Re: 8.

Date: 2023-11-06 09:02 pm (UTC)
jducoeur: (Default)
From: [personal profile] jducoeur

Depends on the VC and the company. The maximum window I've heard of is ten years, but they'll usually get impatient before then. In my experience, the VCs will be looking for the exit somewhere around 4-6 years, so you'd better be achieving growth (or have a good story about how you're turning things around) by then.

Of the two successful exits I've been through, I think one was at six years and the other at eight.

One of the unsuccessful ones got the tap pulled after just three years, but that was a weird situation (we had very little money and had used it extremely well, and were on the verge of a successful exit when the nuclear winter of 2002 train-wrecked us).

Another got the plug pulled after five years and at least one deeply ridiculous pivot, after which I more or less took over the company, pivoted us again, and the Board decided to call time on us a couple of months later.

The one that only survived for less than two years was the dotcom company, which did attempt to blitzscale, tripped over its own feet, and crashed with little to show for it. (Fun project, but wow we did a lot of things wrong.)

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