In my role at a VC firm, I have the privilege of seeing the pitch decks of startups as they set out to raise new funding. In the main, they’re masterful, but I’ve seen a lot of founders making a similar mistake—including quotes from random users in their presentations.
These are the liquidity events that give the impression that startups are a great way to “get rich quick,” even though building a saleable company often takes the better part of a decade. Less often discussed, or championed, is a third option — the “get rich slow” method of building a company and making millions of dollars in profits, for years or decades.
How do you become humongous with humble financing? There are a few principles that seem common.
In 2007, Groupon took in the first million dollars of what would ultimately be $1.4B of venture capital, raised with ambitions of reshaping shopping. For a while, it looked like group buying, social commerce, daily deals, or whatever you call the practice of time-limited sales paired with social pressure was really going to change buying behaviors in a big way. In the space of four years the category exploded:
There’s a widespread belief among founders that venture capital is a precursor to success. It is true that VC is a common denominator of the most successful tech startups, but it isn’t a prerequisite, especially at the early stages.
When I used to write for Wired, a cold email was the lowest probability way to get press, but it still worked with some regularity. Cold emailing a VC is a similarly low-percentage play, and many of the best VCs in the world advise against the practice. Still, it does work from time to time.