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Comment by ncmncm | Hacker News Reader

$20M revenue is not the same as $20M profit.

It’s not the same, but if those 20M is primarily generated by the software, then it’s those 3 ppl, who contribute to the top line. The rest, like sales, marketing, are irrelevant: fire them and the product will keep generating revenue off the existing customer base. It will stop doing so, however, if the product brakes. So, the post above is right to an extent, this is the golden goose. ))

Unless the revenue is for products ordered on the site and shipped to paying customers. Believe it or don't, this is still done at some sites that are not Amazon.

Not if they're spending $19m in google ads to make $20m in revenue.

> team is 3 people, quite junior.

Even at FAANG salaries this wouldn't be that much compared with $20M

You don't know what the costs are though. The site could have huge costs of content acquisition or any number of reasons to not be making anywhere near $20 million profit.

The engineering team might be 3 people but not the whole company.

Yes, but the parent is saying this could be an e-commerce website, or construction company, etc. But having an iOS app feels unnecessary for most of these businesses

a lot of field operations these days are done on phone or tablet apps, so I can totally see an ios developer being vital for internal processes

Revenue isn't the same as Earnings Before Salaries either.

E.g. maybe it's an e-wholesaler or widget reseller, bought $19M goods and sold $20M. Or maybe it was much slower than expected, they actually bought $25M goods and are burning 500k/month on warehousing. Or whatever.

Assuming profitability is even a problem, if $20M in revenue is coming from just 3 devs, the driving cost of the company isn't the tech. It's other parts of the company. That would be be another red flag against the leadership.

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