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Comment by ohgr | Hacker News Reader

You missed the end of the supply chain. Paying users. Who magically disappear below market sustaining levels of sales when asked to pay.

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> Going from $1M ARR to $100M ARR in 12 months, Cursor is the fastest growing SaaS company of all time

Just because it's not reaching the insane hype being pushed doesn't mean it's totally useless

I've been here a long time (not this account) and have heard this many times. They all died or became irrelevant.

You’re on a startup forum complaining that vc backed startups don’t have a business model when the business model is the same as it has been for almost 15 years - be a unicorn in your space.

This is not a unicorn. It's a donkey with a dildo strapped on its head.

I never said it was sustainable, and even if it was, OP asked for a business model. Customers don’t need a business model, they’re customers.

The same is true for any non essential good or service.

Than any silly idea can be a business model. Suppose I collect dust from my attic and hope to sell it as an add-on on my neighbor's lemonade stand, with a hefty profit for the neighbor, who is getting paid by me $10 to add a handful of dust in each glass and sell it to the customers for $1. The neighbor accepts. It's a business model, at least until I don't run of existing funds or the last customer leaves in disguist. At which point exactly that silly idea stops being an unsustainable business model and becomes a silly idea? I guess at least as early as I see that the funds are running up, and I need to borrow larger an larger lumps of money each time to keep spinning the wheel...

> Than any silly idea can be a business model.

Indeed it can. The difference between a business model and a viable business model is one word - viable.

If you asked me 18 years ago was "giving away a video game and selling cosmetics" a viable business model I would have laughed at you.If you asked me in 2019 I would probably give you money. If you asked me in 2025, I'd probably laugh at you again.

> and I need to borrow larger an larger lumps of money each time to keep spinning the wheel...

Or you figure out a way to to sell it to your neighbour for $0.50 and he can sell it on for $1.

The play is clear at every level - Nvidia Sell GPUs, OpenAI sell models, and SAAS sell prompts + UI's. Whether or not any of them are viable remains to be seen. Personally, I wouldn't take the bet.

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