Sometimes You Just Have To Walk Away | Hacker News Reader

Sometimes You Just Have To Walk Away

avc.com

19 pointsnickb6 comments

As I said on the post's own thread:

It's really 14 out of 80. You can't count the current batch, because they've just started talking to investors. Plus (a) several of the remaining 66 probably will raise series A rounds in the future, and (b) there are certainly more that could have but either got acquired (Reddit, Omnisio) or made it to profitability on angel money (Wufoo, Bountii).

The 14 out of 80 number is for those who have done a Series A or later round. I assume that doesn't include additional angel funding (beyond YC) that some of the 66 out of 80 may have received. Is that correct?

It would be good to get gross statistics - without revealing company specific details - of how many got angel funding, average funding etc. It would help hackers calculate their odds ...

Right. Most of the rest got angel funding.

I remember something that one of the VCs at the first Startup School said:

"I can tell you all about business in four words: Boom. Bust. Boom. Bust."

I guess the VC business isn't so different from the rest of the economy. ;-)

Curiously, if you look at nearly all of the early Web 2.0 successes, they came out of the wreckage of small companies that failed in the recession of 01-02. Pyra begat Blogger. Game Neverending begat Flickr. Paypal-for-Palm begat Paypal-the-website. Memepool begat Del.icio.us.

Except for Paypal, all of those were angel-funded or bootstrapped. I wonder if VC-funded companies simply get too big to turn on a dime when the economy sours.

This is brought up in the article's thread:

Is VC funding needed or optimal for the majority of these companies?

To add to that: Is there a gap between the common ceiling for angel funding & the common floor for VC?

Aren't there many start up which are not looking for VC Funding. Why is it always, you are good and VC funded else you are bad.

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