To whom? I'm just a regular guy and I'm not impressed at all by raising money, I've seen utterly incompetent people do it. I am supremely impressed by someone getting 10k paying customers.
What we have found here in the UK, is without profitability, raising an A-round is near enough impossible. The UK Start-up/Inventment scene is still very much in it's infancy and investors are reluctant to give sums anywhere near the figure Ryan has quoted without a 'profitable' business. Well done to the team for creating a fantastic service all whilst spending time with family, highly commendable!
I'm obviously being facetious and while I don't want to be "that guy" dismissing what appears to be a very respectable business, mentioning revenue & customer numbers without mentioning profit values or percentages irks me.
This is probably because of 8 seasons of Dragon's Den and 3 seasons of Shark Tank that have impressed upon me just how few people understand that a large turnover means nothing; "turnover is vanity; profit is sanity". It's not easy to achieve a large turnover, sure, but it's also meaningless unless it is associated with a reasonable net profit.
Having read through a few more comments I suspect the author's business is probably turning a decent net profit, but, nevertheless, the post seems incomplete without this data or at least some form of confirmation (e.g. "our net profit is between 10-20%").
EDIT: On HackerNews, a place for entrepreneurs and consequently the presumably financially literate, I'm being downvoted for pointing out that terms are missing from the profit & loss equation being presented, with nobody stepping up to explain why there's something wrong with my criticism?
EDIT: it only takes one or two people out of all HN users to make it look like everyone's against you, so I try not to take DVs to heart.
I think it's great to be excited at the potential for success, and the reason I come to HN is because it is invigorating and motivating to see the success of others, and to learn from their experiences.
However we must not forget that the vast majority of small businesses fail. In the best case, that's the entrepreneur's money and time expended; hopefully on the upside some lessons were learned and the financial hit is not too bad. In the worst case, it can be the life savings of investors that may be family and friends, as well as relationships, that are lost; furthermore, bankruptcy is a distinct possibility. So, my feeling is this is extremely serious stuff that requires direct, hard-hitting commentary - not a softened message that's potentially easily dismissed.
Business is combative - it's always competitive. If people are quick to ignore the realities of the most basic details of business (the profit & loss equation), and take offence when that criticism is presented, does that not seem a bit of a concern? Would you invest in somebody like that?