Proposition HN: I will pay $8000 for you to build your side-project/MVP
This discussion is awesome! I would never have believed such a simple conjecture could provide so much illumination around the myths and realities of startups.<p>First, its a great deal, both for hmexx and folks who take him up on it. Frankly I think it could be revolutionary. My reasoning is as follows;<p>Many "products" over the last couple of years have been fairly straight forward web "apps" built on top of existing infrastructure. They provide some basic customer value, they tend to be fashionable (moderate lifetime), and generally take less than a year to produce.<p>That is almost exactly the same as the book publisher model.<p>So hmexx sets himself up as an MVP "publisher" and pays "authors" $5000 up front and a 50% interest in the proceeds going forward. Now lots of new book authors would <i>love</i> that deal because they know how to write books but they have no idea how to promote them into bookstores and Amazon's top lists etc. Unlike books though web apps don't pay out a revenue stream on per-unit sales. Instead they tend to either a pay a chunk via a buyout, or they generate income over time with advertising/partnerships. If we're talking about "apps" for mobile then there is a revenue stream very similar to books.<p>So I reason its a good deal because the content creator has a much better chance to benefit from their creation than previous generations of artists had.<p>Now as an illumination, the whole 50/50 thing shines a light right into the core of the startup 'dream' mentality. It is the idea that you will start a company that becomes the next Facebook and you become a billionaire over about 10 years of nights. 50% of zero is zero, 50% of a billion dollar company is $500M worth. The closer reality is that if the idea has 'legs' then you can expect a series A round that will reduce both of you to 33% and then a series B which takes you to 20% to 25%. If you get there you're probably making a decent salary and have some small but non-zero shot of a return.<p>Every year somebody makes over $50M on one of the big lottery games in the US, its only like once in 5 years that people make over $50M from their startup. The good news is that fewer people have the chops to "buy in" to a startup lottery ticket.<p>So that is the reality. If you want to make some money, buy a house, raise a family. Go work for Oracle or Apple or Microsoft or Google. Don't do startups for the money, do them because you are passionate about what they are trying to create. If you do them for the money you will become bitter and depressed.<p>But this offer, to be paid $5000 in exchange for a half interest in the lottery ticket you create? Given the 'two, three month' worth of work estimate. There is not a whole lot to complain about.