Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Because if you stop at #2...

1) you won't attract any follow-on investment capital;

2) your original investor will be angry that you're sitting on a pile of money that is doing nothing;

3) you will likely grow slower than your other competitors. in some markets, this is death, in other markets, this is fine.

Patreon had nearly 500 staff before layoffs. Now has about 400 staff. You may have a hard time understanding what all those people do, but I suspect they're all quite busy.



Shouldn't point 2) be start paying the pile of money back? Or allow investor to sell the whole thing to someone else who just want to live on dividends.


The investors don't want their pile of money back - that would just be a loan, they want your business to go to the moon so their equity becomes much more valuable than their investment. The investors will call for more investment and faster growth, so they can find a window to sell for big money.


> You may have a hard time understanding what all those people do, but I suspect they're all quite busy.

I'm guessing 100 managers at least. Busy hiring more people to staff their perpetually understaffed teams, each doing some disjoint initiative.


+1

That's just not how VCs work. Basically it's you HAVE to always show hockey stick growth.

Steady 5-10% per year isn't good enough. It has to grow exponentially. So that's why you keep hiring and keep spreading out the service into a whole bunch of other areas.


I’m just going to point out that growing 10% per year is actually exponential growth


Which is why every founder should always promise 11% growth. Because most companies only grow at 10% - if they're lucky...


Another arrow in my quiver called "VCs aren't a good model for funding companies."




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: