means between 100 to 200 employees.

This is not "stay small".

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