The Startup Velocity Question: What Hinders Acceleration in VC Funded Companies?

I have been running 1Mby1M since 2010. I find myself saying to entrepreneurs ad nauseam that VCs want to invest in startups that can go from zero to $100 million in revenue in 5 to 7 years.

Startups that do not have what it takes to achieve velocity should not be venture funded.

Experienced VCs, over time, have developed heuristics to gauge what constitutes a high growth venture investment thesis. 

1Mby1M Udemy Courses with Sramana Mitra: Bootstrapping

Over the course of two years, we have released over 70 courses on Udemy with the aim to democratize entrepreneurship education at scale globally. This series of posts aims to help you find the one you need easily and provide you with discount coupons.

Female Entrepreneur Scaling a PropTech Venture with Over $40M in Funding: PunchListUSA CEO Min Alexander (Part 1)

Min tells a wonderful story of building a scaling a PropTech company with significant funding at a $100M+ valuation.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Featured Videos

Building a High-Growth Startup From Brazil: Revelo CEO Lachlan de Crespigny (Part 1)

Lachlan has built a wonderful company from Brazil that has emerged as a pandemic beneficiary.
Read on for the nuances of his journey.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised and in what kind of background?

Twin Brothers Building a FinTech Venture: Stephen Roche and Gabino Roche, CoFounders of Saphyre (Part 1)

Gabino and Stephen have built a wonderful FinTech company and tell their story with wonderful flair and candor.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to the very beginning of your journey. Where were you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? You are twin brothers. I think this is my first case study of a twin-brother entrepreneur.

Bootstrapping a FinTech Startup by Piggybacking with Services: Quavo Co-Founder David Chmielewski (Part 1)

Dave transitioned from a developer to an entrepreneur by leveraging his solid domain knowledge in a particular area of FinTech: dispute resolution for credit card transactions. He and his co-founders effectively used bootstrapping using services and piggybacked on the Pega Systems platform. Read on to learn more about his journey.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

A Journey into Personalized Luxury Fashion: Editorialist YX CEO Rafael Ortiz (Part 1)

As you know, I have a passion for personalized luxury fashion and ventured into that market early on in 1999 when the market wasn’t quite ready for it yet. Rafael is building a wonderful luxury fashion venture with unique personalization details.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Building a Global Hardcore Financial Technology Company from Brazil: Ricardo Josua, CEO of Pismo (Part 1)

We don’t hear of hardcore B-to-B technology ventures coming out of Latin America very often.
Ricardo is building one that caters to banks and financial institutions, has raised over $100M in financing, has over $25M in revenue, and has major Latin American banks as customers.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

From Developer to Serial Entrepreneur: Michael Morris, CEO of Torc (Part 1)

Michael has not only transitioned successfully from a developer to an entrepreneur, but he has also built communities of developers and 2-sided marketplaces around them over and again. Torc is his third run at this overall mission of enabling and empowering developers to have great careers.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Building a Capital Efficient Healthcare AI Venture to $20M: Deepak Gaddipati, Founder and CTO of VirtuSense (Part 1)

Deepak has built a capital-efficient fall-detection company from Peoria, Illinois with a backend engineering team in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

It’s an impressive entrepreneurial journey with a mission-driven company that is making real impact in the lives of seniors with fall risk.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Building a European EdTech Unicorn from Vienna, Austria: Felix Ohswald, CEO of GoStudent (Part 1)

This is a terrific story of a European EdTech venture that has raised $600 million and is scaling extremely well after three years of not finding a monetization model.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

From Developer to Solo Entrepreneur to $5M+ Revenue: Sporcle Founder and CTO Matt Ramme (Part 1)

Developers interested in bootstrapping ad-supported B-to-C startups would find this discussion valuable.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, and raised, and in what kind of background?

Matt Ramme: I grew up in western New York. I went to college at Carnegie Mellon and studied computer science. When I started, it was computer science and math. I wasn’t as much into math, so I was able to get a minor in German which I enjoyed.