Scrappy First, Comfortable Financial Balance Later

Earlier this week I was talking to an entrepreneur that shared stories of a previous startup he’d joined a few years back. The now-removed leader of this previous company had a big-shot corporate executive background and was placed in this over-funded startup before it had product/market fit. As expected, their office was lavishly furnished, money was spent like they were already a profitable cash cow, and six months later the startup was bankrupt.

Boom, millions of dollars incinerated and nothing to show for it.

Starting lean and scrappy is an important part of the startup process.

When entrepreneurs raise a large round before a repeatable, scalable business model, most of the time bad things happen. Entrepreneurs are an optimistic bunch, so it’s only human nature to burn all the cash in 18 months, regardless of whether or not the business is working. When the cash is burned, and the business doesn’t make enough progress, investors are less likely to put in more cash, the cap table is often broken, and the startup usually ends in failure.

At Pardot, we never had institutional investors. From day one, we had to be scrappy — there was no other way. Every dollar we saved was a dollar to invest and grow the business. Even when we had over $10M in recurring revenue, Adam and I shared a hotel room on every trip. Little costs add up to big costs as the business scales.

Now, once the business model is working, there does come a time to ease up on the scrappiness — within reason, of course — and find a comfortable financial balance between spending too conservatively and being a spendthrift. But, like many things, as the financial purse strings are loosened, it becomes harder and harder to tighten them back.

Entrepreneurs would do well to ensure a scrappy, financially resourceful environment until a repeatable business model, and then slowly find a comfortable balance.