"If you aren't doing everything that the deck suggests, your startup probably isn't going to do well." It depends on the business models. Some companies can be

"If you aren't doing everything that the deck suggests, your startup probably isn't going to do well." It depends on the business models. Some companies can be built cheap and they can reach profitability quickly. Not all companies can follow this model. Sequoia doesn't just invest in YC style companies that can be built by 2 people over 3 months. I highly recommend you take a look at http://www.sequoiacap.com/company/all-stages http://www.sequoiacap.com/company/all-stages "Google, while a startup, added value to the universe and soon enough figured out how to take monetary advantage of that value." How do you define "soon enough"? IMHO soon enough at a time where there's plenty of venture capital to go around might be very different from soon enough at a time when capital is scarce. Take a look for example at the story of how Amazon reached profitability. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/158315_amazon28.html http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/158315_amazon28.html Amazon also figured out how to become profitable, but it took them 6 years to do so. That was soon enough back then, it might not be soon enough today.