Fried: Venture backing destroys viable mid-sized software business opportunities
Jason Fried · Jason Fried challenges your thinking on fundraising, goals, growth, and more · Dec 17, 2023 · at 9:20
Jason Fried, co-founder and CEO of 37signals, discusses why taking venture capital forces startups into an all-or-nothing unicorn strategy rather than finding sustainable intermediate scale.
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“There really is only kind of one outcome for venture backed companies, which is go huge. And if you think about all of the space between Kind of a small business and a massive, huge unicorn business. There's so much room there that you could normally find your own way and slide into a slot or a place that makes sense for you. But if you're venture backed, you just don't even have the opportunity. You blow right past those, or they want you to blow right past those. And if you don't, you kind of wither on the vine and die essentially.”
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