[Seed]
After graduating from 500 Startups & raising seed, my mobile app startup pivoted into b2b saas.
We quickly found PMF, got a bunch of clients lined up, and our team was working 100 hours a week to deliver.

[2019] Series A
Our TAM was too small for a unicorn, so investors wanted us to expand it.
I had mixed feelings about it, but all I saw around were the startups in growth/unicorn mode.
So we expanded.
We added more verticals, more products, more people, lots of sales force, and hired super expensive sales experts and marketers.
We put loads of money into paid marketing, sponsored conferences, and media.
It was all done just like in the Silicon Valley playbook.

[2020] All IN
Covid lockdown. All our customers are closed and don’t know when to reopen. The whole customer segment is on the edge of extinction.
We’re burning cache like WeWork in their worst days.
The whole strategy fails. The product we offer turned out to appeal to users when it was offered by an innovative small startup. Now we’re a bold corporation and nobody wants to buy from us anymore.
We added a bunch of new verticals, and suddenly our product is not great for any of the verticals, just average, like the competitors.

[2021] Failed
We keep losing all the money we raised. We know the whole model failed. We know we can’t make it to work. But we can’t turn the ship. I don’t ever yet consider the pivot into a profitable model. I don’t yet know the “bootstrapped” word.

[2022] Out of cash
We run out of investor money.
But we still can’t turn the ship. At that time I was a CTO. The CEO ghosted the company. The whole thing is heading toward oblivion. We spend our last money. I put my own money to keep things afloat and pay salaries to the devs.

[2023] Pivot
I don’t know what to do. I can’t watch the company die.
I tell the board: we need to change the course. We need to give up on a unicorn dream. We need to turn into a regular mid-size profitable business.
It took me 1 year to convince the board and chairman.
Because it basically means they lose their investment in a vc term, since there won’t be 100x, because there is no ROI on such type of company. We won’t ever be sold, we won’t ever IPO. We go onto profitabily and dividend model.
I take most of the costs that year, together with the chairman. I buy back most of the company for this using the money I made on my other ventures.

[The Change]
I fire all sales and marketing people.
Cut costs on everything.
Stop all sponsorships and pretty much everyting that’s not development or support.
We transform into product-led company.
I jump on a call with each client and tell the whole story, as it’s. It turns them into a loyal friend and they turn into our ambasador and start bringing new leads.

[NOW]
In 3 months we turn into a profitable business that’s growing.
We have great margins.
We do only one product for one niche, but we’ve got the best product in the world for that niche and the sales are back.

[TakeAway]
Not all ideas can be unicorns and need investor money.
My company was pretty much killed by Series A.
I pivoted it at the end and managed to bring it back to life.

[FUTURE]
I’m not building unicorns anymore.
I’m not aiming for series A or IPO.
My mission is to build profitable businesses that do one thing really well for one niche. So that we’re the best in the niche.
It means most of my products won’t make more than 1M ARR. And this is fine. This is the new world.

[KILED then BORN new]
So Series A killed the startup.
Now we’re not a startup.
We’re a profitable business.