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Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

50k from 20 people is 1 million. That's a big investment for most people, but not restricted to the wealthy.

I'm sorry but you're vastly overestimating the average person if you think 99% of people even in Western Europe or the US simply have 50k they can afford to put into a high risk startup as an investment. For most that is either a full year or close to it in income. Their friends and family are absolutely quite wealthy if they have this kind of capital to invest.

I think most people have more than 20 people that qualify as friends and or family. So, 99% is hardly need and when you get closer to retirement a risky bet that's not going to break you if it fails can also seem like a good investment.

If it works awesome if not I work another ~3 years.

I am not saying it's a good idea for most people, just it's more possible for a wider range of people than you might think.

While your perspective may be correct for you and others in similar financial/privileged/fortunate situations, the vast majority of America isn't.

I can speak for myself personally, since I have no generalized data, but I have several _close_ friends earning within the top 5% of the nation. Even _they_ would have trouble parting with 50k on a risky investment. They'd _want_ to invest, but that's not an insignificant amount of money to part with for them.

How close are they to retirement age? I ask because income takes time to turn into wealth. I used to think of 1,000$ as a huge amount of money, but given time to build up assets and some relatively modest pay increases and that's no longer the case.

PS: The other thing that happens to most people is eventually their kids move out of the house. That opens up a lot of possibilities even without a pay bump.

Also people tend to forget that putting money in 10 startups each year is investing. Putting money in 1 startup each 10 years is gambling.

Not to nitpick, but if you have 20 friends and family members who are not only able to make a $50,000 high-risk investment, but actually do so, you are probably wealthy.

Many of us in the HN community have wealthy friends. I'd wager that few us of could get 20 of our friends to invest $50K in our startup.

i have 8 friends

$50K * 0 = 0

> 50k from 20 people

For similar friends & family rounds I've been involved in, you'll have one or two people cut $100 to 500k cheques; a few with $25 to 50k cheques, and then some from $5 to 10k.

Anyone with 100k+ in assets that they can give out with a check is deep into wealthy. If you know people like that you are in wealthy circles.

The majority of Americans can’t come up with $500 in an emergency.

yep persuade 20 people to drop 2-3 years wages before tax. Easy right?

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