A Small, Excellent Company: Not Every Startup Must Become a Unicorn

Looks like I may soon be removed from FITI’s mentor database. I just told a team to return to its original question: why start a business? Not every venture must keep growing, raising funds, and listing on an exchange or the OTC market. For the FITI competition, of course you need a grand dream. But is that really the life you want? You could instead build a small, excellent, lean software company with annual revenue of 50–60 million, twenty-some employees, and annual profit of 15–20 million. Solve target customers’ problems, grow modestly with them, provide good employee benefits, and pay several million in annual dividends to shareholders—yourself, friends, family, and employees. You need not endlessly pursue growth, acquisitions, overseas expansion, and listings, accept others controlling and interfering with operations after fundraising, or face scrutiny from many small shareholders after listing. Much of life is about choices: what life do you want, and what company do you want to build? Not everyone must create a unicorn or super-unicorn. More people can build practical businesses, solve problems, create value, maintain scale, and take responsibility for every stakeholder without losing themselves in an enormous dream.