This week, I watched a friend pitch for investment on Dragons Den (the original British version of Shark Tank).
Their company offers online accessibility tools to help disabled users use the internet in a way that works for them.
Their pitch was high quality, coherent and well-executed.
Their business model didn’t work for the dragons.
Peter Jones, Dragon – suggested they offer their service for free, build an affiliate model, and charge companies per transaction. I liked this idea.
But, as they say on the show, they left with nothing.
We talked a few week’s ago about how rapid growth can often create structural technology challenges
You can read that article here.
The same applies to the cost of supporting these transactions for a SaaS business.
The Growth paradox.
Imagine my friend’s company could grow their user volumes by, 20000% overnight, but with no revenue for 12 months, that without capital wouldn’t be possible.
On the other end of the scale, the demise of Fast, the one-click checkout.
As recently as last week, Fast was inking deals such as one with big companies to implement one-click checkout for its customers (TechCrunch, 2022).
They had forecast growth upon growth but failed to deliver, leaving them with little to no fund-raising options. As a result, they decided to call it a day.
When you talk about growth with your portco tech leaders. How do you perceive its impact?
What concerns do they have, and what plans are they making?
- Do they look at the impact of changing business models at different scales of their growth journey?
- Do they look at ways to reduce the scaling cost impacts using technology?
- Do they have a well-defined strategic plan for this?
Keep leading; it matters.
Thomas
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