When it comes to recommendation, tech loves standardization. Startups are sometimes informed that there are specific metrics to hit, deadlines to fulfill, timetables to measure themselves in opposition to.
Examples abound: Right here’s the best sum of money to lift at your Sequence A spherical; right here’s what number of staff you need to have earlier than hiring this government; right here’s what stage to rent authorized counsel; and, most lately, right here’s what proportion of employees you need to lay off if you happen to’re unable to entry extra financing.
(The reply is 20% of employees, relying on who you ask).
There’s a response to a few of these basic statements: Startups are sophisticated, and one measurement definitely doesn’t match all. However nonetheless, these startup requirements assist level firms in the precise route, in some unspecified time in the future turning into the established order.
That’s why when entrepreneur Paul Graham, the co-founder of Y Combinator, instructed that he’s seeing startups with 20 years of runway thanks to very large 2021 fundraises, it struck me. Isn’t the overall recommendation that startups ought to have three years of runway? And if we’re in a extra bullish market, 18 months?
My delayed response to this August tweet apart, let’s discuss runway. As you’ll be able to inform by the headline of this piece, I feel that the best size of runway is a delusion — alongside different startup myths like more cash equals extra development. By the top of this piece, you could agree.