Questions

I am at a hybrid stage of my start up. I have seeded everything personally to this point. We have a MVP, and we are within a week or 2 of going live. I have already secured several market entry points. I was offered 7 figures for equity in company last week and I have a follow up with them soon. While it sounds great I am having my reservations, and thinking of taking this to market without their money. I am not sure if I need them. The software is made, I have entry into the market, I have users ready in place. Yes with their money I will be able to go regionally or nationally very quickly, however I am not sure if that is the best option. Should I follow my gut, or am I stupid for not taking the funding and accelerating the company faster?

Obviously the implied valuation comes into play here. The fact that you are hesitating says to me that the valuation doesn't blow you away. If you are able to go to market and establish revenue traction (or rapid growth of some other valuable metric --- I'm personally a revenue zealot) then you will likely improve your valuation later and can raise by attracting investors to your actual success instead of your possible success. Of course, hindsight will be 20/20 in this situation and if you end up not having an easy go of it you'll be tempted to question yourself. This is all part of the process and we have all gone through it. No matter what you do you'll likely be tempted to wonder about the other option. Personally, I think you want to limit the extent to which you are diluting your position in the company. If you don't need the money I think you should stick to your guns. You can bootstrap and live off your operating revenue.

Naturally this makes a ton of assumptions based only on your description. Like all experts here I'd be glad to do a call with you to go deeper.


Answered 9 years ago

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