One thing that founders should think about before raising capital is what outcome investors are looking for and how big that implies the startup ‘needs’ to become (and if the founders see some way to achieve that).
A great outcome for a small angel investor (and thus most founders) can be a company making €1 million in profit per year or an exit for €10-15 million.
That would not be true financial success for most venture capital funds, especially if they have invested several million euros.
To be a true financial success for venture investors a startup likely needs to reach €100 million in annual revenue and still be growing quickly.
That is the difference between building a really good company at smaller scale and building a venture scale company.
yep. and maybe some more interesting nuances to come: https://anuatluru.com/blog/svsb
I think the Silicon Valley Small Business approach is a way. And for companies getting to €2-20M in revenue it is probably a better strategy for founders than VC, if they can finance the first 12-18 months.