Assuming that we have secured high margin revenue streams (high LTV), now it's time to tackle the cost. Finding the lowest cost way to serve this market, calculating our CAC and measuring our unit economics via LTV/CAC & price waterfall.

In the last part we covered why growth vs profitability is a false dichotomy. As a startup your key focus is rapid growth to hit escape velocity before incumbents catch on to your new business model. So, how can you grow this fast, while showing profitability? This is where understanding your Go2Market chokehold comes into play.

In the last part, we figured out How to build $100M business model bottom up (< 7 years)? Now you know your business drivers like the back of your hand. However, this is only half of the job. When investors ask "If I give you 2X $ can you get to 3X traction instead? how do you answer that question?

In previous article, we covered how choosing the right market (TAM) is the biggest indicator of your success. At the end of the day, VCs mostly care if your business model can generate $100M revenue in 5-10 years. Most companies get to exit stage (IPO, M&A) at this point.

It's much easier to change your product while you might be stuck with your wrongly selected market for life. This is why in the startup terminology you hear a lot about product-market & founder-market fit.
The equation for product-market fit it's not 50%-50% it's more like 1%-99%

Is Sequoia or YC the best when it comes to deal sourcing, portfolio management? Or is it a result of top startups applying for their cache and only thing left for them is cherry picking the cream of the crop? Former seems more likely.

VCs are in the business of chasing dragons. The earlier you meet the VC ahead of your stage, the more information you are providing. If they don't invest and you meet them in a year or so, they can quickly check their old notes. You might end up not being a potential dragon.

But what does chasing dragons mean? Here comes the fundamental read on how VCs manage their portfolio and how can you become a potential dragon candidate?

"Founder with 3x exits", "Raised a massive $$ for our Series Z round" 💰💰💰 and many more catchy titles and sound bites on tech media and LinkedIn posts. How about the final cap table? Who actually got those proceeds? This matter is too serious for smoke and mirrors. How can you peek behind the curtain?

As I work closely with many founders, I noticed almost none of them has any clue on how VCs operate. This includes me, I was clueless about how important it is to understand the way VCs operate to my venture's success.
This will be a love letter to VCs. As now I see, how much tougher it is to pitch a mandate vs explaining a product. How much more difficult it is to manage countless stakeholders vs handful of board members.

8 figures raise from top VCs from 4 continents, scaling up to 300+ workforce, $20M+ traction and more importantly 2 pivots, 3 mass layoffs, surviving competitor and much more ...
When I started my founder journey in a country that I had roughly 0 startup-VC network back in 2018 I wouldn't have assumed to experience all of the above.