When it comes to recommendation, tech loves standardization. Startups are sometimes advised that there are particular metrics to hit, deadlines to satisfy, timetables to measure themselves in opposition to.
Examples abound: Right here’s the best sum of money to lift at your Sequence A spherical; right here’s what number of workers you need to have earlier than hiring this government; right here’s what stage to rent authorized counsel; and, most lately, right here’s what share of workers you need to lay off if you happen to’re unable to entry extra financing.
(The reply is 20% of workers, relying on who you ask).
There’s a response to a few of these common statements: Startups are difficult, and one dimension definitely doesn’t match all. However nonetheless, these startup requirements assist level firms in the appropriate course, in some unspecified time in the future changing into the established order.
That’s why when entrepreneur Paul Graham, the co-founder of Y Combinator, instructed that he’s seeing startups with 20 years of runway thanks to large 2021 fundraises, it struck me. Isn’t the overall recommendation that startups ought to have three years of runway? And if we’re in a extra bullish market, 18 months?
My delayed response to this August tweet apart, let’s speak about runway. As you may inform by the headline of this piece, I believe that the best size of runway is a delusion — alongside other startup myths like more money equals more growth. By the top of this piece, you might agree.
