Your small business won’t raise VC

And that’s ok.

I just saw a post from a successful small business operator who has built and operated a solid service business for over 12 years.

In it, she lamented that she had always been bootstrapped and never raised capital, which always made her feel like she never quite measured up.

This is heartbreaking and frustrating for so many reasons.

Regular reminder: Small businesses are not startups, and startups are not traditional small businesses.

They are designed to operate completely differently on pretty much every level.

Startups can raise Angel and VC capital because they are powered by software and can (hopefully) experience exponential growth with incremental cost to serve.

Small services business are not designed to do this.

Neither one is better or worse, but they are completely different “games” with different rules. If you don’t understand which game you’re playing, you will ultimately create a lot of frustration, pain and suffering for yourself and your stakeholders. It will also likely undermine the success of your company.

I’ve shared thoughts about this in many ways and in many forms. Not the least of which is the first episode of The Startup Podcast and the first book in the start up scale ebook series at chrissaad.com/startupscale. Link attached below.

#business #growth #experience #startups #scaleups #consultingconvos