The Problem with Startup Culture

Startup culture has a problem. It celebrates fundraising announcements like they are accomplishments. It treats all nighters as badges of honor. It confuses being busy with being productive. And it has convinced a generation of smart people that the only path to success is the venture backed one.

We see it every day. Founders who are more excited about their cap table than their customer list. Teams that celebrate a seed round with a team offsite but do not celebrate their first profitable month. LinkedIn posts about raising ten million dollars but radio silence about actually making money.

Something is broken.

The culture tells founders that spending money is how you grow. Need more customers? Spend more on ads. Need to ship faster? Hire more engineers. Need to look legitimate? Rent a fancy office.

None of this is true.

The fastest growing companies in our portfolio are the ones that spend the least. They grow because they sell well, deliver consistently, and keep their customers happy. They do not need a marketing budget because their customers refer new ones. They do not need a huge team because their processes are so tight that a small team can handle a large workload.

Startup culture also has a dangerous relationship with failure. Fail fast has become an excuse for not thinking things through. There is a difference between learning from a mistake and carelessly burning through someone else is money.

We want to build a different culture. One where profitability is celebrated. Where efficiency is admired. Where founders are respected for building durable businesses, not just for raising money.

This is not glamorous. You will not see our founders on magazine covers or speaking at tech conferences about disruption. You will see them quietly building businesses that will be around twenty years from now.

That is the culture we are building. And we think it is better.