This is really getting silly. Years before I ever thought of turning LISTSERV
into a commercial product, my customer list included the Pentagon and SAS.
I didn't even have a basement, let alone a company. And I wasn't selling the
product, the occasional corporate/military site came knocking at my door (the
license agreement only allowed free use in academia) and I thought "Why not?"
and got a check. And of course the Internet wasn't what it is today, the
opportunities for selling the product outside academia were slim to none! Nevertheless,
my customers included the Pentagon and SAS. And L-Soft had hundreds of customers
and a staff of three when we moved out of the basement where we started.
Most new customers assumed that we had over 100 employees and a big building
with an L-Soft flag floating over the parking lot, but it was just the three of us and
two desks. We were seriously worried about losing all our customers if they found
out. Nowadays people are getting used to small Internet companies, but in 1994
it was another story. Besides, nowadays we're looking into buying the building with
the flag and parking lot (if you know of any opportunities in MD, please contact
[log in to unmask]), so we don't need to worry too much about that, although some of the
most conservative prospects still consider it problematic that we don't have a ticker
symbol.

Anyway, there's nothing wrong with basement companies with three employees,
but they simply don't operate the same way as normal companies do. For one
thing, when your only costs (apart from your and your partners' own time)
are phone bills, Internet access and the occasional computer purchase, the financial
picture is radically different. When your actual costs for closing a $8k sale are around
$20 in phone calls and other petty expenses, and the rest is all profit that goes straight
into your pocket (well, your share does), you are a lot more likely to stay up late
implementing whatever feature the client may have wished for, because you're actually
being paid around $1000/hour! Even with stock option plans and every other conceivable
motivational trick, it just isn't the same situation when you're a salaried programmer and
your wife just called to say your daughter wonders when Daddy is coming home. This
is why it makes no sense to compare these two situations.

  Eric