Control Your Destiny (Chris Seidensticker)
I love the phrase "control your destiny." When I tell a startup to do this, I mean "get to cash flow positive" because, at that point, they could theoretically survive without future external capital. And if they choose to raise more capital to pursue a strategic opportunity or grow more quickly, they can do so on their own terms. In other words, they are free to make the choices they need to make that are the best for their business. So I was intrigued when I saw a fantastic post from Y Combinator that aggregates advice for startups from a bunch of different VCs. One of the one-liners is "most companies don't die because they run out of money," which is likely true, but getting near cash out and getting forced to either raise at ugly terms or getting acquired at a low valuation, while not death, is also not a pleasant situation and no way to live! It's literally the opposite of controlling your destiny. So how do you control your destiny? Big pi...