This is a topic most entrepreneurs need to think about when they start out building a new business. Not all businesses need a lot of capital, not all businesses have a long gestation period or a long sales cycle and not all businesses even interest VCs at all times. A post by Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder of Naukri.com, in an article he authored for the Mint reflects my thoughts completely. In my words, the benefits of not raising or raising venture investment later into a venture’s lifecycle are that the basic DNA required for making the business survive gets instilled in the founders and the employees. This basic DNA is – the ability to sell and make revenues, the ability to save and be thrifty and the ability to think hard and creatively to work around problems.
We also had Ganesh Rengaswamy of Indavest Ventures talk on this topic at the Special Startup Saturday in Bangalore last weekend. Ganesh himself has been on both sides of a venture; while he has been wearing an investor’s hat since his stint at Greylock, he also co-founded TravelGuru. Indavest, the firm he advises now, is a seed stage investor and can provide hands on support to businesses they invest in.