Pretty sure that your in the “effective altruism” swim lane then.

Also, sometimes business has a bunch of different feels…

#Feelings are not facts

You can choose to do the next right thing without running on warm fuzzies. It’s discipline. Thats a thing.

If it’s a profitable business, there are definitely buyers. Just Google “business broker” in your area.

It’s basically like hiring a Real Estate agent to sell a house, business broker’s act as an agent to sell your business.

My small business helps other people raise money, so we’ve had a handful of potential clients that are in your shoes and decided to just sell instead of keep running it.

My understanding is that nationally the business brokers have 400,000 more BUYERS than sellers. It’s all kinds of businesses.

You absolutely could sell the business, generic napkin math is that businesses typically sell for about 3x revenue.

The broker has interested buyers, and sets up the loans etc for the buyer. You can probably set up terms to do “turn key” or a 1-2 year step down to help transition the company.

Don’t just mothball the thing, sell it.

Agreed. Nothing annoys technical people more than johnny-come-latelys who imagine they can learn your whole career in a month.

If OP loved code, it probably would have already come up in their life.

I do think everyone should learn something about technology project management, software design life cycle etc. - but not everyone needs to learn how to code.

Don’t bother getting an MBA, those cover what you need to know for upward mobility in a large established corporation. It’s not useless in a startup, but a very terrible ROI.

Audacious enough to think: “Everyone else is wrong, I can do it better.”

AND

Humble enough to say: “If I’m doing this wrong, for the love of gawd, TELL me!”

Plus, the ability to just plain keep getting back in the ring - even though it means getting your ass handed to you, AGAIN.

Then you go cheer up the little feet behind you, and get ready to take another punch to the face.

Annnnnd do that for 10 years.

Keep an eye out for startups that have just raised some money.

They almost always raise money to spend it, and a chunk is going to dev staff or marketing.

It’s just business. The contract prevails.

Five years in, and the guy has no plan for sales at all?

The board should fire him, and move him into sales… and get someone suitable in place.

Their are these bagged salad kits that are like 2 for $7… I get the large sided rubbermade tupperware bowls, it will hold a whole bagged salad.

I do like to cook, so 1-2 times a week I tend to make some kind of soup, chili, curry, shredded chicken for tacos, etc. I usually make 4-6 pounds of meat at once, and freeze the rest in the single serve gladware.

Sometimes if I’m trying to do lower carb, dinner is just some mixed nuts or cottage cheese with dill relish.

It really depends on WHO your potential customers are…

Trying to make a sale to another company is different from trying to sell to consumers.

I personally prefer NOT to spend money on fancy building space until the damn thing pays for itself.

Thats why “startup chic” was historically brick n timber buildings in some warehouse district.

I’ve been in the startup scene in my city for like 10 years now. EVERY single team that overspent on office space got their ass handed to them by year 3-5.

I actually use expensive office space as a negative modifier… to me it looks immature, like they are playing house with other people’s money.

OR, they took money from someone who is making them pay rent with it…

I knew a team spending $25,000 a month to rent from the VC funding them. How is that not money laundering. HOW THE FUCK did they not just BUY a building for that much?

That being said… I won’t go to places where parking is stupid, or they have stabbings in the parking ramp elevators. Ideally it’s easy to get a Lyft in and out without waiting 30 mins.

I also reflexively hate fancy law offices. Cool cool cool, that $500 an hour bought another stupid chandelier & cherry wood paneling.

Uh, how did you guys raise a round without doing this math first?

If they don’t have the money, you can’t get blood from a stone.

If the company is going nowhere, the best bet might be to push to sell the IP to a company that can actually use it to make a profit.

In short, you might be looking to get acquired in some M&A. In that case, it’s like selling a house, you want it to look nice, not torn up.