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I've never been in the position of taking VC funding, and I don't expect to be in my life, but if I were, I don't think I would. It seems to be a recipe for des
by coldpie 7y ago
I've never been in the position of taking VC funding, and I don't expect to be in my life, but if I were, I don't think I would. It seems to be a recipe for destroying your company ~5 years down the line. Perhaps the early founders get out with a bunch of money, and maybe that's the point, but I just don't think I'd want to do that to my employees and the people who came to depend on my company. If you don't have a sustainable business model from day 1, you've already lost, haven't you?
- stagger87 7y ago> Perhaps the early founders get out with a bunch of money, and maybe that's the point
- chipotle_coyote 7y agoProbably, yes. Personally, I don't think too uncharitably of Patreon's founders; I genuinely don't get the impression that they started the service because they thought it was a way to make oodles of money, but that they genuinely saw it as doing good for small creators. But I think they let themselves be talked into the idea that they could be the Next Big Thing if only they took enough VC money to follow the "ramp up, get big, and then figure out how to pay for it" model that a lot of startups during the last decade took. The vast majority of those startups failed while they were still small, and the vast majority of the rest only ended up "successful" by selling out to someone else before the bills started coming due... but that's not the story that most of us wanted to hear back then.
- draw_down 7y agoIt’s not about the company, it’s about the founders. They will still get rich if they’re not already. They certainly have elevated profiles in SV. They’re set pretty much no matter what. The returns are the VC’s problem. You can always start another company.