VC Minute – quick advice to help startup founders fundraise better.
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As I close out the inaugural season of VC Minute, I want to end on a positive note, venture capital and validation.
Venture capital does not validate your business. More importantly, lack of venture capital does not invalidate your business. The purpose of a business is to sell goods and services, to create something of value for your customers.
Yet we live in this crazy world where venture funding is celebrated like it’s the ultimate business success.
As a sidebar, I can sort of understand why this is. As a private company, you don’t want to report your revenue to the public, but you can share an approximation for that: venture funding. You can show prospective customers and prospective employees that they can rely on you because you have investment. At least that’s my theory. I digress.
The purpose of venture capital is to pour rocket fuel into your business to accelerate your growth. That rocket fuel may cause your business to explode. In the “explode into a million little pieces and leave nothing behind, but a smoldering hole in the ground” sense of the word explode.
That’s smoldering hole in the ground that contains the ruins of your startup hopes and dreams, is an accepted outcome of the venture capital business model.
Wow. I wanted to end on a good note and this just took a really dark turn. I’ll come back to the point. Venture capital is a specific financial instrument that pairs well with hyper scalable business models. But not all and not always.
If you’re struggling to raise venture capital, take heart. It does not invalidate your business. If you truly want to build this business, then you must focus on creating value for your customers. That is what matters. Raising a million or a hundred million dollars doesn’t mean shit if you’re not serving your customers.
Founders go build something of value. Find that future state of the world where your products solve real problems. Let your customers lead the way. And pull us all towards it.
I want to see you succeed because I want to live in the future that you’ve made better and brighter. Thank you for your hard work.
Thank you for listening to Season One of VC Minute. I have such immense gratitude that you came with me on this journey. If you enjoyed it and found it valuable, please leave a rating and review. And let me know what you want to hear in Season Two.
As I always say time is our most precious asset. Thank you for spending some of it—a lot of it— with me.
We’ll be back in a couple of months with a whole lot more to say!
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