PG: A Fundraising Survival Guide | Hacker News Reader

PG: A Fundraising Survival Guide

paulgraham.com

21 pointssmanek15 comments

This was already posted last month: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=270809

Perhaps PG gets a pass

It isn't at all unusual for dups to get upvotes, whether they're pg essays or not.

I'm surprised that the same URL minus "www." doesn't automatically count as a duplicate.

Technically, you can have one site on www.website.com and another on http://website.com and hence they can be considered different and unique.

Certainly, though it seems rare in practice. I suppose the possibility, however small, is enough to warrant not automatically assuming anything.

Because unless the HTTP response is a redirect to the www. url (or vice versa) it's technically a document available at a distinct URL. For most servers, the two hostnames point to the same server (and vhost) but it's conceivable that they might not.

You've got a similar problem with arbitrary appended query strings.

I guess the clean way to handle this would be to detect very similar URLs and ask the user if it's the same document.

I posted to YC about the bootstrapping aspect of it (at 3am -- it didn't make the front page but contained interesting feedback).

Basically, we did it successfully by taking it to extreme with no outside VC or angels. Profitable with millions in revenue. It CAN be done.

Here it is: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=295627

It looks like you've built a consulting company. MOST people are talking about product-centric companies when they talk about bootstrapping startups. Having bootstrapped on both fronts, I can tell you that it's literally night and day.

Don't get wrong-- bootstrapping a services company is a great accomplishment (my first company was a consulting firm-- I sold my interest in it when it was about your size)...

With a services company, you can be profitable tomorrow. When I spun mine up, I made two phone calls and had $95/hr work coming out of my ears (in 1997 FWIW). Voila-- bootstrapped! From that point on, it was just managing headcount and sales pipeline.

Of course, the downside is that services companies are rarely valued very highly when you sell them. And they don't scale very well... Recurring revenue is scarce and your a slave to your sales pipeline.

My apologies. I didn't realize it was a duplicate - I just assumed if it was the dupe filter would catch it.

I can't seem to delete the submission now though ... I'd appreciate it if one of the mods could.

Thanks.

If we're going to rehash PG's essays let me say my favorites are:

http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html

http://paulgraham.com/die.html

This is a great idea since the story is already at the top any way.

I've understood equity from a financial standpoint for a long time, but from a conceptual and value standpoint this essay did it for me: http://www.paulgraham.com/equity.html

http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

"It's a bit like anaerobic respiration: not the optimum solution for the long term, but it can save you from an immediate threat. If you're having trouble raising money from investors at all, it could save you to be able to shift toward consulting."

Nice analogy.

Finally, a well articulated antithesis of the 37signals Kool-Aid.

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