Nearly every startup I've talked to recently (last year or so) has been cash flow positive after just series A (or sometimes after just a seed round!)
Companies are pursuing smart business strategies and prioritizing healthy rates of growth over "hire everyone we can and figure out how to make a profit later". I'm seeing a lot of very focused businesses that are meeting customers demand right away and solving real problems. They aren't billion dollar problems, but they are profitable problems to solve. I wonder how the startup ecosystem will change if VCs start seeing 60% of companies making a healthy profit after a couple years, vs the historical trend of waiting a decade and hoping 1 company strikes it big. 60% of companies growing 10-20x ROI seems ... Not bad?
One problem of large mega corps is they don't even bother to go after new ideas that aren't multi-billion dollars markets. It used to be Microsoft would make a bunch of senior engineers filthy rich, they'd go boot strap a new company, and if the idea took off, Microsoft would aquire them again. Some people in the 90s/early 2000s pulled that off multiple times!
Nearly every startup I've talked to recently (last year or so) has been cash flow positive after just series A (or sometimes after just a seed round!)
Companies are pursuing smart business strategies and prioritizing healthy rates of growth over "hire everyone we can and figure out how to make a profit later". I'm seeing a lot of very focused businesses that are meeting customers demand right away and solving real problems. They aren't billion dollar problems, but they are profitable problems to solve. I wonder how the startup ecosystem will change if VCs start seeing 60% of companies making a healthy profit after a couple years, vs the historical trend of waiting a decade and hoping 1 company strikes it big. 60% of companies growing 10-20x ROI seems ... Not bad?
One problem of large mega corps is they don't even bother to go after new ideas that aren't multi-billion dollars markets. It used to be Microsoft would make a bunch of senior engineers filthy rich, they'd go boot strap a new company, and if the idea took off, Microsoft would aquire them again. Some people in the 90s/early 2000s pulled that off multiple times!