[Mz]

The terms of the deal allow us to mostly pay back our investors in full and would line us up with great jobs. It is not the exit we dreamed of but it gives us a nice story for the future and allows us to "wipe our hands clean".

Given the amount of stress you are dealing with, this sounds like a good thing to me. You get to undo the damage this has done to your finances, I assume it also would let you get the surgery you need and you can stop running yourself into the ground.

What are you hoping to get if you don't take this? What makes you hesitate to take it? Are the things that give you pause genuinely realistic scenarios or issues?

[tiredandseeking]

We have been amazingly blessed to get as far as we have so I think I'm hesitant because there is a chance that we can make this work despite my burn out and personal desire for stability. The reasons for accepting would be personal and although we would be able to return most of our investments, this is not what we set out to do.

My main fear is limping out of this a few years from now. With the money we have raised, we do have runway for a small team for a few years. But given the technical maturity of our product, we should really be in growth mode with the intention to raise a series A in 18 months to 2 years. Our current projections make this story seem a bit far fetched so we have to make a decision of whether to keep fighting along with the same product or to try something entirely different.

You hear the brilliant stories of Instacart and Mattermark and Slack where a later stage pivot turned out to be the greatest decisions of a lifetime but you don't hear about the stories that don't work out. I was 100% willing to spend a year working my ass off while learning a ton and meeting awesome people, but now we are talking about 3-4 years going towards an uncertain future.

[Mz]

Let me suggest you sit down with a piece of paper and write up four to six scenarios. Either best and worst for both choices, or best, worst and "most likely" for both scenarios. You may find that one choice has better outcomes in all cases or that the worst case scenario for one is so bad that it makes no sense to hope for the best case scenario, knowing you will live in dread of it possibly going the other way.

The other thing you can try to do is arrange a "third option." Can you get a break, even a short one, so you can get some rest and make this decision under less psychological pressure?

My dad was diagnosed with a clot in his leg when I was 17 and was told they wanted to amputate. He said "Can't we try something else first?" He was told they could, but odds were poor it would work. He wanted to try it anyway. He got to keep his leg.

If there is some way to say "no" to all the worst case scenarios -- to get some breathing room and try to make a saner decision -- that is the way to go.

I hope that makes some sense. It may not be very well explained.

[TheRealmccoy]

If you need someone who could work with you on sales part, please do write to me, my email is on profile. I have diverse sales experience of different industries and have lead sales team of more than 400 direct people, nationally.

I was also a founder for 52 months.

I would not ask for money for next 6 months. We can take it forward beyond that.

It is not money that I am after, it's the redemption and I hope you would understand.

[keeptrying]

You have been focussing on this thing for a long long time. In your own words you think it's a long shot.

Now imagine you're an 3rd party investor. You have $200k "return", health benefits, vacation, savings in one year on the one hand and a startup with your size stake with your current idea on the other. Which one would u pick?

As a selfish investor which would u pick?

I don't know the terms of your deal but you should be able to sit down and make an apples to apple comparison.

[pc86]

If you can pay your investors back in full, surely you'll be taking a decent amount of money off the table as well? Or is their preference crazy relative to yours?