Last week Jenny spoke with entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Kut Akdogan, of Gaussian, about the traditional vc model of fundraising and how it is, more often than not, a losing strategy for small start-ups. Venture capital, according to Kut, is risking your entire business on a moonshot– going all in and going big– with the promise of major success. However, most venture back start-ups fail, the business model is set up that way, and most women founders don’t even get to the first round of funding.
Kut wrote about an interesting article about this topic and you can watch the entire conversation with Jenny here.
Instead, Kut says, the more pragmatic approach to funding and growth is something he calls the “incremental moonshot,” whereby you don’t suppress your vision, but you take small steps to prove a valid business model and move the goalpost realistically. You don’t have to lower your ambitions, but outside of the vc model you can adjust the expectation of rapid scale and allow yourself the time and space to test things, grow organically and learn along the way.