In answer to the oft-asked question “How much have you raised?”
As a founder and someone who has been involved with the Indian and South East Asian startup ecosystem for a sometime now, I get invited to a quite a few speaking engagements, investor/founder meets and college events. After a few pleasantries and general talk, one question that I get asked a lot is this:
This innocent question is one of the biggest issues with our startup ecosystem.
People are more concerned about how much funding you have been able to attract or how much are you going to raise in next round than how your business is coming along? Or, if unit economics in control? No, hardly anyone asks that.
On telling people that I have not raised any funding for my current venture, the next question that follows is this:
But you know so many investors. How come you haven’t raised money?
My answer:
Because, I don’t want to.
Everyone can get funded, but not everyone does
The startup ecosystem has made a certain section of entrepreneurs believe that if they have started-up, they are entitled to get funded. Models have been built to ‘ensure funding’ at various stages: idea stage, prototype stage, early customers stage, growth stage, and a dozen more stages.
Basically, the entrepreneurs have been convinced that they any stage they are in, they can get funded. Which is in-fact true. A venture can get funded at any stage. But the bitter fact is, none of the models ensures that every startup gets funded.
Many an entrepreneur start their ventures with hopes of getting funded as per these models. They have all their stages planned right from Idea Stage to Series A, B, C and so on till an ‘exit’. Over the years it has become a norm in the startup eco system that once you startup, raising funds for investment is the only way you can grow. I have seen entrepreneurs quit and wind up their business just because they could not raising funding.
Also read: Why we choose profit
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