What I learnt after burning $10M as an entrepreneur
This was, what, 2012? Asana IPO&#x27;d last year and <i>still</i> wasn&#x27;t profitable[0]. In fact, they were bleeding vast amounts of cash and went public with the statement:<p><i>We do not expect to become profitable in the near future, may never achieve profitability, and have incurred substantial net operating losses, or NOLs, during our history.</i><p>This is the price of cheap money. VC-backed competitors can simply outspend a bootstrapped company on customer acquisition, marketing, development and hiring, and cash out without the company ever actually making a profit.<p>In the current environment, a bootstrapped company should ideally be:
(a) niche (and therefore outside the traditional VC market crosshairs)
(b) profitable from day one.<p>A to-do list doesn&#x27;t fit that mould at all, which this guy found out the hard way.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sec.report&#x2F;Document&#x2F;0001193125-20-228462&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sec.report&#x2F;Document&#x2F;0001193125-20-228462&#x2F;</a>