No it is not and you are right. In the fossil days of startups (1985 - 1995) you bootstrapped or literally built the first solution for a customer who is desperate for the solution. Oracle was launched like that. Larry was a contractor who built software for the CIA. One day Larry writes an RDBMS as defined by Stonebreaker. CIA wants information not software systems. Larry asks "can I go sell this to others, I know you paid for it all". They are like - for sure! Go for it!
After that it's pure conjecture. I think he secretly teamed up with Chuck Norris to form a late 80's Japanese Aesthetics and Cultural Appreciation group. After that he pipped Oprah to the post by giving away cars to people but I think for entireley the wrong reasons.
WebTV was launched on a $5000 cheque from a colleague. Sold 18 months later or something silly for $400m to Microsoft. Oh I will never forget the smile on Steve Perlman's face that day, lol.
But before I get lost in a Raymond Reddington anecdote -> Reframe the low revenue as "We could have had ten times that number of customer if you had funded the inefficiency in the market place and let us own it." It's kind of what Elon Musk did when ALL of his investors wanted to bury him and what they saw as a fast rising embrassment of what was Tesla. At that meeting he pretty much said "fuck it, I'l fund it and take all the upside myself." Next thing you know...no one wants to be that investor who said no.
No it is not and you are right. In the fossil days of startups (1985 - 1995) you bootstrapped or literally built the first solution for a customer who is desperate for the solution. Oracle was launched like that. Larry was a contractor who built software for the CIA. One day Larry writes an RDBMS as defined by Stonebreaker. CIA wants information not software systems. Larry asks "can I go sell this to others, I know you paid for it all". They are like - for sure! Go for it!
After that it's pure conjecture. I think he secretly teamed up with Chuck Norris to form a late 80's Japanese Aesthetics and Cultural Appreciation group. After that he pipped Oprah to the post by giving away cars to people but I think for entireley the wrong reasons.
WebTV was launched on a $5000 cheque from a colleague. Sold 18 months later or something silly for $400m to Microsoft. Oh I will never forget the smile on Steve Perlman's face that day, lol.
But before I get lost in a Raymond Reddington anecdote -> Reframe the low revenue as "We could have had ten times that number of customer if you had funded the inefficiency in the market place and let us own it." It's kind of what Elon Musk did when ALL of his investors wanted to bury him and what they saw as a fast rising embrassment of what was Tesla. At that meeting he pretty much said "fuck it, I'l fund it and take all the upside myself." Next thing you know...no one wants to be that investor who said no.