The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
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Ingram: Founders spending over two years building a product have already lost
“I can't tell you how many startup, you know, entrepreneurs or wantrepreneurs, whatever you want to call them, keep telling me like, oh yeah, I'm building my product. Well, when'd you start? Two and a half years ago. Okay. You've lost. You've lost before you've…”
Ingram: Startups should aim for a one-third debt, two-thirds equity ratio
“One ratio that I like to look at, this is independently, so this isn't from, you know, any particular firm that, that pushes this agenda, but I like to look at it like a one to you know, one-third on debt and two-thirds on equity.”
Distro books full developer salaries as its own top-line revenue
“That would be top line. So that's the full marketplace charge. So like the full salaries and everything. So the way we recognize revenues, we take the whole thing in.”
Ingram: Startups cannot compete with big tech remote salaries
“Like how do you can't compete with that. Like there's really nothing you can do about that. And it's only getting worse.”
Ingram: Job ads attract weaker engineers; top talent must be actively recruited
“The problem is, is that only the less qualified people are applying. The really qualified people are happy where they are. They're being recruited.”
Ingram: Spending a year building Distro's initial product would have killed it
“In the first few months we started building product, within, I don't know, six weeks or so, we learned that what we had already built needed to be deleted. What if we had built that for a year? We would be done. We would have already missed the boat.”
Ingram: Startup headcount should be variable and scale with sales
“Your sales are variable, and so should your head count be.”
Distro.io targets 25% take rate on developer payroll
“It depends on the geography. So usually in more, more Asian countries in India, we can take a little bit more, but it really just depends on the geography, but we try to get to 25%.”
Ingram: Distro is tracking just under $2 million in annualized run rate
“So we just, we're just a hair under two million of error currently.”
Startups prioritize timezone over cost, shifting remote engineering to South America
“What we found is that it wasn't a money thing. Though they're saving money, they were really concerned about, you know, Just getting the right team members with the right experience and time zones. So we're finding that most of our customers right now are, and…”
Ingram: Distro has had zero platform circumvention from clients or developers
“So all VCs I've talked to, even some customers that have asked us, well, you know, like circumvention is your biggest problem, right? Well, we haven't had that happen yet.”
Ingram: Jump spent $1M monthly, including $900K on payroll
“We were spending, like, about a million a month in total expenses, and, like, 900,000 or so, some, somewhere in that range. It's been, like, four years, something. We were spending on, on payroll, and of that, about a third of that was going to our engineering…”
Ingram: Traditional dev shops create lack of control and team misalignment
“And so but you know, that comes with a lot of disadvantages, like, you know, a lot, lack of control. You don't know you're hiring. They're not, you know, they're not like in your team infrastructure. They don't really understand the purpose of the products the…”
Distro.io developer placements average $11k to $12k monthly
“I would say, yeah, between 11 and 12, you know, depending on experience.”
Ingram: Distro is targeting a $3M fundraise while profitable
“So we think that three will get us to where we need to go. We can definitely take a smaller number because, you know, a little bit more context, we're profitable right now.”
Ingram: Distro nets $15k to $20k in monthly profit
“So we'll net, you know, 15 to 20,000 a month right now.”