Ask HN: What to do after selling startup? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What to do after selling startup?

30 pointsbuggy_code51 comments

As a young, recent college CS graduate interested in startups -- I'm curious -- what do most of you plan to do after selling your startup? (And for those who have sold startups already, what do you spend your days doing?)

Contributing to open source projects? Teaching middle schoolers how to program? Traveling the world wasting money on drugs & hookers?

I'm kidding on the last one.

It almost seems like "day jobs", besides providing a basic source of income, also provides a social environment for one to live in.

Thanks!

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I have no particular intentions of exit-via-selling. Rather, I'm more of a mind to "hack capitalism": fit a job around what I want to do in life (find a nice young lady, spend more time with my family, feel the grass under my feet once in a while) rather than fitting life around mostly inflexible work obligations.

I like work, don't get me wrong. There's a certain dignity to it, and I'd go bonkers if I wasn't solving problems for somebody. I just don't feel the need to do the traditional 9 to 5 thing. Or the 8:30 to zomg o'clock thing, which is slightly more traditional for Japanese salarymen.

I have always thought you would be awesome at taking someones product and taking it's web sales to the next level. Is that what you are interested in?

This sounds alot like the "Monk and the Riddle" philosophy. Is this what you're getting at?

Often, go to work for the company that acquired your startup for a period of several months to several years. Few deals are structured so that the founders can just walk away after selling. Beyond that, the most common path it to start another startup. It's addictive!

Start another programming project that interests me, but without monetization considerations in mind this time.

Where would you live? In your own house? On your own island? Or somehow work in a company that lets you spend your free time working on an open source project?

Possibly in my own house on my own island ;P

But I'd certainly go for maximum independence so going to work for a company if I don't have to (which presumably I won't have to if I sell a startup) is out of the question. I want to be able to pursue crazy projects that might or might not turn out to give results.

Oh, and I'd crank up on my knowledge of theoretical CS too.

Apparently starting a startup for startups is becoming a more and more popular post-sale activity.

I got out of programming as a necessity and in to doing things for the love of it. Teaching, evangelizing, helping people out, mostly. For me, programming was/is a means to an end, not something I enjoyed doing.. but helping other people to learn and enjoy programming is something I enjoy. (As an aside, I can now sympathize with those professors who teach subjects without having any commercial experience of them. It helps, but I don't think it's a prerequisite to being a good educator.)

How did you transition? Do you hire programmers now to build stuff, instead of doing it yourself? Or is the nature of your business just much more content/marketing oriented now, so you don't need much (new) technology?

While I'm not a fan of grinding on code for hours anymore, I still code a little but for the ends rather than the means. I've become content and outcome focused rather than code and technology focused, so I can "outsource" to existing technologies/apps (e.g. a Wordpress install that does 90% of what I want, rather than a custom CMS that does it all).

I've looked into outsourcing to other people but find myself too much of a micromanager to get away with it. No-one deserves micromanagement so I avoid it. Everyone else seems to want to turn trivial tasks into big "projects" with budgets to match ;-) - but that's because they're professional coders with standards, whereas if I can use an off the shelf product or bash something messy together in Ruby in 2 hours, I'll do that instead.

Professional coders tend to gasp in horror at my philosophy and I can't blame them. I'm very much of the "duct tape" mentality when it comes to engineering. Thankfully, you can get away with this on your own non-critical projects.. (it's a bit like the welder who doesn't use a mask when doing his own stuff in the garage) but I don't advise it for career programmers because otherwise you'll end up on The Daily WTF every week ;-)

Thanks for your insightful answer, Peter. I think a lot of entrepreneurs have to wear far more hats than what their strengths and/or preferences are. As you've said, I think one luxury of a level of success is to "retire" to one's preferred areas.

Side note: Having to do significant work in one's areas of weakness/aversion is what makes the initial phases of starting up disproportionately challenging.

I think you've nailed it all a lot better than I did! :)

I've already said I plan on setting aside a certain percentage of my net worth to angel invest back into startups. I want to help people who were like me when I first got started at 18 (clueless but relentlessly passionate on building things that can change the world).

I'd most likely do a startup again (and again) at some point, but angel investing could easily become a full time startup.

I'd also spend a lot of time setting up a non-profit that introduced young kids to technology at an early age. I was pretty lucky that my dad got me onto the computer when I was four. There are a lot of kids in bad areas of the world that aren't that lucky.

I guess in short, I want to help give people the same opportunities I had from people that believed in me. With a good amount of money, you can do that on a much larger scale.

"Don't start a company unless it's an obsession. If you have an exit strategy, it's not an obsession."

Interesting viewpoint. The one I've heard is: if you DON'T have an exit strategy, it's just a hobby.

That came across my Twitter stream yesterday, seems it's from Mark Cuban after Googling:

http://blogmaverick.com/2008/03/09/my-rules-for-startups/

To me personally, thinking too much about exit strategies in an early phase startup seems like premature optimization. Thinking about what you're going to be doing after you sell a company that's just getting off the ground is bordering on mental autoerotica. It's like debating what you're going to do after you win a gold metal in the olympics when you've just started training. There's so much ground to cover between here and there that it'd be better to focus on making sure you qualify.

It's the difference between a supergoal and a supergoal.

What if your exit strategy is death?

I traveled for a couple of years, then went back to get a PhD in mathematics.

Are you a professor or a research scientist now?

I have pondered this route, but it seems that in general, the research community / academia tends to "shun" those that don't do straight undergrad -> research.

Neither yet, but I feel like I've been accepted by the academic community and the opportunity is mine to lose.

I dropped out of my undergrad CS program to do my first startup. That was 15 years ago. When I decided to go back for a PhD two years ago, I still had to complete my undergrad. I'm finishing up this spring and will be starting at a top 10 graduate program in the fall. My grades from 15 years ago were not particularly good and my background is rather unusual. I wasn't sure how I would be viewed as an applicant. This was not a easy year for admissions and I feel I did extremely well.

I know two other people went back to study math after working for a while. One is now a grad student at Brown, the other is a postdoc at MIT.

I'll probably waste some time contributing to open source projects and then invest into hookers :) Really, if your only reason to do a startup is to do something else after that - why bother? If you like contributing to open source projects - contribute now! You like drugs and hookers? What stops you now?

What stops you now?

My credit balance.

Yeah, on the surface. But some people are making decent living that way, so you may get into the business if you really like it, you pimp ;)

"wasting"?

I'd buy my parents house from them, and let them finally retire. I'd travel a bit, then setup a small office and start working on my list of ideas.

Having sold my startup, the money gives me flexibility to do what I want!

Personally, I am i. managing an open source project ii. picking up/tasking the kids to school (generally spending time with the kids) iii. biking regularly to get/stay fit iv. lunches with friends v. looking for the next "thing" I want to get involved in

Ahh .. but you can see I am a little older than you!

I haven't sold my start-up, nor has it publicly launched, nor do I want to sell it if the opportunity arises, but I'd imagine you go on to your next big idea.

The people who do startups like the freedom of working on their own thing. That doesn't extend to just startups. Design video games, or direct a movie, or start a band.

You usually have 3 stages (based on the successful guys I've met before):

A) Vesting period- after the initial sale, you take on the day job of either (a) doing what you were doing before, if you were properly aligned in incentive structure, or (b) doing something different that they bought your team for. For some, they find that they have now reached a state in corporate America that allows them to vault to the upper echelons of management, while others feel these days don't go by fast enough.

B) Soul-searching/vacation period- for those who don't stay after vesting, some people go and soul-search, Entrepreneur In Residence gigs, live 4-hour workweeks, travel copious amounts, become advisors or investors in other companies, or find their original cadre of friends to start hacking on stuff. Some start dating.

C) Next gig- depending on the riskiness of the individual, they may never sell another startup again and become the circling crew of technology professionals, others will compete with much furor with another startup, while others will forget their hacker roots and take $5M from a big VC firm on an unproven idea.

Being a VC/Angel seems pretty fun, but knowing myself, I'll probably get itchy and want to jump back into the game at the first opportunity I see.

I'm just launching own startup this spring, so I cant say for sure...

But if I succeed, I'll probably keep doing what I do now - code, blog and do startup once again.

Certainly read this: http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/

1) I would start all over again. If I was successful once I feel I could be successful again. 2) I have an idea for a non profit I want to start and knowing that I could financially support myself and have money to start this I would get it rolling 3)Invest. I may not have the next big thing but I'm sure other people out there do and I would like to help them out because I will have known what they are going through.

a) Trip around the world to go race on every famous race track. Pretty much covers a lot of Europe + Asia.

b) Setup a "Hey everyone, I got some money, and want to be an angel investor...send me your ideas." page. Invest into a couple of promising startups.

c) Start thinking of something new to do. And then do another startup.

I don't like the way that life is controlled by money, id much rather live life freely, and that's what I intend to achieve in part, by either selling my startup or just making it so automated that I can earn a living without working 40 hours a week.

Then id probably go and see the world and all of its wonders.

Buy a house at the beach. Start going to more conferences. Read a few books. Then start working on the next idea.

If the amount of money were adeguate, I'd probably try and help other startup founders.

Prove the Riemann hypothesis.

We should join forces and prove both.

Play golf. I thought that was the whole point of starting and then selling your own company. Plus, country clubs offer socialization opportunities. Even if the people are a bit snooty.

Start my next one. I have ideas that scale - more grand and higher risk.

I'd also work less when "not at work", and focus on my family.

Really depends on what it sells for, but I have a much riskier and expensive startup which I would fund from the sale of the first one.

You can start a small seed funding VC group, and name it after a cool trick in mathematics which defines recursion.

Also I would maybe write a hacker community site in an obscure language for fun - and just not care how long it takes. That's luxury.

Golf, lots and lots of golf.

actually seriously already the last one.

Start again.

proving that P != NP

I'd stay at home and watch mind rotting daytime TV in my pants. Lots of fatty, unhealthy food and perhaps a sprinkling of masturbation. Bit like the weekends really.

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