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.
In my role at a venture capital firm I have the good fortune to see a few dozen pitch decks a month. Some are brilliant, and others require more time to bake, but almost all of them waste the first slide.
Hundreds of millions of people use Firebase-powered apps every day, though they may not realize it. The company started as backend-as-a-service for app developers that made real-time functionality simple for Shazam, NPR, SeatGeek, and hundreds of thousands of other services.