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For background: Dave believes in companies with straightforward revenue strategies with measurable traction that could hockey-stick but haven't yet. He believes
by tomasien 14y ago
For background: Dave believes in companies with straightforward revenue strategies with measurable traction that could hockey-stick but haven't yet. He believes in a lage and talented mentor pool to find the design, data, and/or distribution problems standing in the way of accelerated customer/user growth to add the value needed to get to the next level. He looks for companies that could exit 20mm-500mm but wants MORE exits rather than larger ones. Kind of the opposite of how YC seeks to grow it's portfolio through a few huge winners.
THEN he believes in doubling down when the signs of that "next leveling" emerge.
I feel like there's a lot of misunderstanding of 500 Startups on HN so I wanted to try to get that out of the way. In my opinion there is room for 500 and YC to both grow without getting in each other's way, perhaps actually helping each other on the few companies they agree strongly on.
- davemc500hats 14y agothanks, that's a good summary of our approach. however, we will also invest in a few stories without clear path to revenue if growth is strong. but admittedly this isn't our favorite strategy. we certainly prefer strong business model over none, even with a small base of customers.
- tomasien 14y agoThanks for the addendum! I'm aware of that corollary but it's harder to explain as a coherent thesis. Paul always made it very clear to me that "there are starving startups in India than more traction than you" and "10mm users is the new 1mm users" so I've never been clear where that line was for you guys. As such, I usually leave it out of my explanations of my understanding of the 500 thesis.