Startups are not criticised for making losses. They sre criticised for making losses having raised insane capital at insane Valuation

I'm seeing so many posts where startup employees are cribbing about things like layoffs, work culture etc etc. Doesn't seem like they have perspective on everything it takes to build a startup. I've built a failed startup myself and have immense respect for founders who are grinding it out there in such difficult recessionary circumstances. And then you have so many of the engineers and PMs cribbing about basics without talking about important things like learning growth, building for the future etc. Why such myopia? I work at a big tech and envy the speed at which startups move, the big responsibility everyone gets to handle, the fast career growth. All these things are being cribbed about. They crib about founders wanting more. Their job is to ensure success, not to give lifetime jobs to entitled people. They have more headaches you can imagine. In my small startup I had a million headaches. I can only imagine how hard it must be to run larger ships. Is everyone joining a startup these days looking for a get rich quick scheme?

As we can see only 3-5% Indian startups become profitable and rest of are still in the loss. But Cred , Zomato, Paytm and many more loss making companies are still in the market with tag of "Unicorn". Ye kaise possible ho paa rha hai.. investors ab bhi Paisa lagaye chale Jaa rhe hai .. Why ????????

1 year back all startups were losing money like crazy while all of a sudden everyone from Swiggy to Meesho to Unacademy are profitable or EBITDA positive. Other companies which were profitable earlier have not shown a spike in profit. Were these companies uselessly burning money earlier if they can just suddenly become profitable in 6-8 months

Startups which were loosing hundreds of millions last year are now annocuing PAT and planning for IPOs. What has changed really or were they uselessly burning money

Few months ago, mama earth CEO compared it's losses with Amazon saying, "Amazon too made losses". Now Firstcry is IPO bound with their losses being 6x in 2023 and also justifoed it. Amazon made a loss Because they invested all their profits into R&D Most startups are making a loss because they are selling products at a discount to show high GMV Both are not same... I am yet to see a single big success story in India startup ecosystem which justifies 'India has arrived' and so much VC's exuberance .

IIT grad here building a venture backed startup. I think 99% of folks here believe that venture backed founders are super entitled and in a much "cosier" position than employees Just sharing a few facts about our journey so far if it helps anyone improve their perspectives- 1) Paying ourselves 33% of our campus salary & 60% of what we are paying to our employees (Talking about Pure Base Salary here, not including ESOPs) 2) Insane stress - You basically have to raise money to build (esp if its deeptech because of the high fixed costs) and there are predefined metrics you have to always chase, sometimes just beyond yourselves. Your product will be copied if it's good because well, they always have more money than you. You work 7 days a week for insane hours, chasing metrics required to be "afloat" 3) 99% of venture backed startups result in 0 liquidity gain for founders. So basically in all likeliness, everything is for a net negative return compared to if we took the campus job So, when you wholeheartedly bash founders as if they are sitting On a goldmine while you are toiling for THEIR gold Treasure, just understand that more likely than not, there is not really any gold but rather an irrational hope they are clinging to Also, Yes-we pay above market to our employees (100% hike for the last one) but the truth is some startups just Can't afford it. And ironically, there is a much higher looking down on these startups with meagurely paid founders rather than giants like Tech Mahindra paying peanuts to their employees while having a 1000% salary hike for the executives. Yeah, most startups need to do better but please appreciate if someone is atleast trying to do better because trust me, it's INSANELY HARD.. The number of posts I see about Flipkart making hundreds millionaires is way too less than the ones I see about pinpointing at every single mistake early stage startups do & I just wanted to express my opinion on it Peace!

Most of the startups are in loss and have no clue whether they would be able to make it to IPO, I've always been wondering how come so they get the funding in hundreds of millions? Even though the early investors seek to make money off the next funding round but still! It looks like a 21st century's quick rich scheme for founders!

Most startup’s are not founded with great altruistic purpose to elevate human condition. Most startup’s are founded where founders know they can make money or earn status points through little schemes of leveraging their network of investors. Most of them know they can earn more income by just raising some money from friends or VCs. Build a small tech tool and burn through money trying to acquire and retain customers. All this while hiring 100s of employees selling false narratives. What bugs me the most isn’t the thousands of people getting laid off, salary corrections or bankruptcies, it is the mafiaesque organisation built to “create wealth for some by exploitation of countless others” Most startup founders use brute force of content and media coupled with ignorance of people to perpetuate this cycle. It’s the virtue signalling and holier than thou attitude of most founders and VCs justifying all their mindless brutality in the name of strategy and growth which destroys aspirations and outcomes for the many. It’s more relevant in India because of large scale ignorance about money and large scale trust on educated individuals with the right college tags! If you have seen sopranos, most founders are like Anthony soprano - summarily violent, manipulative and ruthless behaviour primarily driven by selfish greed but juxtaposed with moments of vulnerability and struggle justifying his action with a facade of providing for his family. *Replace Anthony soprano with your founder/ceo name* 1. VSS was playing fast and lose with rbi regulations resulting in stock crash and layoffs 2. Byju’s systematically destroyed his own company and wealth of his employees just to ensure he retains majority control 3. Ashneer G and his wife manipulated company books 4. Zerodha founders cheated in chess match or lied about their system failures which lost a lot of capital PS: I refer to most founders because there are few exceptions who don’t fit into this narrative.

- Most VCs are fraud, they never make any money and keep shifting from one fund to another to hide that they never made anyone any money. They also have usually no real input to add. They are no subject matter except negotiations which too mostly they just prey upon any founders. It's a thankless asset class. Most founders will always hate it as they will never get a dollar and most investors hate it as they will never net a dollar. Never chase VC, they are supposed to find opportunity .. Chasing them is useless, they judge you for it. So treat them from first day like your ex. Gf/bf. - Most tech startup founders are fraud, they never make any money and keep shifting from one idea to another to hide they never made anyone any money. it usually takes 20 years to make a real $100 million dollar revenue company, but 20 months to be a unicorn. Any unicorn today is priced according to what they would make after 5-10 years... Yeah right. - Making real money is hard. Making fake money is easy. 99% of startup Esops are fraud If the company is homerun, then they won't get you stock easy. If the company is maybe homerun, they won't give you cash easily. If you get free cash and esops, just imagine it's an 18 month project. - Most of the humblebrags are fraud as half of them don't even understand the fine print of what they think is real money but not. - Most of the people who usually ask for change have no intention for it. They want to be seen as leaders, change is hard, negotiated and cried for. - you only live once. Go hard.. No one like people who have too much to talk but nothing to show.