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Folks often ask me why I'm not more aggressively going after investors, hiring, and all that. This lovely little TweetStorm from Marc Andreessen nicely answers that question.
Frankly, I think he's dead-on right, and I come at this from experience. Unlike most folks I know, I prefer to work at startups; depending on how you count it, Querki is around the eighth one I've been involved with. I lived through the Nuclear Winter of 2002, have seen the fundraising treadmill too many times, and have ridden a few down to "VAPORIZE". Hell, Memento was technically the most successful startup I've been involved with, and the founders still got bupkis when we got to the exit.
All of which makes me *very* conservative, even moreso than Andreessen implies. (Although for much the reasons he lists.) It's out of fashion to try and run a company within its means, but it reduces all kinds of risks. In particular, it makes you much more the master of your own destiny, not so much at the mercy of self-interested VCs (because let's get real, *all* VCs are pretty strictly self-interested), nor of unpredictable (but eventually inevitable) market storms.
Hence my general approach. It's a bit slow, running a one-man band, but not as much so as you'd think. The hope is to get the company technically running in the black before hiring *anybody*, including myself. Once there is growth (and preferably ramen profitability), *then* we'll be in a much better position to go talk to investors...
Frankly, I think he's dead-on right, and I come at this from experience. Unlike most folks I know, I prefer to work at startups; depending on how you count it, Querki is around the eighth one I've been involved with. I lived through the Nuclear Winter of 2002, have seen the fundraising treadmill too many times, and have ridden a few down to "VAPORIZE". Hell, Memento was technically the most successful startup I've been involved with, and the founders still got bupkis when we got to the exit.
All of which makes me *very* conservative, even moreso than Andreessen implies. (Although for much the reasons he lists.) It's out of fashion to try and run a company within its means, but it reduces all kinds of risks. In particular, it makes you much more the master of your own destiny, not so much at the mercy of self-interested VCs (because let's get real, *all* VCs are pretty strictly self-interested), nor of unpredictable (but eventually inevitable) market storms.
Hence my general approach. It's a bit slow, running a one-man band, but not as much so as you'd think. The hope is to get the company technically running in the black before hiring *anybody*, including myself. Once there is growth (and preferably ramen profitability), *then* we'll be in a much better position to go talk to investors...