I have vested equity (that I painfully exercised) in a “2020-era unicorn” that has been a complete zombie ever since. I wish they’d just go out of business for me to at least declare a capital loss on my taxes.
I just have myself to blame clearly, so just stating an opinion.
I agree, and disagree. My business was bootstraped, we never took outside investment, and it succeeded and makes money. It employs 50 odd people and is a big fish in a fairly small pond.
We make the world better for a few thousand people (customers).
But our approach couldn't lead to a Facebook, or Amazon or Uber etc. Products like that work best once they achieve scale, and achieving scale is expensive. But Uber (goes example) works poorly with 50 drivers in 1 city.
For most businesses and most founders, more is achieved with less. Most businesses don't need scale to be effective.
But equally, the VC approach is necessary for some subset of problems.
We will see stories like this appreciated more than VC-backed startups as it's simply more sustainable and impactful
Tbf, it's really hard to build a capital efficient, scalable company
3 years ago, VCs in Bay Area tech were thriving. Now, they're 'bleeding cash.' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42194832 - November 2024