Had a chat with a Unicorn Founder

Was asking for some advice on fundraising. Got to know if you are building something with no revenue, literally impossible to raise. He explained how hard it is even for the current founders and expecting 100s of startups to fail next year with talent going cheap due to all the layoffs. Very hard to think how to monetise B2C if people don’t even link their credit or debit cards with Apple Pay and Android for in-app purchases. Also for B2B Saas, it’s better to build for US from India than building for India. Just “profit” over growth now. Nothing else matters 💭

BiryaniEnthu

Stealth

9 months ago

It has always been about profits, businesses are made for profits Startups gained fame because they were different from established orgs in terms of what drove them, their need to change the world. Which is good but not sustainable. At the end if you got run long, you need Selling price higher than cost price

SuperSaiyanGoku

Stealth

9 months ago

Very hard to scale both profits and growth

ValKilmer

SaaS

9 months ago

Exactly. This is Business 101.

DixonButts

Stealth

9 months ago

I think B2C will be hot once again ironically. Think about it. If you’re bootstrapping from day zero will it be easier to start B2B or B2C? B2B requires network, capital and pedigree to crack enterprise deals that most lack (SMB SaaS is an exception but this sector is also hated by VCs)

SuperSaiyanGoku

Stealth

9 months ago

True but very very very hard. One of the metrics I choose to track for both B2C and B2B are India driven revenue growth in app purchases and computer penetration for SMBs. Thankfully the former is getting better but the later is not so much. SMBs are ran by people in the age group of 40-50 y/o thus they much prefer copy pen than Khatabook or the other KiranaTech that failed. VCs say “It’s easier to earn a $ dollar than a ₹ rupee” Turning back to B2C, the only way to make money are in-app transactions and subscriptions. Literally nothing else works. According to Google AdMob, for 100k MAU we get $5.5k ARR 🫣. Most people using apps in India - 1. Fintechs have very low margins and an over saturated market. 2. E-commerce is very hard to crack even for Amazon to become profitable. 3. Streaming/OTT are investments heavily and a lot more including production and distribution. 4. Indie games are not made that much in India & only real money gambling apps are there. 5. Delivery based startups like Zomato/Swiggy/Zepto… needs scale to reach profitability. 6. Dating apps seems great until you see their shares plummeting and users losing interest. 7. Social Media is dead. This years most uninstalled being Instagram. ShareChat and Koo are doomed to fail! What category of apps do you think are gonna boom? 🤯

DixonButts

Stealth

9 months ago

Don’t know bro. I am currently building in one of the few categories that you mentioned. I guess if the answer was easy to find people would have already built it. But I think internal conviction and traction (in any form) are my must haves. I was building something in B2B and used to get put off just because someone did not like my idea or some VC said no. Now I’m building something that I have full faith in and feel 10x better. But yeah avoid any idea in which you can’t show traction (unless you have a network to raise capital without any users/product).

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ArjunGopinath

Unnamed

9 months ago

> Got to know if you are building something with no revenue, literally impossible to raise. idea -> execute -> traction -> competition-> innovation - > continued traction -> success/exit we are now at extreme edge of traction stage, pendulum will move back to execute phase in 12 months and when we get hype phase again, it will be at idea stage.

SuperSaiyanGoku

Stealth

9 months ago

Forgetting about pedigree????