Sela: Small business failure rates will stay high without end-to-end ecosystems
Ilir Sela · Ilir Sela: How I Founded Slice Pizza & Became One of Macedonia’s Largest Employers | E1044 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Aug 4, 2023 · at 36:18
Ilir Sela is the founder and CEO of Slice, a vertical software platform for independent pizzerias. He argues that narrow SMB software tools fail to address the underlying challenges of independent businesses.
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“Until someone figures out how to build an end-to-end sort of ecosystem that changes the disadvantage that an independent has by being independent, I think small businesses, the failure rate will continue to remain high.”
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“It's complete bullshit. I mean, I used to feel like, okay, hire great people, get out of the way, and I've done that. I've done that many times, and every time I've done that, things have failed.”
Ilir Sela turned down an $18 million acquisition offer for MyPizza
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“And so because of our very clear focus on one segment, pizza shops, Any moment where Slice's performance hasn't been best in class, immediately the assumption is you're TAM constrained.”
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