Tech in Asia story on Bamboo's failure got 500,000 LinkedIn views
Ned Phillips · He raised $20M, hit $3.5M in revenue—& failed. Here are the top 3 lessons he learned. | Ned Phill... · PMF Show · Feb 6, 2025 · at 58:04
Ned Phillips, founder of Bamboo, describes the viral reception on LinkedIn following a Tech in Asia article covering the failure of his startup.
0:00 / 0:04exact quote · 4.5s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“He published it. It got half a million views on LinkedIn. I got 1200 DMS.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Ned Phillips
Startups must refuse enterprise customization or charge multi-million dollar fees
“If you're good accustomed, take a choice. It's, and it's extreme either say no and don't do it and stick to your product. Or say yes, but charge masses, like multi-million, five million for the customization.”
Phillips: Implementation revenue is worse than zero for software startups
“I actually tell founders today, implementation revenue is not money. It's not zero. It's worse than zero.”
Phillips: Founders must never blame macroeconomic headwinds for business failure
“If you're the captain of a ship and it sails home victorious, it was the crew. If you sink it, see, It's you, the captain, but it's never the wind. It's never the wind. The wind is the wind, right? There's nothing you can do about the wind.”
Phillips: Customizing for every enterprise customer killed Bamboo
“The single reason is that our product kept getting customized for every customer.”
Phillips: Mid-tier $100K–$200K customization deals destroy startup gross margins
“The middle road is what kills you. The middle road of taking a hundred K, 200 K for customization that takes six months. You end up losing gross margin to get this magical ARR that every VC wants.”
Vague SOWs force startups, not enterprise clients, to pay scope overages
“If you are not clear on what you want to build, when it comes to the push and shove of who's paying for that extra feature, it ain't the institution, it's the startup. Not because the institution's big and bad, it's that their budget's been locked down for the…”