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Venture-funded startups grow way beyond their means because they have to.

Time and time again we get asked by (typically bootstrapped) Founders about why in the hell venture-funded startups love that so-called "fake growth."

You've seen this before, when a new startup raises gobs of venture capital, hires hundreds of new people, burns through tens of millions of dollars (or more!), and then later on has to crash and burn the whole thing because it never actually made any money.

From the outside, it seems insane. What Founders don't realize is that this whole "fake growth strategy" isn't just some bizarre misstep - it's an actual playbook. We look at stories like WeWork and ask "How could anyone let that happen?" Well, it turns out, there's...

Legendary Founder stories are great — unless you're the poor bastard who had to live through it.

As Founders, we're regaled constantly of comeuppance stories of our fellow Founders who risked it all... almost lost it all... and then won it all in the end. It's entertaining, inspiring, and sometimes even true.

Often we wish we could have such an epic story ourselves. But what we rarely comprehend in those stories is that in order for the story to be so epic, someone had to go through a massive amount of pain to be able to tell it.

The reality of that pain and suffering is not only overlooked quickly but entirely justified by the outcome. But does that make it all OK?

The Against All Odds Legend

Recently a good friend of mine shared a tale of...

It is difficult to predict the specific types of startups that will be most successful in 2023, as the success of a startup can depend on a variety of factors such as market demand, competition, and the unique value proposition of the business.

However, here are 20 business ideas to start the brainstorming process:

1 - Virtual events platform

Virtual events, such as conferences, trade shows, and workshops, have become increasingly popular in recent years due to the rise of remote work and the convenience of participating in events online. A virtual events platform could be a successful startup business model for a number of reasons:

Market demand:

There is a growing demand for virtual events as more organizations look for ways to host events onl...

Series A startup funding is an important milestone for many early-stage startups. It is the first round of significant institutional funding, and it can provide the resources and support needed to take a startup to the next level.

In this article, we will explore what series A funding is, how it differs from other types of funding, and what startups can do to increase their chances of securing this crucial form of financing.

What is Series A Funding?

Series A funding is the first round of institutional funding that a startup receives after completing its seed funding round. It is typically sought by startups that have a proven product or service and are looking to accelerate their growth. Series A funding allows startups to build out their te...

Starting a business or becoming a professional athlete requires a unique combination of motivation, drive, and determination. Founders and professional athletes must be highly motivated and driven in order to achieve their goals and make a lasting impact in their respective fields.

In addition to being motivated and driven, both groups must also be able to handle high levels of competition and pressure, adapt and pivot in the face of change, have the resilience to bounce back from setbacks and failures, work well as part of a team, and continuously learn and improve in order to stay competitive.

The 6 Similarities that allow Founders and Athletes to Achieve Success

1. Founders and professional athletes must be highly motivated and driven to succ...

Startup Founders are not entitled to success, yet we sure act like it.

When we're sitting in a room full of Founders or pouring through social media, we're inclined to think everyone is "killing it" but us. We hear of these meteoric rises, huge funding rounds, and big exits and invariably wonder when all that goodness will happen to us.

What we form is an "entitlement to success." We believe that because we see so much of it happening elsewhere, by virtue of that, it's only a matter of time until it happens to us.

What we miss when creating that entitlement is just how flawed the foundation of that premise is and what a house of cards we create with our own expectations.

"I Deserve to be Funded"

In the early days of our formation, when we'r...

"Nearly every startup that goes IPO raises capital — doesn't that say it all?" — Every VC

Whenever I get into a debate with a Founder or Investor over whether startups need to raise capital, the discussion inevitability leads to that "trump card" of finality. The thinking goes that if every single super-successful startup has raised capital (by IPO standards) then it's impossible to overlook that data — or disagree.

While there's nothing wrong with raising capital (we run Fundable.com, a fundraising platform!) I think the default reasoning requires a bit more examination. This isn't so much a case for not raising capital — it's a challenge to some broken assumptions that matter.

"All the Best Companies Raise Capital"

By definition, the comp...

The business startup costs that are the least complicated for startups tend to be our "fixed costs" like office space, utility bills, or software expenses incurred. While these start-up costs grow with any new business, they don't scale the way our variable cost projections do when starting a business.

Fixed Costs vs. Variable Costs

The reason we separate our fixed costs versus our variable costs is that we want to isolate our startup cost categories to focus on what will truly drive our business plan. Things like scaling our advertising costs will have an exponential effect on our revenue, for example.

But our fixed costs don't have nearly this impact.

Our fixed expenses do "grow" over time, but not exponentially. Therefore we tend to separate...

Nearly every Founder feels woefully behind their friends in life.

As it happens, we picked a particularly shitty profession to ever feel "ahead" of our friends and colleagues. Most of our friends have regular jobs where they actually get paid every week, whereas we spend the entire month wondering if and how we'll get paid at all.

The problem compounds when we start to look at our successful Founder colleagues because the delta in success can be so astronomical so quickly. We start to assume that their successes become a reflection of our failures. But what we're missing in that comparison is how the benchmarks themselves are completely broken.

We Fight Ourselves

It all starts when we try to invent where we should be in life as if our pat...

A crypto startup is a business that deals with cryptocurrencies. Startups focused on this industry have been popping up all over the world in recent years. With the rise of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies, many entrepreneurs are looking to create their own crypto or blockchain-based startup.

It sounds easy enough in theory, but for those new to the industry, it's much like learning another language. In this article, we aim to define, expand on, and share insights we have compiled to demystify the process of launching a crypto startup.

There are five main steps to starting a crypto startup (we'll expand more on this below):

1. Identify a problem that needs solving.

2. Create a white paper outlining the idea (i.e. a solution to the...