The assumption here is that the growth without revenue you're doing so you can get that 100x is going to be translatable into revenue. When you start generating actual revenue the team as a whole learns a lot. You don't just "pull the revenue lever". Business doesn't work like that. It's a gradual process of figuring out what the customer will pay for, understanding how to charge, optimizing, etc. It's a huge learning curve and a long process. Many startups don't want to hear this because if you believe it, then it's tough to pitch VC's when all you have is growth.
So really you absolutely need to generate revenue now or you won't be able to later. It's part of figuring out what business you're in and validating the model.
So just by going for revenue, you're absolutely not removing the ability to also do growth. You're just making sure that you can fund yourself and that the business you're in is a real business instead of just a fantasy one.
I should caveat this though. There are two strategies where revenue doesn't matter at all:
1. If you want to build a growth machine with no revenue purely in the hope of being a strategic threat to a big player so that they'll acquire you, then pure growth is a valid strategy. There are many success stories like that but I don't consider them real businesses.
2. If you want to be talent acquired, then you raise and make your core competency recruiting and your target market whoever is hiring engineers. You'll make some money and forever join the halls of those who have no idea how to run a real business that creates jobs.
I think the holy grail in entrepreneurship is creating a job creation machine that is self sustaining. That's what entrepreneurs were born to do and it's how we make the biggest contribution.
If you only consider Google (and there are so many more examples) - think about the effect that it has had on job creation, innovation, funding by the Google founders, the super angels it created, the angel investors, the funding projects that Google itself has and the quality of life it has created for tens of thousands of employees. That was just one success story that has had an enormous positive impact on the global economy.
When you talent acquire or strategic acquire a startup, you remove the possiblity of it ever becoming a Google or Facebook or Apple or Amazon and you remove all those positive benefits. So that's why I hate growth machines and talent shops.
So really you absolutely need to generate revenue now or you won't be able to later. It's part of figuring out what business you're in and validating the model.
So just by going for revenue, you're absolutely not removing the ability to also do growth. You're just making sure that you can fund yourself and that the business you're in is a real business instead of just a fantasy one.
I should caveat this though. There are two strategies where revenue doesn't matter at all:
1. If you want to build a growth machine with no revenue purely in the hope of being a strategic threat to a big player so that they'll acquire you, then pure growth is a valid strategy. There are many success stories like that but I don't consider them real businesses.
2. If you want to be talent acquired, then you raise and make your core competency recruiting and your target market whoever is hiring engineers. You'll make some money and forever join the halls of those who have no idea how to run a real business that creates jobs.
I think the holy grail in entrepreneurship is creating a job creation machine that is self sustaining. That's what entrepreneurs were born to do and it's how we make the biggest contribution.
If you only consider Google (and there are so many more examples) - think about the effect that it has had on job creation, innovation, funding by the Google founders, the super angels it created, the angel investors, the funding projects that Google itself has and the quality of life it has created for tens of thousands of employees. That was just one success story that has had an enormous positive impact on the global economy.
When you talent acquire or strategic acquire a startup, you remove the possiblity of it ever becoming a Google or Facebook or Apple or Amazon and you remove all those positive benefits. So that's why I hate growth machines and talent shops.