I Sold My Startup For Millions, Then Worked at McDonalds
In this 2010 acquisition retrospective, @organicgrant reflects on the journey of bootstrapping and successfully selling their business.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Unsolicited buyer inquiries versus running a deliberate auction process require very different negotiation leverage.
Bootstrapping for years without external capital provides extreme freedom, but exits are often triggered by energy depletion as much as financial gain.
Retaining ownership of code and operations creates pride, but transitioning to an acquirer requires letting go of absolute autonomy.
Community Debate Themes:
Hacker News peers debated transaction structures (cash vs earnout), founder tax strategies, and life after liquidating a long-term indie asset.
CATEGORY Startup Exits →
HISTORICAL ERA Web 2.0 Genesis (2007–2013)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 35 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 14 comments
I worked at McDonalds. It was an abomination. So much so that I never ate there again, and that was well over 8 years ago. I didn't need the job. I basically picked it up as a second job when all my friends went off to college and I still had another couple months left because our school started late. It wasn't worth the extra cash. I was derided on a daily basis by customers who looked down upon me (despite the fact I was going to be majoring in Physics). When my manager noticed that I was reasonably intelligent, they took off early and left me to run the entire restaurant which was utterly exhausting. No one respected health codes. The other employees were living proof of how destructive the food is to your body. In fact you could almost tell how many years (or months) they had been there just by estimating their weight.
Working at McDonalds taught me a few lessons. 1) Never date anyone who eats at McDonalds on a regular basis. They don't care about their health and well-being. 2) Always treat others with respect. 3) Be happy and grateful for the opportunities you have in your life. There are less fortunate situations you could be in.
A good job for talking with real people is working as a telephone market researcher - basically a poller. You have a huge list of randomly generated phone numbers, and a handful of questions about brands, current events, and politics, and you just call people randomly, asking what they feel and how they like subject X, Y, or Z.
I worked as one for a month. It was a very enlightening experience - actually listening to what people wanted and felt - and answering to the hostile respondents as well. On any given day, I would talk to over 100 of my fellow citizens, and got them to tell me their income, what they felt about politicians and the law, which banks and credit cards they use, how they like their barbecue set up, how often they surf the web, which websites they repeatedly visit, etc.
It was great fun at times - but a hard, grinder of a job - the turnover rate was massive.
I'd be more interested in knowing why he quit McDonald's. I had (teenage) friends who busted their asses there...many say it was the toughest job they had.
Sounds like he wanted to experience life as part of the proletariat, but discovered that "American Beauty" was well, just a really good movie.
I have a long list of places I like to work given a certain level of free time and financial security. McDonald's isn't on it, but UPS is.
he probably worked there for a few weeks, so that he could use it as an interesting tidbit in his interviews