I have a really difficult decision here and wondering if anyone has had something similar.<p>I've been working on my startup for about 2 years now. It's been a long, slow road as I'm a solo founder and have bootstrapped the company.<p>After 2 years, I'm finally starting to make some serious traction and have been picking up some big customers. I'm now able to steal customers from my competitors who have raised close to $100M, and I'm in talks for a funding round with investors.<p>I'm more or less broke though and have been struggling to get by. Then due to a bug in the system, I got hit with a huge AWS bill last month that wiped out most of my remaining runway. So I'm kind of fucked...<p>A friend reached out to me today who has been trying to recruit me to his company for years. He's offering a salary close to $400k. So really tempting being how broke I am.<p>I'm not sure what to do. Continue to work on my startup that's finally seeing progress, give up and take the job, try to do both? One idea is to take the job and hire someone to run my company...<p>Any thoughts?
"I've already maxed out all my credit cards, cashed out my 401k, and sold almost all my assets."<p>Take the 400K salary job for a year or two. Pay off your debt and keep working on your business on the side. Of course, you may need to be transparent with your friend about it.<p>I am all for risk taking but it should be "calculated". It seems like you are in serious risk of going off the cliff because lets face it, an AWS mistake wiped off your runway so it means you don't have a lot of it to play with.<p>So yea, take the 400K job, keep working on your stuff on the side and once you have some breathing room, get back to it fulltime in a year or so.
If I am in your case, I would:<p>1. Get the job. 400K would be quite a salary that would allow you to save.<p>2. <i>AND</i> Continue with your startup, by being on an advisory role. Delegate the business to someone you could trust (difficult, but possible). After office hours, you put in time to gauge how your startup venture is doing.<p>It is not quite easy to get a startup to a point where you are actually making solid progress. Of course, you would want to ensure your own survival as well.<p>Best of luck.
What valuation are these potential investors giving you?<p>You have to consider missed salary as an investment in the company. Assuming you could have gotten a somewhat similar salary 2 years ago, that means you have a bit under 1 million "invested" in the company. Each year you're putting in another 400k.<p>IMHO, unless you are really about to blow up and start making half a mil in profit a year, take the job. Save your money and in 5-7 years you will have enough to more or less retire. Then start another company and do it without being totally broke.
You have numerous options in this situation.<p>Some could say that a feasible strategy might be to put your startup in hibernation mode. However, by doing that you might lose the customers that you just recently got. Sales is also a long term relationship. What this means is that if you put your startup to sleep, when it wakes up, your relationship from your customers at that point might have to start from the beginning.<p>Now let's say, you didn't close your startup and you decided to take your friends offer. So that would mean your startup would not go into hibernation mode and you get to maintain your current relationship with existing customers. And you can continue prospecting for customers and do the whole sales cycle thing.<p>But, how do you get to work a full time job, and not put your startup into hibernation? I think one of the things you can do is to delegate/outsource/hire someone to manage/develop the existing startup for you. Essentially, you don't even have to think about your startup, you just have to pay for it. Although it is true that hiring someone to run your startup is a different issue.<p>Let me know what you think
Only you can really answer this question. How feasible is it to achieve profit, scale, exit over a short timeframe with your startup? How deep are your potential investors pockets and can you use your job offer as leverage for the valuation and salary if you continue with the startup? 400k/yr guaranteed is pretty good, especially if you’re broke. You should have a very high degree of confidence in your startup to pass it up. Unless you can raise money fast and pay yourself 200k you should probably take the job and continue the startup on the side.
If you are good enough to get that 400k offer now, you’ll be good enough to get it again later. The same can’t be said for a startup that you’ve been working on for two years.<p>You’ve invested two years in this startup. If you came here saying it wasn’t working, I might say you should quit. But it sounds like <i>your business is going well.</i> So why not stay the course and see where it takes you? You’ve already invested two years worth of money and declined opportunities. What’s the harm in saying no to a little more money and opportunities?
> "I got hit with a huge AWS bill last month that wiped out most of my remaining runway"<p>This is exactly why I don't use AWS. I need 100% predicable billing.<p>Lately I have considered looking into AWS again, since their system is just leagues ahead of competitors.<p>Mind explaining how this "bug" caused such a massive bill? Did you not have alerts set up? No protections against scaling? Etc.
This isn't an answer to the direct question, but I've found AWS to be very understanding on issues of accidental overuse. If it's clear from your history that it was a one-off occurrence, considering giving them a call and seeing if they will refund/forgive some portion of it. It never hurts to ask.
A few questions:
Is the business generating income? If so, how far from breakeven if you do some combination of cut staff, increase prices, or similar?
Is there any way to pick up enough side income - can you sell any consulting to your existing customers along the line of business?
Have you taken in any funding?
Maybe sell your startup to some investor and keep some equity stake and then join your friend's company. This will help you recoup some of the hard work that you have done as well as have stake in its future growth.
I have been where you are, more than once. This is the true path of an entrepreneur and not for the feint of heart. I used to tell people that doing a startup is like being perpetually 'half way through the desert and out of water'. There's no turning back and no easy way forward.<p>My advice is to stay the course and scrape by. Scrounge, beg, delay, do whatever it takes to get over the next hill. A nine to five job will not solve any of your current problems in spite of its appeal. What's worse a high profile role will exhaust you leaving little or nothing left for your project.<p>By persevering you will impress investors and future employees with your ability to endure and commitment to your goals. Don't give up, never surrender and kick a little harder - you will succeed.<p>And when you do succeed, people will tell you how lucky you are!<p>FTW
A 400K salary and you are tempted? Come back to reality. Hire someone to run your business and put your efforts towards the job that will give you an actual life runway.
It's worth noting that you should go ahead and turn on AWS spending alerts, if you haven't already. Those should help prevent runaway expenses.