If only more founders thought like this too.
"If you show revenue, people will ask how much and it will never be enough. The company that was the 100x or the 1000x becomes the 2x dog.
But if you have no revenue you can say you are pre-revenue. You are a potential pure play. It is not about how much you earn. It is about how much you are worth.
And who is worth the most? Companies that lose money. Pinterest, Snapchat. Amazon has lost money every quarter for the last effing 25 years and that Bezos m*cker is the effing king"
You find this all over the place as 800$ Aeron chairs and 40$ iKea chairs are both in the same and very different markets.
Angels and VCs are more often than not at odds because they have different economics they are playing for.
An angel puts in 250k? They would be thrilled with a 10M exit. Along comes a VC with a 5M A round and suddenly they need a 500M exit to feel like it was a success.
And also some of the individuals (angels) investing alongside the above institutions.
And you know what? It's a valid strategy for those with the skill (or luck) to execute repeatedly. Sequoia earns their 3 and 30, or however much they charge.
All I'm saying is that when a company takes VC funding, the goal of the VCs can override the goals of earlier, individually less powerful investors (i.e. the angels). So while an early angel might be fine/thrilled with a 10x exit, the VC might not be because their risk/reward profile differs from the angel. Thus, when investing in companies intending to seek venture capital, one must be aware of the high payout, low odds bet into which they are entering.
Of course, there are ways to mitigate this like secondary market liquidity or institutional investors buying stock from earlier angels as part of a round. But the point still stands.