I ran the ideal of a tech startup in point of sale space, launched pre-square, small company, never took investment, 1M in revenue first year… In an establishe

I ran the ideal of a tech startup in point of sale space, launched pre-square, small company, never took investment, 1M in revenue first year… In an established market, you’re always going to lose 80% of deals to people who have more funding. This is hard for your frontline employees to deal with, they experience it as unwillingness from cowardly management that they are paying for. Customers experience this as lower pricing, being more stable, more likely to do giveaways. P. much every company from that era is in private equity receivership (fire the engineers, get lowest common denominator replacements for all employees, run it till customers give up) I always thought Toast had held up because they had investment but didn’t light it on fire like other places, and thus were profitable. Very jarring to read this isn’t tractable. The lesson is if you’re a sharp generalist, you’re always better off doing your own place and being brutally honest with customers about what the other game is. It’ll take a decade to play out fully to your benefit, but, independence is worth it