Once you take money, the clock starts ticking | Hacker News Reader

Once you take money, the clock starts ticking

cdixon.org

83 pointsdwynings16 comments

Isn't the clock ticking, whether you take money or not? I don't know many people who can continue working on an idea without seeing progress of some type. You can get demoralized and quit if it's status quo for a long time.

There's progress and there's progress. If I 10x AR's revenue this year that is pretty motivational for me. If I had taken money last year, though, aiming for "just" 10x would set me up for a very unpleasant series of conversations when the money ran out.

A subtext of this discussion is that taking money means that some outcomes which are wins for the entrepreneur but losses for the moneymen become untenable. (Outcomes which are wins for the moneymen and losses for the entrepreneur, on the other hand...)

Unpleasant conversations?

Seems an odd thing to focus on. They gambled on you in hope of making more money, it didn't pay off. Of course it won't be a fun conversation to have, but why are you worrying about that now?

He means "I'll be fired from my own company, even though I'll have made more money for the business than I ever had previously".

Yes but then it's on your terms and schedule, not somebody else's.

If you have any pride in your work then there's always a clock. Whether it measures money, time, progress, or self-worth. The clock is always ticking.

For people who don't care about the outcome. The clock doesn't exist.

I clicked reply so I could tell you why I disagreed with what you wrote. I take pride in my work but have not been too concerned with the clock. Your implication that this just means I don't care about the outcome felt like a slap in the face.

But then the more I thought, the more I realized you were right. Regardless of how much pride I take in my work and how much effort I put in, if I care about the outcome, I have to monitor my progress regularly. I have not been doing it for one of the most important projects of my life and thanks to you, I will start now.

I clicked reply so that I could tell you that for a moment I envied you. Taking pride in your work while not being too concerned with the clock sounds to me like a perfectly balanced life to pursue.

I take extreme pride in my work and I am always aware of the clock ticking. Every. Second. A wise and accomplished person once said to me that in the end nothing remains but personal relationships. Take good care my friend, lest you lose in the process much more important things in life that you are now enjoying.

> Taking pride in your work while not being too concerned with the clock sounds to me like a perfectly balanced life to pursue.

Indeed. That is exactly how I felt. But it does lead to prioritizing the journey at the expense of the destination i.e. outcome. Hence my realization that I need to pay more attention to the outcome.

It's a bad analogy. Once you take investor funding, the die is cast. You can pivot (to some extent, now that investors have learnt what that means), but you can't change the scope of your company. Will it be a lifestyle business, a niche player, or the next big thing?

Sort of, but not nearly as much as after taking pro or semi-pro money.

It would be great to know which companies were on to something but simply ran out of money. Someone else could take the same idea and try it with a smaller budget and be more focused from the start.

Doubt it would work out that way most of the time. You wouldn't have the same experience/knowledge/insight.

The same people could probably re-do a company smarter though. Foursquare is Dodgeball 2.0. Twitter is sort of Blogger evolved.

> Twitter is sort of Blogger evolved

I think you nailed it.

I agree it would be interesting but it does assume there is such a thing as being "on to something" which could be separated from ability to execute.

A massive part of success is execution and a big part of that is being able to work out what you can achieve within whatever financial constraints exist.

I guess one potential way of generating some data might be to look for startups which were gaining significant traction but then ran out of cash?

I am shocked at entrepreneurs that can't instinctively understand this without the need for a blog post from Chris. While experience as an entrepreneur will teach these things, I've always chalked this up to plain common sense.

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