Full tank or before refueling?

Imagine that you are sitting at the controls of an airplane and you have to fly it through a huge lifeless space – the valley of death. There is no water, no food, and no life in this valley. Therefore, it is very important to fly to its other edge and land on fertile, fragrant land. All the people around you have long since taken off or are about to fly over the valley, and you want to follow them. You understand that if you stay on this side, your life will be boring and incomplete. You know that you need full fuel tanks to fly across the valley. But suddenly, before the flight, you discover that you only have half, or worse, less than half of the tank. What to do? Look on this side for all the opportunities to buy fuel and fill tanks. Or take the risk and fly with an empty tank in the hope of finding a lonely oasis in the valley with a gas station that will allow you to refuel and cross the valley?

The story about the Valley of Death is a story about startups. Almost every startup faces a valley of death at the beginning of its journey. The valley of death is the distance from the launch of a startup to its self-sufficiency. And now almost every startup faces a dilemma: should they launch their product without full funding, in the hope of later finding an investor? Or should we still look for investors who will finance the launch of the product in full, as provided for in the business plan?

So what’s my advice? I believe that the Valley of Death should be divided into small pieces and fly from island to island with a small supply of fuel. In this case, the probability of dying in the valley on one of these islands will be much higher, but the probability of losing a “full tank” of investments will be much less. What do I mean? I like it when a startup draws up a step-by-step plan for its development and comes to the investor with the plan already broken down into time and money pieces and talkНачало формы