The GP of Andreessen Horowitz simplifies startup success:
- Find the product that 1,000 enterprise or 50 million consumers want to buy and grab those customers before your competitors do.
- Raise enough cash and spend it intelligently so that you don’t go broke along the way.
His thesis is that the goal isn’t to be ramen profitable and it doesn’t matter if you blow your VC cash (see Maples’ Law), so long as you have the resources you need to execute on your strategy. If you don’t, you’re toast. This is along the lines of what Brett Hurt has said - “know when to put the pedal to the metal”.
- If you are a high-tech start-up, your value is in your intellectual property. Don’t stare at your spreadsheets so long that you get confused about that.
- You cannot save your way to winning the market.
- The best companies can raise money even in this market. If you are one of those, you should consider raising enough to wipe out your competition.
