chrija

What does it take to raise capital, in SaaS, in 2023?

Simple calculator for founder salaries

The missing guide on how to keep your startup's cash safe.

Very cool! :)

Trying to answer that question, on a napkin.

Tom, please feel free to DM me as well.

christoph (at) pointninecap.com

(You might get an autoresponder but I’ll look for your email)

Hi Ganesh,

Thank you!

We’ll work on our website and email wording to try to avoid misunderstandings like this going forward.

Best

Christoph

Christoph here from Point Nine.

No, we didn’t do that. I can confirm that with certainty even without having asked everyone on my team.

I’m trying to find out what was going on and will post more details ASAP.

Hi, Christoph from Point Nine here.

We do NOT do what you’re suggesting here - discriminate against Indians (or any nationality). This would be horrible and stupid. Our own team comes from various countries, and so do the founders of our portfolio companies.

As for countries that we invest in, we’ve invested in lots of different places. In fact, that’s one of the things we’re known for. We haven’t invested in e.g. India or China yet but that may change over time. Point taken that we shouldn’t say ‘everywhere’ as long as we’re not ready to invest everywhere - will make sure to change the website wording ASAP.

I agree, I don't expect the kid additions to fully cover the costs. Trying to cover these costs fully is probably unrealistic, as it would lead to a very large salary spread between, say, a founder with 3 kids and one with 0.

The good news is that once you have kids you won't have time for parties or expensive hobbies anyway ... and the joy of having kids makes up for the financial disadvantage several times over. :-))

I'm not sure if you've read my post. If you read it, you'll see that I wrote:

<< The numbers in the model reflect what I think is market and fair based on the data points that we have and some industry benchmarks that we were able to get. However, our data set is quite limited and the numbers produced by the calculator should by no means be taken as the ultimate truth. If you disagree with my assumptions or have seen different numbers in the market I’d love to hear from you! >>

No need to assume bad intentions.

The reason why I ignored the data is that it was in stark contrast to several other data sources that I've seen. But it's a good point, I need to look into this again. I will also contact the research team of that study and ask how they collected the data.

Same here. I think this is the right attitude. By the way, this even goes for micro VCs, we didn't (couldn't) pay ourselves a salary in the first year or so.

If your goal is not to double every year, at least for a number of years, and to eventually create huge enterprise value, you shouldn't raise venture capital. If your goal is to grow a little slower and to get a good salary (or dividends) rather soon, you should use a different way to finance your company.

Yes, paying one founder more than another can cause conflict. But it doesn't have to. It really depends on how everyone in the founding team feels about it.

FYI, Zendesk was a "pre Point Nine" angel investment from me that I made in 2008, but I wasn't aware of these discussions among the founders. Maybe they took place before I joined or they wanted to keep them to themselves.

Thank you for your comment!

Making the case for becoming a founder using math is tough. It's well possible that the expected value is higher for an employee career because, as you say, most startups fail, although it's difficult to do this comparison really well methodologically.

I think if you become a founder you do it because you just want to start your own thing and love the freedom and satisfaction of working on your own idea. And maybe because you think you can beat the odds and get rich.

As an aside, the probability of a startup to become a unicorn may be 1 in 10,000, but the chances for a more modest (but still financially very rewarding) outcome, say a $20M exit, are of course much higher. Also, you learn so much as a founder that your chances increase for your 2nd or 3rd startup.

It erupted 200,000 years ago, 40,000 years ago, 35,000 years ago, 12,000 years ago, and 500 years ago. We're talking about Campi Flegrei, a volcano in the metropolitan area of Naples (Italy), one of the most densely inhabited areas in the world. This is a very serious matter.

It erupted 200,000 years ago, 40,000 years ago, 35,000 years ago, 12,000 years ago, and 500 years ago. We're talking about Campi Flegrei, a volcano in the metropolitan area of Naples (Italy), one of the most densely inhabited areas in the world.

My own tests confirm these numbers.

Thanks, glad you like it!

Glad you like it, thanks for the comment!

Did you take a look at David Skok's posts and templates already?

Agree - which is why I called it "A simple KPI sheet for early-stage SaaS startups with a low-touch sales model". I would argue that one can create a sexy dashboard for an enterprise sales based model too though. :)

Great suggestion re. YoY numbers, Boris. I didn't include it in the template because I've entered only a few months of sample data, but in real-life this should definitely be added and I will keep it in mind for the next version.

Barry, many thanks for the kind words, LONG time no speak. :) CalendarHub was ony of my very first investments, an angel investment before I really became an angel investor so to speak!