Top all-time · #19732
Neil Thanedar
Personal blog · neilthanedar.com · on HN as thanedarpoliticsstartups
Neil Thanedar's personal blog at neilthanedar.com covers politics and startups. Since 2014, 3 different Hacker News readers have linked it 12 times, most often “We need a middle class for startups”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-07-27, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (2) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Neil Thanedar's posts on startup funding, including bootstrapping, non-dilutive funding and whether Y Combinator is worth it. One commenter cites his earlier advice to stay indie.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 2 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Hi! I'm Neil Thanedar. I’m an entrepreneur, investor, scientist, altruist, and author. This is my official website where I share my ideas, notes, podcasts, and videos.
Most-linked posts?
- We need a middle class for startups3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2022-05-10
What Hacker News says?
One problem with this model is that founders shooting for “Mittelstands” may not need/want to give away equity. The author’s previous post actually advised this [1]: > Advice for Founders: Stay indie as long as possible. > Take advantage of new bootstrapping tools and non-dilutive funding sources. Raising VC funding increases growth potential but reduces optionality. Startups can always raise money later. >It’s near…
Comment linking /we-need-a-middle-class-for-startups/
on “Y Combinator for Mittelstands?”Submitted We need a middle class for startups as a story · 899 points
HN discussionThese $10M-$1B revenue businesses are great buyout targets for corporate and private equity firms, and these companies are increasingly going public at the higher range. (About 1/3 of PE exits last year were via IPO). I dig into the data here: https://neilthanedar.com/we-need-a-middle-class-for-startups... Mittelstands are allowed to partially or fully exit. PEs do invest in Mittelstands at $10M+ revenue. But there'…
Comment linking /we-need-a-middle-class-for-startups/
on “Y Combinator for Mittelstands?”Submitted You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving as a story · 291 points
HN discussionI mentioned this in another comment - pre-Mittelstand investing is also driven by power-law 100x+ returns. If you invest $100K at <$1M valuation pre-revenue in 100 pre-Mittelstands, 1-5% of those companies are going to get to $100M+, 10-30% will get to $10M+, and 50%+ will get a positive exit. There is a robust buyout market between PEs and corporates for these companies. Yes, this is a form of venture capital. But…
Comment linking /we-need-a-middle-class-for-startups/
on “Y Combinator for Mittelstands?”Submitted Y Combinator for Mittelstands? as a story · 80 points
HN discussionAgree. I have yet to see YC publish figures on founder returns - they mostly talk about the successes. https://jaredheyman.medium.com/on-the-life-and-death-of-y-co... Amazing video on bootstrapping: https://youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw There are funds trying to succeed at the many-small-successes model of investing - personally I am skeptical (from my own experience) because the natural failure rate is so high (b…
Comment linking /we-need-a-middle-class-for-startups/
on “Is Y Combinator worth the money? Brutally honest review of W22 batch experience”Submitted We Need a Y Combinator for Politics as a story · 8 points
HN discussionSubmitted Revolutions Start as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Public Ventures: How Governments Can Run VC Funds as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Tech startups: The worst get rich quick scheme ever as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Lowercase Politics as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
