It’s Time To Build a Slow Burn Startup
What are the characteristics of companies which are uniquely suited to tough times?
A tough economy is a great time to build a slow burn company.
- This may be a side hustle…
- An open source project
- Or a slow burn startup 🔥
Slow burn companies may grow slowly, but can amass tremendous value, and sometimes without giving up much external equity.
Some of my faves: @mailchimp, @airtable, @github, @glossier
All of them took years to succeed, have small teams with outsized impact, and eventually dominated the space that they’re in. How do you build a slow burn company? Some characteristics:
- Single, simple use case
- Small (often developer-led) team
- User acquisition is cheap, simple, self-service
- Margins sustain growth
- Strong community-driven support
Typically, a lot of VC value is driven by high growth and velocity: the difference between getting to $1M annual revenue in 1, 2 or 10 years is significant when you’re building with outside capital. (HT @dafrankel)