Ask HN: What do you consider "making it"?

[vaksel]

At what point in your startup adventure would you consider yourself successful?

The point where you can get off the ramen diet and start buying all those toys you promised yourself you'd buy when you "made it"

[pedalpete]

Short answer, never, particularly when you are still calling yourself a start-up. Once you've 'made-it', you aren't a start-up anymore, you're a big business, and big businesses still need lots of work to keep them successful.

Long answer - when your piece of art is complete. A great book, 'Finite and Infinite Games' lays out my feelings on this. Your first STEP in success is when you are really in the game. I've launched a few companies that nobody cared about. Got no traction. There was very little reason to keep revising the product/project because I wasn't in the game. Other times you hit on something that people care about, and that is making a difference. You work like mad to churn out new products and satisfy the demand. You are in the game. That is success level 1, and it goes from there.

I think the big problem with saying "how do you know when you've made it?", is that this isn't a sprint or a marathon. It's a life. You've never 'made it' in life, if you're done, then you're dead. When do you know when you have breathed enough? When you have eaten enough? If you stop working on your product/business, it will go stale and die.

You can 'get out', sell, hire others to take over the day to day tasks, but what do you do with yourself then? I think some of PG's comments regarding the 'artist' in programmers/innovators is just that. An artist doesn't stop painting once they have sold one painting. So your current project leads to the next, etc.

I would say to answer your question, that only you can decide when your current piece of art is done. If you're making great money, fantastic. If not, maybe you love this project so much that you'll continue with it anyway.

Basically, have an exit strategy, targets, goals, etc. But none of these are 'finishing lines', they are markers on the coarse. Like aid stations on a cicuitus marathon coarse. They let you know that you have reached a significant marker, but don't stop running, 'cause you are still in the race.

There are still things to do, problems to solve, art to build. The journey is the destination.

[endlessvoid94]

Great answer. It's the journey not the destination. In almost everything.

[fallentimes]

Having the site/business pretty much run itself and grow slowly but surely. I don't care about the toys - if I could have 100k a year in passive income I'd be set. "Making it" for me has much more to do with disposable free time than disposable income.

Edit: Issuing dividends to our investors would be great, but probably isn't a requirement.

[petercooper]

I have good news for you! You can easily live on $15,000 a year in many areas of the United States and you would have all the disposable free time you wanted (if that income was passive, like the $100k you mention).

[andr]

That's what you say now, but if you ever get to that point, you'd miss the excitement of the whole process and you'd want to do it again. So free time is not something an entrepreneur would really want.

[Angostura]

I'm not a typical HN reader/user. I'm a one-man consultancy outfit, helping businesses sort out how best to use Internet technologies for internal and external collaboration. I also help untangle knotty workflow problems, you get the picture.

"Making it", as far as I am concerned is having a steady stream of people coming through my door through personal recommendation with really interesting problems - enough in fact that I can turn the less interesting ones away to other people.

I get to make money, I get to help people (I know it sounds sappy, but I love it) and I get to think about interesting problems.

It doesn't get much better than that for me, it really doesn't.

No. I haven't quite "made it" yet, I only started out as an independent a few months ago, but I've had enough of a taste of it to make me a very happy bunny.

[bprater]

Awesome, you are in a good place if you love your work. And because you love it, it'll continue to pay dividends for you.

[eisokant]

For me it's about making something a success in the eyes of the users. Built something people love using. Then make it a business that maximizes it's profits. Then move on to the next venture. I don't want any toy's and I don't need any recognition but what I do want is the sense of achievement once you've built a profitable business. Hence I hope to one day have created a million dollar company not for the money but for having overcome another challenge.

[DenisM]

$15 milllion net worth after tax, or $1 million yearly income, whichever comes first. Today's dollars, adjusted for inflation.

[bprater]

I'd say that is pretty accurate. We need a new version of "wow, he's a millionaire".

[Darmani]

No matter where you are, "made it" is always one step above you.

[rms]

I see no reason to set the bar lower than National Sovereignty. There are just so many things you can't do without your own sovereign nation.

[snprbob86]

I think you've made it long before you are buying all those toys you promised yourself. That is, assuming you promised yourself any toys. Me? I just promised myself that I would be my own boss, have fun, and make just enough money to not have to argue over who pays the left over dollar after dinner.

[ComputerGuru]

At the point where the only thing to describe your feelings is "Content."

[unalone]

Once you feel like you can do other things, any other things, without feeling that you're taking a risk in doing what you feel like.

[mmmurf]

I think it's when you are doing it for the love, and it's also successful. The convergence of pleasure and productivity (in an economic sense).

By this logic, as a founder you may realize you've created something successful and fun but it's time to bring in different people to do things that you are no longer economically optimal to do.

Jeff Bezos is a great example of someone who clearly has a fun time every single day and whose creativity is still vital to Amazon's performance.

[jamesbritt]

Never having to wear pants again.

Unless I really really want to.

[kalvin]

Having created something that's made life (offline, RL) better for a huge, broad swath of people.

[icky]

"Making it" is a journey of several steps:

1. Realizing you haven't been checking price tags on food or household items for a while now.

2. Making money faster than you can find things worth spending it on.

3. Being well-off without having to work full-time.

4. Being well-off through actively-managed passive income.

5. Being able to sail around the world and come back richer (through passive income, not sea trade nor piracy nor fortune hunting ;).

6. Being able to do what you want, where you want, when you want, without the permission or approval of anybody.

[shiranaihito]

I like this list :)

I'd be fairly happy at number four already, because I could just decide to go hang out in various countries for x months at a time without having to worry about money.

[markessien]

Anybody who does work just so that he can one day not work, will find his contentment threshold pretty quickly. He will find a satisfactory job with enough free time and will stop dreaming.

[espadagroup]

I have no illusions with myself about wanting to live a comfortable life at $100,000. Making it would be this:

Financially: $1,000,000/Year in passive income.

Socially: The Espada brand being universally recognizable and associated with my name.

Automotivally: Lotus Elise, Bentley, the biggest legal monster truck I can find.

Personally: Having no fear

Some might think this is superficial, though I know precisely what I want and don't apologize for it.

[mikeyur]

Steadily growing business. Steady income that can provide me with the necessities and a few toys (about $50k/yr after taxes). Free time to deal start other projects and do what I want.

[incomethax]

When I felt I've really changed the world for the better.