I’ve finally recovered from rehab and I’m now delighted to announce that I no longer want to build a VC-backed tech startup that reaches “unicorn or decacorn” status.
I no longer care whatsoever about building, or trying to build “a billion dollar business”
Oh god that feels good to say. It’s been such a long time.
I’m one of the generation of founders who’s first impressions of company building were from twitter and the internet. I stumbled into startups at 19 when I dropped out of my History and Politics degree at University of Sheffield to start a “social network for live sport” - Matchchat.
The articles that spread about funding rounds and viral apps that launched were my first encounters with the world of business. This inspired my entrepreneurial spark, but it also gave me this one narrow view of business. Instagram was on BBC News at 6 when they sold to Facebook for 1bn - if they could do it why couldn’t I?
My experiences of business building were forged in the UK tech startup community, from Sheffield at the beginning to Newcastle, Manchester and finally London. This ecosystem is truly brilliant and full of wonderful people. It felt like home for me, a community of passionate, evangelical (sometimes crazed), intelligent people who are trying to build something “big”.
I raised investment for my first two businesses and poured time over decks and excel spreadsheets that proved to me and others that I might one day building something HUGE. This was my quest. This was always my creative constraint. Everything I did and worked on must be big. It must have scale.
Truthfully in my last business Sanctus I got caught in between. Somewhere between a great services brand and a tech-enabled marketplace. I was confused. I just wanted to help people with mental health, but what I build needs to involve technology and be really really big too?
I’ve seen this so much over the years. So many businesses ruined by unhealthy expectations. So many founders who were passionate about coffee, they should have probably started a coffee shop but instead they tried to build a coffee-shop marketplace. Oh dear. I was probably one of them.
For a long time, I was caught up in all this noise. This noise that everything I created needed to be validated by a venture capital industry that wants hyper-growth. That everything I ever made needed to achieve hyper-scale. That bigger was always better. That millions and millions and billions were always the numbers that should drive me.
Now, I can finally say I’m done with all that. It’s not me and I’m not sure it ever has been. It’s just the first world of business I found myself in. It shaped me in amazing ways, but it’s not the version of business I love.
For a while, this desire for everything I built to be massive controlled me. It shaped everything i thought about doing. Before I was ever creative at all I’d think about scale, reach and how something could be productised. I’d even see some ventures as pointless altogether if they didn’t hit whatever arbitrary benchmarks existed in my head.
I think the chokehold that high growth startups have on the business building narrative for some is completely ruining other opportunities. I’ve met so many founders over the years that could have built wonderful businesses, but ruined themselves and the opportunity in the search for “venture scale”.
Me writing this matters to absolutely nobody except me. I’m just writing it to tell you that it’s an absolute relief to take this silly pressure off myself. I still care about building brands, creating businesses and bringing meaningful products to the world. I just have absolutely no desire to do that to insane scale with money from venture capital funds. I just want to do it my way, whatever that way may be.
What I have realised I care so much more about than even business itself, is the art of it all. I love the creativity and the opportunity to make a meaningful impression on somebody’s life. I have no interest in the tech platforms with their perverse incentives. I love brands and services that really touch people. This feels more pure to me, there is more soul to it.
I share this because I do think many founders have the venture capital and high growth startup industry living in their head. It’s monopolised success and many founders internalise this to make their own current achievements seem unworthy. You meet founders with a brilliant business doing 1m in revenue a year who thinks they’ve achieved absolutely nothing. In the real world, building a business to 1m a year in revenue is exceptional.
You don’t have to build a tech startup. And you know what, you don’t have to want to either! I’ve decided I don’t want to and it’s very unlikely that I ever will build anything of the type.
Kudos to those who do. You are freaks of nature who deserve all the success you strive for.
For me, now I can focus on simply being my most happily ambitious creative self. Building something to £1m a year in revenue with no investment would be exceptional now wouldn’t it?! Building something simply beautiful and worthwhile with no attachment to the revenue it brings in would be beautiful too wouldn’t it?
Yours sincerely - James a recovering wannabe tech entrepreneur.
I’m pleased to have finally completed my course of rehab.
Adios tech startup land.
Cheers,
James x
