Alternative Funding Calculus: A Quant Comparison of Tiny, Indie, and Earnest

medium.com

31 points·coffee··6 comments

This is a broken analysis. For one, conversion rates have diminishing returns -- it's not like "advertising dollars" scale infinitely. This is extremely domain-sensitive. Further, there's no churn calculation built in, etc., etc.

> Speed analysis: Taking money would allow you to go faster, no question.

Not necessarily. B2B sales cycles are notoriously long.

> Speed verdict: We may have a strong defense from weekend upstarts, but we should move into the market with Array before an incumbent includes this as a killer feature in their in-market platform

That's why you build "products" and not "features." If this is indeed a problem, it's NOT one that (quick) cash will fix.

> But before you engage, you wonder — what will it really cost you, and what will it take to break free? Are you better off bootstrapping?

If you really are in a situation that the article introduces (which is an idealized position that 99.9999% of us will never be in), then it's basically a given that you should bootstrap.

B2B sales are not necessarily long. Our B2B sales is around 30 minutes average.

You are right, we should build products not features. The startup mentioned may not be the best indicator of an ideal startup : too crowded and users don't care about features

And our startup is in that position the article mentions but we still need funding to scale and hire. His points resonates with us.

Are you sure you mean your b2b sales CYCLE is 30 minutes? Or do you mean the sales call is 30 minutes?

It's a self serviced web platform. Most of the sales call (if we have any) is around 30 minutes.

What was used for the charting viz?

Looks like Tableau but can't say for sure. Looks beautiful.

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