To raise or not to raise. - Nishant Soni
Recent discussions with a serial entrepreneur got me thinking about fundraising. The entrepreneur’s previous startup raised multiple rounds. The product was doing great, showing strong product-market fit with good, large customers and growing well. Fundraising was obvious, and flush with cash, they set out to deploy it. Armies were raised, and everyone rose up the ranks overnight.
However, in the whirlwind of scaling up, the co-founders gradually lost touch with their customers. Layers of management came between them and the end-users, and the initial customer focus began to blur. This drift happened so subtly that it went unnoticed until it was too late. Fast forward a couple of years, and what once looked like a rocket ship ready for takeoff had turned into a truck stuck in the mud.
Now on her next startup, the entrepreneur is extremely wary of raising funding. She avoids conversations with venture capitalists and concentrates solely on serving her customers and generating revenue directly from them. This book, though, is still to be written.
