Fred Wilson's Survival Matrix

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2008/10/the-survival-ma.html

by lanceweatherby • 18 years ago

18 12 18 years ago

avc.com

ojbyrne• 18 years ago

Anyone else find it weird that a VC lacks basic Excel skills?

helveticaman• 18 years ago

Not to mention the inability to edit the resulting image if Excel isn't playing ball.

shafqat2• 18 years ago

Was happy to see that NewsCred is in the comfort quadrant!

nostrademons• 18 years ago

I am too...oh wait, I don't have a startup at the moment. Maybe that means I should start another one...

shafqat2• 18 years ago

Just read your post on your last startup - great post and seems like you learned a lot. I would really encourage you to jump in again. You sound like you're made of the right stuff! Good luck with whatever you do.

swombat2• 18 years ago

Captain Obvious, is that you?

That entire article and its charts can be summarised in 10 words:

Hoard cash and decrease burn rate to improve survival chances.

ivankirigin2• 18 years ago

Metrics to slice real data are the basis of informed decisions.

swombat2• 18 years ago

Certainly, but some insights are "duh" insights and not particularly worth sharing with the rest of the world.

"Spending less money and having more money in your bank account improve your chances of survival" should be, from a VC's point of view, roundabout on the same level as "water makes you wet".

wensing2• 18 years ago

Wow. The lowest burn rate means spending more in two months than we've spent on Stormpulse in 2 years.

Either I'm way out of my league and everyone else has amazingly-capitally-expensive ideas, or we're the cockroach on the cockroach's back.

emmett• 18 years ago

Are you working on your startup full time? The cost of a single person working on a startup is at least $30k/year, even if you cut salary to the bone.

wensing2• 18 years ago

We've put about 5 man-years into the project, spread out over 4 years time. That time includes 3 years of full-time effort (myself for 1 year, co-founder for 2).

To be completely thorough, we ended up spending a lot of our personal savings to pay our personal bills, which was not included in the official seed investment. Still, that only amounts to perhaps an extra $25k (so all told, we're in the $70-80k range).

With a family of four I've gone back to working full-time at a corporate employer; my co-founder has not and continues to work on it full-time, as he is single and lives a pretty spartan life.

Fred Wilson's Survival Matrix

Related Stories