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Comment by pclark | Hacker News Reader

He's listed companies that are already growing. it isn't hard to name startups that are already on track to going great places. its far harder to look at a deck or raw product and work out why it'll be awesome without being constrained by why its broken.

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Totally agree. I would rather invest into companies that are starting to pick up traction. Just a personal preference. And invest into superstar entrepreneurs that are about to launch something versus investing into their idea.

Many of them as well are "lifestyle" businesses that are probably not going to need capital scale (and thus do not need any VC)

What would CarbonMade do with a $3 million investment?

I think you're right that many of the companies listed are lifestyle businesses. For example, SquareSpace and Harvest are not interested, and never will be interested, in taking money. However, it's best to weigh every option you're presented with. I'll leave it at that. ;)

That's a great point Spencer. However, I think companies that want to scale faster will need to take investment. Why wait a year to get enough cash in the bank to hire more people when you can do it now? Opportunity costs are tremendous.

It can take a few years (or more) to figure out what your ultimate end goal is. The first few years could simply be about acquiring customers in your market. You can then use those newly acquired customers to explore different business opportunities. Those new business opportunities could require new capital.

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