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Giving up on Venture Capital raising
- chime 9y agoCan't read the post without creating a LinkedIn account. Anyone have alternate source? Edit: Turns out LinkedIn doesn't like my VPN.
- laurencei 9y agoFYI - I'm reading it now without a LinkedIn account? Not sure why you are getting a wall? Try an incognito session maybe?
- mirimir 9y agoNor mine :( But: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:emrfbzINTvEJ:https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/given-up-venture-capital-raising-congratulations-henrik-molin+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:emrfbz...
- lordnacho 9y agoGood points, but there's still the fundamental problem of investing: either you try to make profits now, on the scale that you can do that with your current resources, or you try to make a bigger bang later on which will pay for your early losses. It's the same as "should I go to university or start working now?" or "Should I spend my days fishing with this spear or invent a better way, eg a net? If I take too long I'll starve." All the points he makes have a double-edged quality to them: keep more of the company, but what if getting a VC boost would give me a smaller slice of a bigger pie? Build something small now, or build the killer product for next year? Keep things simple, or home run later? Focus on things that matter, or pay for someone to come in and cover those bases? Build culture, or let it emerge? There's an ecological aspect to this as well. If a lot of firms can make big bets, it reduces opportunity for a smaller player to grow into the niche that's being fought for.
- k__ 9y agoI think most people fear that they move from building for customers to building for VCs and customers. I saw plenty of companies that took in VC money on some premises that hdd nothing to do with their market. "We give you 4m if you add a SaaS option for your on-prem product that has about <100 potential enterprise customers and scale it to 10k customers"
- falcolas 9y agoThere is another alternative to VCs: the traditional business loan. It strikes me as a middle road here, since it won't be as large, or be capable of multiple "rounds", but you retain control of your company.
- mdorazio 9y agoDefinitely an option, but remember that small business loans generally require collateral and are much harder to come by than VC money if you aren't profitable. For a startup targeting rapid growth, there often isn't collateral (unless you want to personally guarantee the loan, which brings in all kinds of risk factors), or profit to speak of.
- lquist 9y agoAlso, without paying high interest rates and warrants (i.e. Venture debt) you'll be stuck with a personal guarantee before you hit ~$25M in revenue.
- keyle 9y agohm dead link anyone?
- Yizahi 9y agohttps://pastebin.com/Z3W8X3BR https://pastebin.com/Z3W8X3BR
- donmb 9y ago"Sales is what you want your CEO to focus on, not flight-jumping to deliver investor pitches, 3-minute conference quickfire showcases and endless networking." Strongly agree with this one although networking especially in a startup should not be underestimated. Its extremely important especially in smaller regions (like mine) to build up a solid network as a company noone has on the radar.
- petard 9y agoNetworking at events where you are customers are can be the start of a sales funnel.
- atomical 9y agoJust do an ICO.
- devrandomguy 9y agolikesharecoin