How Real Unicorn Startups Are Actually Built

There are two completely different ways to build a Unicorn: Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later (the 1Mby1M way), or Speculatively Blitzscale. Your probability of success with the first method is much higher.

Let’s look at an example.

Quibi raised $1.75 billion in funding from major investors, including Hollywood studios, tech companies, and prominent individuals. 

It launched with fanfare in April 2020.

Founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg and led by former eBay and HP CEO Meg Whitman, the company shut down six months later.

Quibi’s subscription model, with a monthly fee for content that could be found for free on YouTube or TikTok, struggled to attract a large user base.

Unvalidated idea, speculative funding, attempted blitzscaling out of the gate. And then, crash and burn. Happens a lot, unfortunately with these high profile, highly ego and speculation-driven deals.

Let’s look at a different example.

Greg Gianforte, CEO of RightNow, can also teach you a thing or two about the topic of building a Unicorn.

Gianforte is a huge proponent of bootstrapping and a master at cold-calling to find customers even before writing a line of code. RightNow had a $6 million-a-year business when they first raised venture funding at a $130 million valuation.

RightNow was fully validated for scalability. Greg was an experienced serial entrepreneur. RightNow went public and was later bought by Oracle for $1.3 billion.

Quibi was NOT validated. RightNow was.

If you choose to seek my advice, please join 1Mby1M Premium.

You can get started with Sramana’s Digital Mind AI Mentor right now. 

So how do you want to build YOUR Unicorn? Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later (the 1Mby1M way), or Speculatively Blitzscale?

Explore Topics Related to Unicorn Startups

• Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later
• Pre-Idea, Pre-MVP, Pre-Product, Pre-Revenue, Pre-Repeatability, Pre-Velocity Are All Okay for 1Mby1M
• Is 1Mby1M an Incubator or an Accelerator?
• 1Mby1M Can Prepare You for YC and Techstars
• Go Big or Go Home Is Terrible Advice for Startups
• The Myth of the Billion-Dollar Unicorn and the Reality of the 96%
• Startup Velocity: What Prevents Acceleration in VC-Backed Startups
• VC-Funded Profitable Failures – When $50M Revenue Isn’t Enough
• Death by Overfunding
• The Human Cost of Premature Blitzscaling
• Y Combinator’s Bias Against Solo Founders — and How 1Mby1M Empowers Them with the AI Mentor
• Alternative to Y Combinator: Why 1Mby1M Is the Smartest Option for Most Founders

One Million by One Million (1Mby1M) is the first global virtual accelerator in the world, founded in 2010 by Silicon Valley serial Entrepreneur Sramana Mitra. It offers a fully online entrepreneurship incubation, acceleration and education resource for solo entrepreneurs and bootstrapped founders working on tech and tech-enabled services ventures. 1Mby1M does not charge equity, offers an AI Mentor available 24/7 in 57 languages, and offers a compelling alternative to Y Combinator and other equity accelerators.

The Accelerator Conundrum is a multipart series that challenges the prevailing wisdom of the tech startup ecosystem that entrepreneurs should Blitzscale out of the gate. Written by Sramana Mitra, it emphatically argues that a better strategy is to Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later, focus on customers, revenues and profits. 1Mby1M’s mission is to help a Million entrepreneurs reach a million dollars in annual revenue and beyond.

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