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Comment by JohnJamesRambo | Hacker News Reader

Are there examples of companies that said “this is enough money” and stopped concentrating on having ever increasing profits every quarter to satisfy VC or stock investors? I think of this a lot lately. It seems companies don’t want to just do what they do well anymore and be satisfied with that. Can someone give me some inspiration? Companies that have such pride in their work that they aren’t constantly looking for the next thing they can take on to grow and instead just focus on being the best and most ethical at what they do? Are there examples that this business model is actually more sustainable than the one where you are constantly trying to grow to more more more?

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> Are there examples of companies that said “this is enough money” and stopped concentrating on having ever increasing profits every quarter to satisfy VC or stock investors?

Yes, except they're most often private companies and not publicly traded. Many of these inspirational companies are family owned and operated. Eventually, however, someone will get in charge of the company who isn't satisfied with "good enough" and they'll take the company public or accept investors and choose to place profit over concerns like customer satisfaction and employee well being. In other words, eventually someone will decide, "My pocket book is more important than the community I live in."

If you want inspiration, look at the Chelsea Milling Company, makers of Jiffy mix. It's nearly 90 years old, has approximately 65 percent of the pre-mixed cornbread market in the United States, and has never had a marketing department and does not advertise.

That's a great example and a great product. We could all strive to make a product as good as Jiffy.

Off topic: I love the Jiffy Mix except last I checked it has trans fats in it. I wish they would remove that.

IIRC, trans fats were banned in the US. I don't think it works be legal for them to contain them anymore.

Partially hydrogenated oils, a major source of artificial trans fats, have been banned. Not all trans fats have been banned and they are not all artificial, they are also naturally occurring.

Jiffy corn muffin mix doesn't contain partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and contains zero grams of trans fats per serving (I have seen it claimed that products may have less than 0.5 grams per serving and round down to zero).

https://www.fda.gov/food/ingredientspackaginglabeling/foodad...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat

https://site.jiffymix.com/product/

I believe it did last time I looked at a box of it that I had in my kitchen. Maybe they removed them a little while back?

That's very possible. However, looking at 3rd party site that lists ingredients and nutritional information, Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix did not contain partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and listed zero grams of trans fats [0]. The site doesn't list when the information was added but the comment history goes back to 2011.

They do also have a page for a Jiffy Baking Mix (no corn, sounds similar to Bisquick) that did contain partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, enough for one gram trans fats per serving.

[0] https://www.fooducate.com/app#!page=product&id=43DBDE62-E10F...

[1] https://www.fooducate.com/app#!page=product&id=43BFE144-E10F...

I work at a SaaS product that hasn’t taken any VC money. We have a modest staff, everyone gets paid very adequately, and we slowly are growing our business as our margin allows us to.

It’s not glamorous, it’s not explosive, but it does create a great work life balance. I have little fear of losing my job because we’re running out of funding, or having to build something we don’t believe in to appease shareholders.

I don’t even describe it as an internet startup to people, I describe it as an internet small business.

I would love to run such a saas business. Unfortunately, we have to hire and increase revenues just to be cash flow positive and for that we have to hit the streets with our VC pitch bowls.

Imagine if you ran a company that didn't rely on outside investment.

How? I am not rich enough to pay for hiring or smart enough to be best in every aspect of a startup. I need to hire people to help me out and I can't take forever to build the business without earning anything in the meantime.

The way it's usually done is start small and focus on profitability from day one. Don't hire until you're making enough money to hire. If you can't start it by yourself or with free labor (from friends etc), well not everyone can succeed in every kind of business. You have to pick what you're good at.

Another way is to start small in your spare time focusing on a need that's so close to you that even if you never made a dime you would still get benefit from it. That way you can grow slowly until the business makes enough that you can quit your day job and focus on growth.

You don't have to be the best at anything, as long as you're good enough at everything. I can't think of any business that has the best employees for every aspect of their business. Lots of companies get by on just "good enough" for most of their non-core business tasks, and good enough is good enough for that. You only need the best at your core business, which you should be if you're the one starting the business.

Hundreds, thousands even.

They don't show up on HN, they aren't doing anything glamorous or cutting edge. Just small to mid-size businesses building and selling products that people use.

If you haven't found any, it's because you haven't looked in the right places.

That’s true, but do you have any examples that you can share with us? I’d be curious to read more about these companies and how they got to where they are.

Look at any business in your town that you haven't read a headline for, and it is probably a private company where the CEO/founder/boss just keeps the ship upright and the staff paid.

One of my friends growing up had a family business like this, it was a company that, from what I gleamed, just melted different grades of steel and rolled it back up according to customer specifications. His grandpa started it, and his dad runs the day to day. It has a staff of maybe 50 people in the whole factory so everyone knows each others family pretty well.

I am reading a newly published book "Company of One" that promotes a mindset of serving a smaller number of customers very well vs. growing and going for quality in everything your business does. Recommended.

I love the question you're bringing up. I truly want more companies to make this a goal.

A couple I can think of are MailChimp and possibly Atlassian.

I believe VC funding is mostly a trap for companies that, while it supplies and can incubate startups, ultimately just leads to more greed and never satiated investors. They'll just keep moving the line of target growth until the company is driven to the ground or, hopefully, it buys itself out of the shackles.

Maybe I simply haven't read too many stories of companies doing the latter.

All companies are beholden to their owners. When a company owns itself, they can make different decisions than when there are investors or share holders.

A company can’t own itself. It’s employees can, but not the company.

I think what you describe is actually common, but those companies tend to stay small and local so they don't make the news.

The way it's been explained to me, a company stock that pays regular dividends is basically the company saying "you investors deserve these profits rather than us trying to reinvest it in the company and grow". An example of the exact opposite would be Amazon, who notoriously almost never makes a profit on paper.

While that's historically true about Amazon, they have switched to "profit mode" in the past few years, and their net income has grown incredibly.

craigslist???

That's a really good example. Thank you.

In textile, Patagonia is a nice example (https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/patagonias-anti-...)

Do you mean like Buffer buying out it's investors?

https://open.buffer.com/buying-out-investors/

"This is enough money" generally not being a thing is an inherent issue and contradiction of capitalism. Hopefully more people will realize the absolute ridiculousness and damage the idea of infinite growth the system has baked into it causes to people and nature.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19105733

Basecamp.

DHH made a nice post about it a few years back (2015) https://medium.com/signal-v-noise/reconsider-41adf356857f

Craig’s list

Gumroad.

Not really. Perhaps of late, but Sahil was pretty clear that they chased growth (building features that weren't core to the product) to try to get that next round of VC, and that growth stagnated; the company didn't intentionally restrict growth.

https://medium.com/@shl/reflecting-on-my-failure-to-build-a-...

SpaceX?

I don't think so. While they do have a feel-good narrative about space exploration, they're still focusing heavily on growth (and profits down the road). They definitely haven't said "this is enough, we don't need to grow anymore."

However they haven't apparently pivoted into weaponry.

They have a relationship with the DoD to launch national security satellites.

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