Assuming this was an acceptable exit: I'm impressed that NPM pulled this off. They were basically doing the "no revenue model to speak of, hope we'll get acquired by a bigco" startup play that was starting to go out of vogue already when they were founded.
I wonder to what extent they've had influence over their own success at all though. Basically they had to hope that JS stayed popular (it did), that Node stayed relevant (it did) and that the entire JS ecosystem would move over to NPM (it did, but I'd say rather despite NPM than because of it) (I mean, otherwise Yarn wouldn't even exist, right?).
So basically their bet was:
- Turn NPM into a startup
- Keep the lights on
I bet I'm missing all kinds of key behind-the-scenes stuff, but still, I don't know many startups that manange to successfully exit by "just" keeping the lights on. In a weird cringey way, it's motivating.
"I have a set of goals that I wrote down back then, and have shared openly with the team.
...
3. Get a big enough exit that I can quit my job and see what comes out of me a second time.
4. Share the rewards equitably with the people who got npm to where it is.
...
On (3), well, I’m still working a jobby job, but I always knew that was a long shot, and “make npm a better package manager” is a job I enjoy. And as for (4), I’m proud of the deals that we’ve been able to negotiate for the team.
It’s not a kajillion billion dollar 10x startup cinderella story, and we’ve taken our hits, but in the end we’ve done right by our community, team, and careers, and I’m extremely proud of what we’ve achieved."
Not sure how good an exit it was. Crunchbase says they have fewer than 50 employees [0], so I'm guessing the first 10 people did pretty well but that the rest got what amounts to a nice bonus.
Keeping the lights on long enough makes this kind of exit more likely. Paul Graham has a good article about this: http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html
NPM did better than "just" keeping the lights on, though. They even held Yarn at bay by adopting its best features very quickly.
I wonder to what extent they've had influence over their own success at all though. Basically they had to hope that JS stayed popular (it did), that Node stayed relevant (it did) and that the entire JS ecosystem would move over to NPM (it did, but I'd say rather despite NPM than because of it) (I mean, otherwise Yarn wouldn't even exist, right?).
So basically their bet was:
- Turn NPM into a startup
- Keep the lights on
I bet I'm missing all kinds of key behind-the-scenes stuff, but still, I don't know many startups that manange to successfully exit by "just" keeping the lights on. In a weird cringey way, it's motivating.