Once a startup finds something that works, should it aggressively increase spend and burn to capture the market faster?

Harry Stebbings · Nov 28, 2022

Momentum is transient — it comes and goes — so when you have it you must double down and ride it

You see momentum move in and out, especially across press cycles; having it is the moment to turn up the speed

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Ilir Sela · Aug 4, 2023

With hindsight, the under-spending he most regrets was on go-to-market and product, because the slow salesperson ramp and having a single engineer for five years badly delayed reaching real scale

Sales headcount could only grow out of profits, so scale took five years, and one person doing all product and engineering capped what could be built

Scope: specific to Slice's pre-funding period

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Daniel Khachab · Oct 28, 2024

Once you have something that works you should go all in — he wishes Choco had doubled spend and tripled burn in its first twenty-four months

Something actually working is very rare, and more spend would have won a land grab on distributors and, more importantly, built a much larger brand in the industry

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Frank Rotman · Aug 11, 2023

Capital should only be added when a business is generating proof; when it is generating anti-proof, more capital is usually the wrong answer

Momentum is real and compounds when things are going right, so capital can be an accelerant then; but if the doubling was harder or more expensive than projected, that is anti-proof of the business

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Aman Narang · Aug 21, 2024

Recognizing when you cannot yet put the pedal down — and stopping selling — is critical, even when you are trying to raise capital and grow

Toast had multiple starts and stops because the product didn't work well enough; a restaurant owner told him it's great to have the Tesla but not when it's always in the shop

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Daniel Khachab · Oct 28, 2024

You should only triple burn once the complete package works — product-market fit plus a go-to-market with good economics — and then move as fast as possible

That is the point at which you attract copycats, so speed matters; and spending must stay within the constraints of good economics and capital efficiency

Scope: rejects the framing as either/or between raising to compete and ignoring the frenzy; must also account for the competitive situation

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